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Need to see creation date of backups loaded to Dropbox

I am using Dropbox as a secondary backup for customer files from my server. If a customer needs me to restore their data from a particular date I have to locate the files they want by the backup date of file . I just noticed Dropbox is changing all my file dates to the date I uploaded them from my server to Dropbox. I cannot figure out how to see the creation date of the files anymore. This makes them unusable to me as backups since I have no idea what date the backups are for All the files have a 6/15/23 date now so if I need to restore files from 5/1/23 I can't figure out a way to do that. Please advise.

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Hannah

Hey @izzywizzy, welcome to the Dropbox Community.

While you can't see the creation date of a file in the list view, if you select a file and look at the (i) info on the right side of the page, specifically in "Properties", you should be able to see the "date created" metadata of each file.

I hope this helps.

Let me know if you have any questions.

izzywizzy

My backup consists of 112,000 files. So I have to look at the properties of each one until I find the date I am looking for? I hope you are kidding.

Jay

Hi @izzywizzy, the Dropbox site only shows the modification dates, not the creation dates of files.

Depending on how you upload files, the modification date would change to the current date/time, or remain as it was.

izzywizzy

I only know of one upload method. I login to Dropbox, then pick UPLOAD files or folders then pick the location from my hard drive. If there is another way to upload files into Dropbox that does not change the date of my files please let me know. Having all my backups with the same date makes it hard to find the file I am looking when a customer asks for a restore from a particular date. I don't have time to click on every back up file from last month to figure out which one to download. Someone else recommended I download all the backup files back to my computer then I maybe can view creation date but it takes hours to download 100K files. I have been in business 25 years and have files than span many years. When looking for a file I typically search by date to narrow the search. I tried a test uploading files using Google Drive and they don't rename my files when I upload them. Since there doesn't appear to be a solution I may need to bite the bullet and switch to Google Drive. I hate that.

Rich

@izzywizzy wrote:
If there is another way to upload files into Dropbox that does not change the date of my files please let me know.

Install the Dropbox application on your computer, place the files in the Dropbox folder and allow them to sync. All timestamp information will be retained. Uploading a file through the website "creates" the file on the Dropbox server, so the date created is the date uploaded. There's no way to change that. This is similar to downloading a file to your computer from the Internet; most often, the creation date of the file on your computer will be the date you downloaded it, and not the date the original file was created on the server you're downloading from.

izzywizzy

I tried that some time ago but Dropbox has to be installed on my server, not my personal computer. Some customers complained that the service was slower than usual so I deleted the Dropbox sync connection which did speed up the server. This solution COULD work however if I can tell the DropBox sync to only sync during certain times of the day (like the middle of the night) to avoid overburdening the server during peak hours. Can I do that with the sync feature?

Rich

@izzywizzy wrote:
This solution COULD work however if I can tell the DropBox sync to only sync during certain times of the day (like the middle of the night) to avoid overburdening the server during peak hours. Can I do that with the sync feature?

Dropbox doesn't have a scheduling feature but you can do it yourself using a task scheduler to start and stop the Dropbox application. Just know that doing so is not officially supported.

NutritionNut

Hey Hannah, this does not work to see the actual creation date. Only "Modified" shows up.

NutritionNut

Hey Jay, this does not make sense to me. Adding to everything @izzywizzy has said so far, I've been using Dropbox for over 10 years and have uploaded 100,000's of files - now I'm seeing that ALL the original creation dates have been lost, even ones in the past that we verified at the time retained their metadata. What gives? This completely obviates the value of Dropbox.