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Forum Discussion
Why does Dropbox insist on renaming my files?
2020: "Stop renaming my files! (on auto phone upload)" by BoxyBeat
Dropbox response was: "interesting indeed". Then they are like; let us learn what you have uncovered that we still don't know. Like, let's go out there and jump through the hoops together to confirm if the files are named based on when the files are created (recording starts) or when they are last modified (recording stops). What difference does it make? Just stop renaming people's files!?
They go on to explain that this is the expected behavior... duh! They never explain why this is, even though the author specifically requested an explanation from Dropbox as to "why" this is.
They said they moved the question to the "Share an idea" section.
They closed the question for further comments so that anyone who feels the same way about this Dropbox misbehavior can start their own discussion about it, like I'm doing right now, and we can all pretend that no one really wants this "feature", because the discussion activity is low and no one is voting.
They even go as far as closing supposedly "shared ideas" for lack of support by other members of the community of users, before it even has a chance to reach the right team at Dropbox, Inc. With so many filters along the way, I would be surprised if any Dropbox features is ever a direct result of user input. Dropbox has its own fixed ideas of how to do things, and that's how it's going to stay. Like it and use it, or don't like it and move on to using something else.
This is the example of a shared idea that has been closed due to lack of support.
2021: "Stop renaming files" by Pete3000
https://www.dropboxforum.com/t5/Dropbox-ideas/Stop-renaming-files/idi-p/510186
Allow such ideas to stay open for a good while and see what happens. You will never get enough votes if you keep closing ideas and keep closing discussions. You will always blame it on lack of interest by other users, and users will keep creating new topics for the same old discussions, and keep sharing the same old ideas without it ever being forwarded to the right team at Dropbox, Inc. It's so obvious right now that you are genuinely not interested in what we users have to say or what we think of your apps and services. Not when you keep shutting us off, closing our topics of discussion and keep closing our "shared" ideas before they can gather enough votes and traction, and before they ever reach the right team. You're doing this on purpose. And that's OK. It's your product and your service. I just wanted to call you out and let you know that I can see through your charade and I don't agree with your practices.
So let us have it... why are you changing the names of our files? And more importantly, why are you not allowing us to decide for ourselves if we want your app to change the name of our files or not?
There is a way to set up naming conventions with Dropbox, but it does not apply to the mobile app and camera uploads. It applies only to the web and the desktop app (the option links back to the web for setting it up, there is no interface for it within the desktop app itself).
"How to use naming conventions in Dropbox"
https://help.dropbox.com/files-folders/sort-preview/naming-conventions
Despite this advanced and elaborate way to exactly specify how to name and organize files in Dropbox (as long as you're not using the mobile app), and despite having several preset naming rules to choose from, having no rule at all is not a selectable rule or option.
I am very disappointed with Dropbox right now. It feels like with each passing year I have less and less reason to use Dropbox. You have already reduced the number of devices allowed to sync from 5 to 3 (if I remember correctly) on the free plan. I wouldn't actually mind getting a premium plan if you did things a little differently and you got rid of the excess bulk you have invented in recent years like Paper, Transfer, Vault, Spaces, and what not, the list keeps growing. Dropbox has moved well beyond what used to be its core business idea, and it's far from working ideally, and I don't want to be paying for the things I don't intend to use.
So why does Dropbox insist on renaming my files?... because they/it can. It is that simple I'm afraid.
I just stumbled upon this issue, too. Perplexingly, I think Dropbox might have backpropagated some renaming from my device files, too. The last ones I know were correctly named and synced appear to be from 2022/11/14, but I'd wager I'm just not seeing a more recent "correct" sync.
This would be less of an issue if the device folders were maintained, but it looks like all files from the selected directories have been synced to "Camera Uploads". I've got a few years to duplicates to undo now to free my storage and need to figure out how to get back the old file names.
Fortunately, I've got a few days off to investigate, but oof, this one kinda' hurts.
- Rich
Super User II
JosephCat wrote:
... I think Dropbox might have backpropagated some renaming from my device files, too. The last ones I know were correctly named and synced appear to be from 2022/11/14 ...
