Child Item

What's the best way to upload my photos and keep existing file dates?

Device

2023 MacBook Air Laptop
Operating System/Browser (if using the web)

Mac OSTahoe 26.0

Questions

I want to consolidate all of my digital photos from various hard drives onto Dropbox. Due to the amount of photos (25 years), they need to upload straight to online Dropbox because my laptop doesn't have the memory to store them all. I want to make sure I don't alter any of the creation dates as I organize them chronologically. Once uploaded, I would like to edit the library online including the process of deleting many. Finally, I would like to copy the final project back onto my laptop and other hard disk storage areas.

What is the best way to move forward with uploading the photos to achieve my goal?

Note: Many of the photos are duplicates but of different sizes- including thumbnails. I am hoping that Dropbox will keep duplicates unless they are identical in size- then I only need 1. How will Dropbox handle uploading duplicate images of different sizes, proportions, edits?

Any additional thoughts/comments most welcome!

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Accepted answers

Mark

Hi @Tracy T.9

Dropbox when you upload, if via the website, will do it all and not look for/check or identify any duplicates. You can then use the web interface to identify duplicates BUT I'm not sure if it would detect duplicates that are different - for example a thumbnail vs. original size.

Also note that uploading via website is challenging and not designed for massive uploads - a single file failure can be really hard to find and upload and cause issues with not knowing what has and has not been uploaded.

While I know not ideal I'd suggest doing your editing work etc. on a computer first in small batches and then uploading via the desktop client and then making them available online only. . The Dropbox website is just not designed to do what you are looking for I'm afraid.

All comments

Mark

Hi @Tracy T.9

Jay

Hi @Tracy T.9, thanks for contacting us!

In addition to what @Mark was saying, uploading via the Dropbox site would also overwrite the creation date of the photos, since the time of upload would equal the creation date of said files.

The only way to retain the original creation date of the files would be to move or copy files into the Dropbox folder. Bear in mind that you might need to use a special app to copy the files across with the original dates, as your OS might just change the creation date of the file to the current date. This usually happens when copying from one drive (internal or otherwise) to another.

The Dropbox desktop application would then sync those files, with the correct dates to the site. Since you have a lot of files, you could do this gradually over time, by copying files to your Dropbox folder, wait for them to sync, and then mark those files as online-only to free up space on your laptop, and then repeat the process.

Regarding duplicates, do you have two files with the exact same name (including file type) in the same folder? If so, that would be considered a duplicate, and the more recent upload of that file would overwrite the older files.

However, from what you described, I don't believe that you have real duplicates, since thumbnails are usually renamed slightly, or in a different folder to the original.

If you need any further assistance, please let me know!

Tracy T.9

Thank you! This has been super helpful. I’ll definitely change my plan. I appreciate your help!