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DropBox camera upload - file renaming

U

UncleMike

Android Expert
I've been using DropBox for a couple of weeks and am just noticing that pictures uploaded using the automatic camera upload feature are apparently named using the date/time the photo was taken, regardless of the name of the original file. If I'm using the stock camera app on my Bionic this is fine. But if I'm using other apps that use a different naming convention, it makes it difficult to compare files by name between my Bionic and DropBox.

Has anyone else noticed this? Is there any way to change it? What could possibly be the benefit of changing the names of the uploaded files?
 
I don't think it's an issue of benefit, so much as each app working independently of the others. My suspicion is that it isn't Dropbox that's naming the file, but the camera app.
 
I noticed this also. I don't think the device is renaming the files. For example, I attached my Nexus 4 to my computer and downloaded the entire Camera directory as I wanted to compare them to the images in my Dropbox folder.

I then found that all the images in my Dropbox /Camera Uploads were renamed (e.g 2010-01-15 16.04.15.JPG), whereas all of the images on my Nexus 4 are named "IMG_20120115_160415.jpg".

I was trying to run a diff on the two folders, but that is going to be impossible based on filename at least.
 
On my Galaxy Nexus, pictures taken with the stock camera are named IMG_yyyymmdd_hhnnss,jpg (IMG_{year}{month}{day}_{hour}{minute}{second}.jpg). But camera uploads from Dropbox are named yyyy-mm-dd hh.nn.ss.jpg.

When I first posted about this it was just more of a curiosity than a real issue, though it did make it more difficult for me to make sure files had been uploaded before deleting them. I've since come to trust Dropbox to do it right, and if it tells me it's done uploading, I believe it (let's not get into whether this trust is a good idea or not). But I've since found a real issue with this renaming. When using the Burst Mode Camera app, many pictures are taken within a 1 second time span, and the files are named similarly to the stock camera file naming, except they have the time at the end specified to 1/1000 of a second. When Dropbox uploads and renames these files, it removes the 1/1000 of a second part of the file name and appends a "-2", "-3" etc., resulting in the files being out of sequence when sorted by name.

And yes, all the EXIF information is in my files.
 
UncleMike said:
On my Galaxy Nexus, pictures taken with the stock camera are named IMG_yyyymmdd_hhnnss,jpg (IMG_{year}{month}{day}_{hour}{minute}{second}.jpg). But camera uploads from Dropbox are named yyyy-mm-dd hh.nn.ss.jpg.

When I first posted about this it was just more of a curiosity than a real issue, though it did make it more difficult for me to make sure files had been uploaded before deleting them. I've since come to trust Dropbox to do it right, and if it tells me it's done uploading, I believe it (let's not get into whether this trust is a good idea or not). But I've since found a real issue with this renaming. When using the Burst Mode Camera app, many pictures are taken within a 1 second time span, and the files are named similarly to the stock camera file naming, except they have the time at the end specified to 1/1000 of a second. When Dropbox uploads and renames these files, it removes the 1/1000 of a second part of the file name and appends a "-2", "-3" etc., resulting in the files being out of sequence when sorted by name.

And yes, all the EXIF information is in my files.
Click to expand...

as a solution i have turned off camera upload and have started using Cheetah Sync instead.
works well so far with the added benefit of deleting files on my phone that i delete on my PC.
so if i take 3 images and keep the best 1 i only need delete once.
 
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