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li123's avatar
li123
Explorer | Level 4
4 years ago

Dropbox photos not staying 100% in chronological order

Hi! Basically, it's exactly what the title says. It's got nothing to do with the date I uploaded the pictures, but the file names themselves. For example, I've been scanning, cataloguing and organising my mum's old wedding photos (actual photos on paper from 30 years ago) and before I uploaded them, when I saved the scanned files, I gave them chronological order names with the event,  date (year-month-day) and then appendix numbers. E.g Mum's wedding 1991-05-26 0001, 0002, etc. But they won't stay in chronological order in the Dropbox folder they're in. I have them in chronological order up to #40. Then it jumps to #100-160 (in chronological order) then goes back to 41, 42 etc (again in chronological order). 

My normal digital pics are even worse for this. For example, when I search DSC 025 I get DSC 0250, then DSC 0255, then 0256, then 0252, then 0257, then 0254, then 0251, 0253 and 0259. I just want them in the right order and stay like that. This might be a simple case of setting it to organise by name but I'm unable to do that; I can see group by relevance and last modified when I search and when I got to the specific folder where my mum's wedding pics are it's set to organise by name but I still get that situation of half chronological and half not (those are TIFF files compared to my digital pics being in JPG but not sure that matters)

  • Thanks for those screenshots, it's very helpful indeed li123.

    From what I could see in the folder you're having this issue with, it seems this is because the images 101 - 160 have the same date (1991-05-26) as the images up to number 40.

    The images 41 and after have a different date which is the reason why they come afterwards (1991-06-26).

    Was this maybe a typo and the dates are supposed to be the same?
  • Daphne's avatar
    Daphne
    Icon for Dropbox Staff rankDropbox Staff
    Hey li123, I hope you're having a good day!

    Just to make sure we're on the same page, can you let me know where you're checking your files from? Eg. the mobile app, desktop app or website.

    You should be able to click the "Name" column header to make sure that you're sorting by naming order, does this make any difference?

    Let me know and we'll go from there!
    • li123's avatar
      li123
      Explorer | Level 4

      Daphne I'm on the website; haven't tried it with a mobile app yet but I presume it would be the same. If I'm searching by filename for my photos, it will only let me group by relevance and last modified but if I go to the folder where those photos are stored it seems to be fine. So it's only on the one specific folder where this is causing me an issue; half in chronological order, then skips maybe 20 photos (all in chronological order) then back in chronological order. I think the photos below explain what I mean better. That's with the folder set to filter by name. If I filter by type (image) or extension (TIFF) they go out of order (which is obviously expected). I find it odd as it's seemingly just the one folder.

      • Daphne's avatar
        Daphne
        Icon for Dropbox Staff rankDropbox Staff
        Thanks for those screenshots, it's very helpful indeed li123.

        From what I could see in the folder you're having this issue with, it seems this is because the images 101 - 160 have the same date (1991-05-26) as the images up to number 40.

        The images 41 and after have a different date which is the reason why they come afterwards (1991-06-26).

        Was this maybe a typo and the dates are supposed to be the same?

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