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Loss of reliable “Date Modified” behavior is destroying file discovery and productivity
I need to raise a serious productivity issue that has fundamentally broken how I work in Dropbox. For years, my workflow depended on being able to sort and find files reliably by Date Modified. This is not a “nice to have” feature, it is essential for meeting deadlines. I work across many active projects and frequently need to locate the most recently edited file quickly. Since Dropbox began forcing background indexing / “modifying” files, the Date Modified field has effectively become meaningless. Files that I have not touched are suddenly marked as modified, while files I actually worked on recently are buried or out of order. What used to take seconds now takes hours. This has had very real consequences: I can no longer trust sorting by Date Modified I waste huge amounts of time opening files just to verify which version is current My ability to meet deadlines has been severely impacted My productivity has dropped dramatically To be clear: This is not user error, not a learning curve issue, and not a preference change. This is a regression in core file-management behavior. If Dropbox needs to index files internally, that process should not overwrite or redefine the user-visible “Date Modified” metadata. That breaks established OS-level workflows and makes Dropbox actively hostile to professional use. At minimum, Dropbox needs to provide one of the following: A way to preserve true file modification dates A separate, clearly labeled field for “Last Indexed” or “Dropbox Activity” Or an option to disable indexing behaviors that rewrite modified timestamps Right now, Dropbox is making it harder, not easier, to find my own work. I am genuinely questioning whether I can continue using it for professional projects if this behavior remains. I would really appreciate a response from Dropbox staff acknowledging this issue and explaining whether a fix or workaround is planned.