The automatic Camera Uploads feature has always renamed photos and videos during upload, and they have always uploaded to the Camera Uploads folder en masse. This is how Camera Uploads is intended to function. Also, It can only rename the files during the upload process. Dropbox/Camera Uploads doesn't (and can't) go back and rename your files later.
A manual upload, where you can select which specific files you wish to upload, will not rename the files and they will be uploaded to the folder you choose. The only time manual uploads would be renamed is if you have an automation or naming convention applied to the folder that you're uploading them to, in which case the files would be renamed based on the rules you've defined for that folder.
Rich wrote:The automatic Camera Uploads feature has always renamed photos and videos during upload, and they have always uploaded to the Camera Uploads folder en masse. This is how Camera Uploads is intended to function.
When a company fails to see the error in their way of doing things, or when it recognizes the error but decides to turn their head the other way: We have been doing it like this since the beginning of time, and we will continue to do so till the end of time.
Hey, happy new year Dropbox! New year; old problem. At least you're consistent and keeping up with your new year's resolution to never change. How long has it been now? Two years? I think more, if you look up other posts about the same topic.
Rich wrote:Also, It can only rename the files during the upload process. Dropbox/Camera Uploads doesn't (and can't) go back and rename your files later.
A manual upload, where you can select which specific files you wish to upload, will not rename the files and they will be uploaded to the folder you choose. The only time manual uploads would be renamed is if you have an automation or naming convention applied to the folder that you're uploading them to, in which case the files would be renamed based on the rules you've defined for that folder.
This is not incorrect, but this kind of thinking is flawed. Files can take many turns throughout their lifetime, before they reach their final resting place, in a cold storage (unless they are deleted). Files can be transferred from device A to device B. They can exist in more than one device at the same time! They can be copied from device A to device B and device C. The same file can easily get out of sync if you work on multiple copies on multiple devices.
Those who grew up carrying their school documents around on a USB flash drive remember this well. Then Dropbox appeared, as a sync solution with a whopping 2 GB storage, and a better alternative to a USB flash drive. Common sizes for USB flash drives was 256 MB and 512 MB back then. There were also 1 GB and 2 GB options, but they were not cheap and not cheaper than a free Dropbox account. I should not need to explain this to Dropbox. Keeping files in sync is the whole reason Dropbox came into existence. It's a sync tool, primarily, not a backup solution like so many people confuse it for (and later it was prompted as such).
Using Camera Upload is just one of several ways to transfer or copy files from device A to device B. Should those files ever be transferred back to device A, now with altered file names, then of course you're going to have duplicates! But if the Camera Upload feature of Dropbox app had not altered those file names during "camera upload" (transfer), your operating system would have most likely detected the error in your attempt and that you already have files with the same file names on the system. It would have prompted you to make a decision to either overwrite existing files, or skip the files you're trying to transfer or copy in, or to allow for the duplication to happen (usually with a "(2)" appended to the file name). As a result of Camera Upload altering file names during upload, this checking mechanism fails, on pretty much every operating system including Windows, Mac, Linux, Android and iOS.
There is no way that forced renaming of Camera Upload files ever made sense. For it to pass as finalized was a thoughtless mistake and very surprising. As I wrote through the link below, I paste here:
Hello Dropbox,
I just switched from iCloud Photos to Dropbox Camera Uploads, and after moving some 2.7k+ files I realized they were all renamed. The original filenames were IMG_####.JPG for example. Now they are all a date and time. The old filenames are not even stored in metadata. This makes it impossible for me to check this batch for duplicates against a 15-year collection of some 42,000 other files. I definitely need the default device-given filenames, not forced renames.
You half-way integrated a potentially good idea, why would do you do that? It was absolutely important from the beginning to either provide users full control over the naming convention, or simply the option to turn yours off and keep the original filenames.
Yet, how many years has it been like this? I just found this out after it happened. You guys still don't want to do such a simple thing properly? I can't imagine the flow of files within your userbase, all of them subject to this. If I just ran 42k files through your naming convention by accident I'd be sick! Bewildering to think of users who probably have.
