Child Item

Update files (images) and keep creation date

Hi,

I'm using the upload api to send some images to my Dropbox account. What I'm noticing is that the images' creation dates are being set to the upload date. So if I took a picture yesterday on my iPhone, and today sending it on my app, through the Dropbox API, the creation date is "now". That's rather unfortunate. The Camera Upload folder keeps the creation date on the files though, so I would like to know if that's possible.

Being a bit more technical, I'll post some code. I'm using Swift 3 and iOS 10.

I'm actually fetching the Image Data through:

PHAsset.fetchAssets(withALAssetURLs: [imageLocalUrl], options: nil)

PHImageManager.default()
  .requestImageData(for: asset, 
                    options: requestOptions) { resultData, response, orientation, info in
            data = resultData
  }

Then using the Dropbox upload api like this:

DropboxClientsManager
   .authorizedClient
   .files
   .upload(path: "<path/to/folder/imageName.jpg>", input: data)

Thank you

Find more posts tagged with

API

Abuse

Accepted answers

Greg-DB

I see, thanks for clarifying. In that case, in order to preserve that when uploading via the API, set the clientModified to be the expected time when calling upload.

All comments

Greg-DB

What piece of metadata are you looking at specifically when you refer to the file's creation date? Can you share a sample? Thanks in advance!

Nuno G.2

Not sure. I was actually thinking this would be automatically.

In Finder (macOS) I'm actually seeing this on an image that I just uploaded but the picture itself was taken well before.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/i8v58nrq1igjj0b/Screenshot%202016-12-13%2021.46.04.png?dl=0

The Camera Upload folder keeps the dates propperly according to the photo creation date.

Greg-DB

I see, thanks for clarifying. In that case, in order to preserve that when uploading via the API, set the clientModified to be the expected time when calling upload.

Nuno G.2

Thank you very much. I hadn't found that documentation yet. Shame on me. Thanks again.

NatalieFord

Hello,

How might one do this?

I noticed that the creation date of all photos I have uploaded to a Dropbox folder as an archive have reset to the upload date. Even if I attempt to download the photos, the new file creation date is retained. This means that I now have 100s of photos with the wrong creation date, which is incredibly frustrating!

Can you please make your instructions a little clearer here, for a 'regular' user? For example, what are the steps to ensure that when I upload files and photos to Dropbox manually that the original file creation date will be retained?

Thanks so much, Natalie

Здравко

Hi @NatalieFord,

First let's clarify that there is no way to set file (including image, but not only) creation date! What may be set is only modification date. The advice above, that Greg gave, is about that time.

Another thing is that all advises here (in this part of the forum) are about applications developers, not 'regular' users! The advises here would be useful if you want to write something own that you want to integrate with Dropbox service using Dropbox API. If you don't use Dropbox API (or some of the associated SDKs), then it's normal not to understand what all above means (it's just not for you).

All files uploads, for files uploaded somehow, without explicitly set modification date assume upload moment as such date. That's exactly what happens in your case. As a regular user, the only workaround is upload the files (images in your case) using Dropbox desktop application with set last modification date correctly to all images in advance (make this sure) before move them to Dropbox folder (not after that!!!). 😉 That's it.

Good luck.