Dropbox photos not staying 100% in chronological order

[li123]

Hi! Basically, it's exactly what the title says. It's got nothing to do with the date I uploaded the pictures, but the file names themselves. For example, I've been scanning, cataloguing and organising my mum's old wedding photos (actual photos on paper from 30 years ago) and before I uploaded them, when I saved the scanned files, I gave them chronological order names with the event,  date (year-month-day) and then appendix numbers. E.g Mum's wedding 1991-05-26 0001, 0002, etc. But they won't stay in chronological order in the Dropbox folder they're in. I have them in chronological order up to #40. Then it jumps to #100-160 (in chronological order) then goes back to 41, 42 etc (again in chronological order). 

My normal digital pics are even worse for this. For example, when I search DSC 025 I get DSC 0250, then DSC 0255, then 0256, then 0252, then 0257, then 0254, then 0251, 0253 and 0259. I just want them in the right order and stay like that. This might be a simple case of setting it to organise by name but I'm unable to do that; I can see group by relevance and last modified when I search and when I got to the specific folder where my mum's wedding pics are it's set to organise by name but I still get that situation of half chronological and half not (those are TIFF files compared to my digital pics being in JPG but not sure that matters)

[Daphne]

Hey @li123, I hope you're having a good day!

Just to make sure we're on the same page, can you let me know where you're checking your files from? Eg. the mobile app, desktop app or website.

You should be able to click the "Name" column header to make sure that you're sorting by naming order, does this make any difference?

Let me know and we'll go from there!

[li123]

@Daphne I'm on the website; haven't tried it with a mobile app yet but I presume it would be the same. If I'm searching by filename for my photos, it will only let me group by relevance and last modified but if I go to the folder where those photos are stored it seems to be fine. So it's only on the one specific folder where this is causing me an issue; half in chronological order, then skips maybe 20 photos (all in chronological order) then back in chronological order. I think the photos below explain what I mean better. That's with the folder set to filter by name. If I filter by type (image) or extension (TIFF) they go out of order (which is obviously expected). I find it odd as it's seemingly just the one folder.

[Daphne · Accepted solution]

Thanks for those screenshots, it's very helpful indeed @li123.

From what I could see in the folder you're having this issue with, it seems this is because the images 101 - 160 have the same date (1991-05-26) as the images up to number 40.

The images 41 and after have a different date which is the reason why they come afterwards (1991-06-26).

Was this maybe a typo and the dates are supposed to be the same?

[BernadetteMadden]

I am new to Dropbox and have a similar problem. I use a MacBook Pro 2020, macOS Big Sur. I have over 26,000 photographs in Dropbox and want to put them in chronological order, from oldest to most recent, by date taken. By date taken I mean the date the photos were ACTUALLY TAKEN, not when they were modified. I've tried when using the App and also accessing via the website,with no success. How, exactly, do I do this?

[Walter]

Hey there @BernadetteMadden - thanks for joining the discussion here and welcome to our Community.

At the moment, you can sort files via two options on our website: 'Order' and 'Show’, by clicking on the column header. 

'Order’ will determine if what is shown is displayed ascending or descending while ‘Show’ will display any of the following in the website’s file browser: name, type, extension, size, modified date, or members.

Depending on your computer's operating system, there may be additional sorting options on the Dropbox desktop application, such as tags, date created, date added, etc.

I hope this helps to some extent!

[BernadetteMadden]

Thank you for you reply. However , it does not address the problem that the date used for sorting is the date modified. NOT the date the photograph was taken.I take most of my photographs in a planned time sequence, so it is important that they remain in that sequence. As I said in my email. I use a MacBook Pro 2020, macOS Big Sur and Preview. Do you have any advice re this combination please?

[Jay]

Hi @BernadetteMadden, this would depend on how the Mac OS shows files in Finder, and wouldn't be related to Dropbox itself.

Have you tried selecting the columns and choosing the Date created column and sorting via that method?

[BernadetteMadden]

Thank you, but I've already tried all those options. I have wasted an awful lot of time searching the net and have not found the answer to my problem. So, let me ask you a simple question : Is it ever  possible to take a number of photographs, which are on a Mac in the correct order of the date each photograph was taken, and store them in Dropbox in exactly the same order? A simple yes or no will do.

[Jay]

It would be possible if you numbered the images at the beginning of each filename, such as 00001, 00002, etc (since you have over 26k images) in the order you want them, and then sort the files in alphabetical order on the Dropbox site.