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Refuses to preserve correct creation date
I have tried to upload files without losing the original creation date on this main account(which I have a 2TB subscription on), and on a new non-subscription account that I created on a device I’ve never used this account on (to see if it was only this account). Neither will preserve the original creation dates.
I have my main account on my iPhone and a Kindle Fire tablet. The other account is on a cheap android phone I use mostly for a couple of games. I recently downloaded the Dropbox app for iPhone. I’ve had the app on my Kindle Fire for years. On my iPhone I used to just use in-app Dropbox integrations to upload from my phone.
The last time I used it on my Kindle Fire (which I mainly only use in ‘Show Mode’ on its dock now) it WAS preserving the original creation dates of the files I uploaded. I know because I put those that had all traces of a creation date scrubbed in a folder named in reference to there being no date. I also put those that somehow got dated back in the 1960s & 1970s in a folder named to reflect that, & I put those with the actual creation dates still on them in the parent folders(that also contained the above referenced folders as well as folders named to reflect some video files that I purposely managed to change the date for on my Kindle before I uploaded them to Dropbox).
There are also some files that I uploaded from my iPhone 2-3 years ago through various in-app Dropbox integrations that also managed to preserve the correct file creation dates. I know because they’re mainly files I found on some of my old email accounts and saved to one of the apps I eventually used to back them up to my Dropbox account with.
My major problem is that I can’t remove the VAST majority(probably 95-99%) of the pics from my iPhone after backing up, syncing, or even syncing a few at a time because that vast majority happen to be screenshots that are heavily dependent upon having their original creation dates intact AND being backed up in the order in which they were taken.
I have to keep many organized by a date that’s visibly correct in case I need them to prove the date and time of certain purchases from services that require screenshots to prove everything I may ever have to have them as proof of. And yes there are services that require this very specifically so I have tons of screenshots for just about everything I could eventually need to have for proof of anything I ever did/earned/etc.
I also have about a years worth of backlogged screenshots for 3 teams I run on a game where I have to screenshot massive amounts of teammate data & tournament data every weekend. There’s actually 3-4 years backlogged for 2 of those teams. If I lose a single creation date or the pics upload out of order, both of which keep happening, it will make it impossible to piece the broken pieces of my Gallery’s timeline back together.
The out of order part is not a tiny glitch either but an EXTREME problem as it is uploading many pics/videos way ahead of others (instead of going in order from newest to oldest OR vice versa… either direction would keep the correct order but there’s not even an option for how the user would prefer to upload their files within an app… the main Gallery app in this case). And I’m talking about a gallery with more than 4 years worth of important media I need to back up, while maintaining easy access via the cloud, that keeps getting uploaded like scrambled eggs. Even when I try to upload just 3-10 pics at a time, instead of syncing the entire thing conveniently, they keep getting uploaded out of order. Even when I tried backing up one of my gallery folders a few at a time and it oddly was showing the “presumed” correct creation dates, it still kept naming at LEAST one of each small batch I was uploading using the current date and time. And even the ones that appeared to be named after their correct creation dates were not all exactly in order. So that means that when sorted by date (or file name), if they were not in the order they were in the original gallery, then they can’t have the actual correct file creation dates as a filename if they can’t be sorted in order (that’s not even counting every few pics that it keeps randomly naming using the current date).
18 Replies
- Nancy
Dropbox Community Moderator
Hi AgentOrange, and thanks for posting on our forum.
I’ve passed this along as feedback to our team, so that they can also see your comments about this and take them into consideration.
If there’s something else I can help you with, please let me know.
- @Nancy Thanks for passing it along.
Yes I do have some other things. I can’t view file info/details on any files, except for photos (& I have to have them open to see the small amount of info it will even show). And even then many of them that do have a creation date (because under the photo section they are listed under months and days… no time of day however) don’t show any trace of it in the info. Many pics, even though they are ordered by a “modified” date, don’t show any date at all in the info. All non-photo files have no way I can find to view the metadata info at all.
This is on the iPhone app. The app I have for my Kindle Fire is a version from years ago and it works fine as far as the last time I used it on there. I haven’t had to back up anything else on there in awhile.
Also is there a way to search by the following file types without having to type in a file name? I need to pull up all files of certain types because many are filed in various mass backup batches under folders named for when or where I backed them up. They contain a bunch of different files that are unrelated to each other. Audio, Video, Image, Document, etc… and possibly various file types within those types. I need to be able to find all my audio files, and my video files, and also my Documents, Zipped, etc files without typing in a name (which I don’t always know and just filters out the rest of them from being displayed). Yesterday I tried to single out all my audio files to find my song ideas and other audio files and hopefully try to re-sort them into folders where I can more easily locate what I’m looking for at any point in time, but it kept asking for text with which to search. I tried using “*” and it said it had to be at least 2 characters so I tried “**” but it didn’t bring anything up. Usually an “*” is used to search for any title under a category but it wouldn’t work on here. - Megan
Hi AgentOrange, in regards to the first mention, about the info, and the details of your files, can I ask for some screenshots, please?