My direct next step is a dive into the iCloud trashcan. I will not use Dropbox Camera Uploads until this renaming idea is either done right or made possible to disable completely.
The simplest lack of thoughtfulness can really put a bullet in a good idea. That's a shame for what is otherwise a very impressive and helpful tool. I do love Dropbox. I don't love half-baked implementations that are ignored for years.
Danny
Linked from Dropbox forum post: Why-does-Dropbox-insist-on-renaming-my-files
P.S. you guys need a better arrangement for submitting problems and feature requests. Good community software comes from teams who are eager to listen to the community. Also, toss in a little common sense. Dropbox is wonderful, but it must continue to grow and be refined by its users. This is the lifeblood of the best user-based tools and software.It is really amazing how the DropBoxers persist to forget to that this idea has been suggested already hundreds of times. They always return with the answer that if the idea is also appreciated by others they wil consider to have it developed. How many times does it need to be suggested and or supported by others?
It really makes no sense to change the name of a file by default. It should be the other way around, namely that as a user you should opt-in to the function to rename the camera uploads.
Also the renaming convention, which is suggested by dropbox, makes no sense as the options available are extremely limited (and you cannot even remove the file name which is made up by dropbox). So PLEASE, Dropboxers, finally accept that it is the sincere wish of your users that you Do Not change the names of our files. Please let me completely free in how I want to name my files....
Thanks!
- Megan
Dropbox Staff
Hi usrx, let's get right into this!
Can you give me a tad more info? Do you upload content manually or via camera uploads?
How is the name before, and how is it after the upload?
Keep me posted.
Same as BoxyBeat, and I am upset for the same reason as he/she is/was and it has to do with things he/she mentioned already, like being able to "keep track easier for missing files, [interrupted] transfers, moved files and so on". The only difference is that I take mostly photos, and not so much videos, so to me, it's completely uninteresting if the Dropbox app uses the timestamp from when the file was created or when it was last modified (in case of video files, according to referenced discussion above). But sure, I will give you some examples.
This is the naming convention that my phone uses to store the files in memory and how I want to keep them.
Format: YYYYMMDD_HHMMSS.jpg
Example file: 20210102_183405.jpg
This is the naming convention that the Dropbox app on my phone uses when the files are uploaded to Dropbox using the camera upload option.
Format: YYYY-MM-DD HH.MM.SS.jpg
Example file: 2022-06-24 19.14.54.jpg
There is a bit more to it when it comes to photo files that are taken within the same second. So the phone will add a suffix like "_03.jpg" and if I recall correctly the Dropbox app will turn that into "-03.jpg". I don't have a real example of this at the moment, I would need to spend another fifteen minutes searching for it as it's not very common that more than one photo is taken within a second, and it usually does that when you take burst shots, which I don't normally do. There are some more situations like that, but the general rule is what you have above.
So in summary...
File is stored as:
20210102_183405.jpg
File is mangled by Dropbox into:
2021-01-02 18.34.05.jpg
I expect the file to have this name on my computer after it has been uploaded/synced from my phone using Dropbox camera upload:
20210102_183405.jpg
Instead, Dropbox downloads/syncs to my computer a file with a name like this:
2021-01-02 18.34.05.jpg
So my question is, why are you doing this? And why are you not allowing people to change this behavior for years now? For example, does your backend not have the capacity to store or process files whose name contain underscores? A technical reason like that, I would understand, even if it seems highly unlikely. As it stands right now, you don't have a reason to do this (none has been given thus far in the many discussions on the topic). I on the other hand, like many users like me, do have a reason to keep the original file names and we have presented our reason.
This is exactly the issue I'm facing with cameras uploads from mobile. (The file name changes upon upload to Dropbox, so I can't easily make sure the files on my phone have actually been backed up.) This was previously not an issue but now I have a few years of built up files that I don't feel fully confident in deleting because I'm not sure if all of them got backed up or not without manually comparing file sizes.
So why does Dropbox insist on renaming my files?... because they/it can. It is that simple I'm afraid.
