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How to keep the "date modified" from changing when transferring files to dropbox?

My computer is full so I have been manually "option" copying my files to my dropbox. I just went into one of my client folders and noticed that each and every file now have a revised "date modified" changed to the date I put the files on dropbox! This is a minor disaster - I didn't realize how much I relied on those dates.

How do I keep the "date modified" from changing when I transfer files over to dropbox? Because the whole "date modified" thing becomes pointless/useless despite being really valuable/helpful.

Ugh!

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drumby

I would make this a federal offence, it's a vital part of my filing system that Dropbox has changed without warning. This could have very serious consequences on large projects if something gets missed due to my now not being able to sort files in date order. Utter disaster, I wouldn't settle for less than 20,000. These large tech companies think they can just change stuff without permission or warning. I would leave Dropbox but previously tried OneDrive and it was even worse!!

Jane

Hey @drumby,

Thanks for reaching out on the Dropbox Community!

I reproduced the behavior on my end on various sorting options on Windows, Mac and the Dropbox website and I'm afraid I couldn't find a workaround to help you out with this. This happens because uploading on the cloud is different than the modification date on the computer, hence there are two different values, namely the first being OS-dependent and the second one application-dependent, where it is expected to see some discrepancy.

I understand that this may be useful to you or other Business users, though, so I 'll make sure that your comments are passed along to the team for further consideration.

If you have other Dropbox questions, just let me know here!

Thanks,

JaneA

dbeato

@Jennifer B.11 wrote:
My computer is full so I have been manually "option" copying my files to my dropbox. I just went into one of my client folders and noticed that each and every file now have a revised "date modified" changed to the date I put the files on dropbox! This is a minor disaster - I didn't realize how much I relied on those dates.

How do I keep the "date modified" from changing when I transfer files over to dropbox? Because the whole "date modified" thing becomes pointless/useless despite being really valuable/helpful.

Ugh!

There is no way right now that Dropbox can change this option for you, the way that Dropbox works when uploading the files makes it to be modified on the folder where you are uploading the folder. The creation date I believe is what changes, Modified date has always been kept at least in the Windows Dropbox.

tinyapps

If you can access both Dropbox directories via file sharing/UNC paths, drive enclosure, USB file transfer cable, etc, then you can clone just the file and folder "Date modified" values from one Dropbox directory (e.g., "Dropbox1") to another (e.g., "Dropbox2") via:

robocopy "\path\to\Dropbox1" "\path\to\Dropbox2" /XD ".dropbox.cache" /XF ".dropbox" /E /DCOPY:T /COPY:T

Backup, test, and understand before proceeding. See Clone "Date modified" values without recopying files for more information.

51m0n

To help mitigate this problem on the Mac you can set Finder to display the date created either instead of, or as well as, the date modified. To do this, within Finder go to View>Show View Options.

rwinter

Ten years later and this problem still exists.

Philip L.

This is really a quite serious flaw. The whole point of Dropbox is to keep your assets safe remotely, but they are not safe modification of an important metadata parameter by Dropbox itself. Changing the date stamp on every file makes it impossible to tell which is the most recent version, and easy to use the wrong version. Shame on Dropbox for not fixing this serious flaw.