Saving files from iPhone browser changes name to "File date" format

[ppucci]

Hi, I have been experiencing this for a while. Whenever I export folks from Safari or Chrome on iOS 12.0.1 (Dropbox 118.2.2) the for gets its name changed to something like "File 2018 10 31 2359" (date and time) instead of original file name and type. I've seen this referenced for older versions, but not on current. How do I stop this behavior?

[Jay]

Hi there, could you clarify if by ‘exporting’ you mean downloading the files from Safari or Chrome?

As the iPhone doesn’t have a native file system to save files directly, unlike Android, you need to save it to an alternative location. Were you saving it directly to the Dropbox app, or another third party app?

Please could you describe the exact steps you were taking, so we can assist further!

[ppucci]

Hi Jay!

On Safari on the iPhone, for example, I click on a .torrent file to save it to my dropbox (my torrent client on my PC monitors this folder and downloads whatever I save there). So I click on the torrent link and it gives me a "Open in..." prompt. I click on "More" and there's a "Save to Dropbox" option.

Clicking this option asks me for the location and the name of the file, but the name used to be inherited from the original filename. Now it uses a "File day-month-year hour minte second" format, as per the attached screenshots.

[Jay]

Thanks for the explanation, when you open the file (and rename it to .torrent) does it verify as an actual torrent file?

It’s possible that this is new behavior in Safari, since when you tap ‘Save to Dropbox’, it could be saving as an unknown filetype, hence the date and time stamps. 

Could you try and open that same link in Chrome, or another browser, and see if the same issue occurs?

[ppucci]

Appending .torrent to the filename works, and the file is processed normally. This behavior changed a few months ago (from inheriting the filename normally), but I only posted now about it. The behavior is the same using Chrome.

This same behavior has been seen before according to this post, with the difference that the extension is not maintained

https://www.dropboxforum.com/t5/Mobile/iOS-11-PDF-Export-to-Dropbox-changing-names/td-p/243461

[DavidZ · Accepted solution]

It looks like something changed in iOS 12, as this works on iOS 11.4. You can work around this by choosing "Copy to Dropbox" (in the first row of the share sheet -- scroll to the right of Add to Notes, etc), which preserves the file name.

[ppucci]

Hi David,

Yes, "Copy do Dropbox" works and preserves the filename. I'll stick to it for now, but that's something that should be fixed again. Thank you.

[DavidZ]

I've filed a bug to track this internally. Thanks for the report!