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John64's avatar
John64
Explorer | Level 4
6 years ago

Preserving time-date stamps

When I download a file from my dropbox account, it gets a new time-date stamp. When I download a folder and extract the zipped folder, all the files get new time-date stamps. It's important for me to...
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  • Jay's avatar
    Jay
    6 years ago
    Hi John, when you’re downloading the files from the website, indeed with any site, the ‘date modified’ or ‘date created’ will be for that moment, since the file didn’t exist before that period.
     
    If you’re using the Dropbox desktop application, then when the files sync down to your machine the dates and times will remain as they were, though the date modified would be the last time someone has edited the files.
     
    Hope this helps to clarify matters!
Jay's avatar
Jay
Icon for Dropbox Staff rankDropbox Staff
Hi John, when you’re downloading the files from the website, indeed with any site, the ‘date modified’ or ‘date created’ will be for that moment, since the file didn’t exist before that period.
 
If you’re using the Dropbox desktop application, then when the files sync down to your machine the dates and times will remain as they were, though the date modified would be the last time someone has edited the files.
 
Hope this helps to clarify matters!
Heenanmeister's avatar
Heenanmeister
New member | Level 2
5 years ago

Thanks, works for me.

 

  • Jazzee's avatar
    Jazzee
    Helpful | Level 6
    5 years ago

    For the record, we use both Dropbox and Google Drive and we use the web interface.  Google preserves the original file date and time and displays it as such.  Also, any FTP program for file transfer to an FTP or Webserver preserves the date and time.  Dropbox is in the minority as far as it not reading the file date and time and preserving it when you upload to Dropbox.

     

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