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How to sort photos in a Dropbox folder by creation date( date/time photo taken)

I am missing the feature to sort photos only by "photo taken date/time".

In Dropbox I created a folder to store all my photos for a recent trip. It includes not only photos from my camera but also photos shot by friend´s cameras.

After uploading I could not find any feature to sort the photos by creation date/time.

Instead I only see the sort option "upload date", or "file name". Since I uploaded only once, the upload date is the same for all photos. Hence useless.

The sort option "file name " is also fairly useless when uploading phots from different cameras onto one folder as each camera will have its own file naming sequence.

I am now left with a long series of phots sequenced in random order, and quite difficult to present to someone.

Any help here or suggestions ?

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rolian

Hello Lusil,

Thanks for your reply. The previous upload had been thru the Aperture on my IMAC.

After your recommendation I directly uploaded a photo I had taken on my IPhone.

Same result, even when viewing thru Dropbox Desktop application on IMAC.

The creation date in Dropbox is identical to upload date and not when photo was taken.

So I guess manual renaming of photos is the workaround.

Greetings, Rolian

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Lusil

Hey there, @rolian.

Spoiler

Initially, I wanted to mention that, if you’re referring to:

The mobile app: you can sort your files by name or date on an Android device, while on the iOS you can sort by modified, name, size, and type.
The Dropbox website: you can filter and sort your files/folders by selecting the most appropriate options on the three column headers and choosing to either ascend/descend.
The Dropbox folder: since it’s just like any other folder in your computer, the sorting options would work as per the relevant OS.

If you uploaded your files through camera uploads, the name of each photo should be the date and time that they were taken, retaining this info. However, if you manually uploaded your photos into your account, please note that the the modified date will be the date that the file was uploaded. Your photos still retain the date that they were taken, but that info isn’t displayed.

Having said that, what I’d recommend would be to rename the photos according to your preferences, guaranteeing the order that they would appear in.

I understand that this may not be the solution you were looking for, but I hope I helped to some extent. :slight_smile:

Brookerc

I have found the same problem but only with the app. If you look at your photos using the Dropbox website you can sort by ascending/descending but the difference is that it uses the photo creation date, not the date uploaded. Why they could not make the app work the same way I cannot understand. I have reported this to the developers 6 months ago but nothing has changed yet. So frustrating as I have all my photos neatly uploaded into a different folder for each subject (I.e. Holiday destination) but when you view them they are in a useless sequence.

rolian

Hello Lusil,

Thanks for your reply. The previous upload had been thru the Aperture on my IMAC.

After your recommendation I directly uploaded a photo I had taken on my IPhone.

Same result, even when viewing thru Dropbox Desktop application on IMAC.

The creation date in Dropbox is identical to upload date and not when photo was taken.

So I guess manual renaming of photos is the workaround.

Greetings, Rolian

awpconsulting

This is a drag considering I just uploaded 592 pictures from the lacrosse season and just paid for more room so that I could send to the team. Unfortunately like others, the photos are all mixed up and not in any date order from the season and I cannot sort them that way. Will dropbox be making a fix to this at any point?

Rich

Not likely, since they've removed more photo features than they'e added. Dropbox simply isn't the best tool for photo mangement.

Use one of the many third-party utilities available that can use rename files based on a photo's EXIF data. Run it against the folder containing the photos within your local Dropbox folder, and Dropbox will simply sync the changes.

[This thread is now closed by moderators due to inactivity. If you're experiencing a similar behavior, feel free to start a new discussion in the Dropbox Community here.]