As for your search question, we do offer a feature called full-text search, which allows you to search files by name, extension (file type) or keyword within the file.
If you're on a paid account, you should have access to it and you can read more about it here.
- Megan
I took some screenshots but I have no option here to attach them.
As for the text search thing, I don’t know what text to search for… I need to be able to sort all Audio files (as well as Video files, Document files, Zipped files, etc) to find where I have my song ideas (and other files) stored. Many times I’ve saved them to a file app or to my iCloud folder and then moved full folders of miscellaneous files in one go to Dropbox.
I have too many folders and subfolders to be able to sift through to be able to find them.
Many of them are not always named something I immediately recognize because they came from my old phones where I emailed them to myself and later found them in various email accounts and moved them to various places since they don’t save to the main Gallery.
Most have various extensions that I don’t necessarily even recognize as being an audio file. I recently found a few with the extension caf and only realized they were audio files when I tried to open one in Dropbox. I think I originally thought they were some type of document or system file because they wouldn’t open on my current phone. But I usually back all those weird files up anyway whether they appear to work or not because there’s always a chance that they may open somewhere eventually. So I can’t search by SPECIFIC extension names because I don’t even know what extension names they are under. They’re under a wide variety of extensions. I just need to sort by the General types of Audio, Video, Document, Zipped type files (apparently some aren’t saved as .zip but a variety of zipping extensions), etc. - Megan
Hi AgentOrange, when you try to respond back to me, you should be able to have a camera-like icon.
If you click on it, you should be prompted to attach your screenshots here. Keep in mind that you might need to use your computer for this.
As for the file search, I definitely see where you're coming from, and with that much workload and different extensions/ file names, it's a tough process.
- Megan
I still don’t see a camera option. I currently don’t own a computer btw, unless you count the last 2 I got in ‘08 & 2011/2012… but I don’t connect to the internet/Bluetooth/etc anymore on them for obvious privacy issues(they likely can’t handle modern privacy software) and I use them to try to locate old info I may need to access old accounts should I need to (and I have had to before) without the contents risk being compromised/hacked.
I could try later on a cheap android tablet I use just for games but I don’t know if it’ll make a difference as it’s not a computer either. Is there some other way to temporarily post them somewhere that isn’t social media long enough for you to see them?
Btw why do pics & vids show up under the gallery section under months/years that are different from what they show up as(the few that actually do) elsewhere in their respective folders on Dropbox? - Walter
Hey AgentOrange, I'm sorry to jump in here, but would it be OK if we reached out via email to have a further look internally at this point?
- Megan
Walter
Yes that would be fine.
BTW, I tried using a metadata app to manually input the correct dates and that still didn’t work. I also noticed that when I share from my iPhone gallery TO Dropbox it has a switch that allows you to include all metadata… this did NOT work for Dropbox.
It didn’t even show as the correct date in the Photos tab where you can scroll through all pics & vids and see the dates (but you can’t figure out where those files are located because there’s no See File Info/Data/etc option anywhere… except when you open a photo and there’s an “i” icon at bottom left that never shows the correct date if any at all, even when I try adding it right there on that info screen when it sometimes gives me an option to do so). Many of my older uploads show the correct date in there. Unless they are not photo or video files. Those don’t have a section where you can see the correct dates(for the files that Dropbox originally saved those dates somewhere that I can’t access in the file anymore. No uploads show the correct date when I look at the list of them in their respective folders. They only say “uploaded [amount of time] ago”.
This is extremely frustrating because I had no problem at all on the older Dropbox app version for my Kindle Fire that I downloaded shortly before I subscribed to the 2TB option.
I also noticed that when I shared FROM the gallery, Dropbox used a string of seemingly random numbers as titles. When I upload from WITHIN Dropbox it (most of the time) shows the date that it was saved to my gallery as the title… except for when it every few files decides to show the current date instead.
This is only with photos and videos though. I have ZERO way of locating the data on any other file type. - Also it’s NOT the subscription that started the problem. I don’t know if it’s the apps for iPhone and Android vs Kindle Fire OR if it’s just that this option has been downgraded as the app updated over time. I’m not going to try upgrading my app on the kindle fire to see because it may be ALL I have as an option. It’s just a lot of trouble to have to log onto it now anytime I need to check file data
- Megan
