OneDrive app on IOS renamed my picture files with a timestamp

Question

OneDrive app on IOS renamed my picture files with a timestamp

Anonymous

While this is fine, the timestamp on the file name is not really the time that the picture was taken. I suspect that the timestamp was the time when the file was "uploaded" to OneDrive. For example, a picture was taken on "7/4/2024 9:09 PM" according to the metadata. However, the file name became 20240705_020922515_iOS.heic. It is a day later. I suspect that's when the photo is uploaded to the cloud at that time. This is not good because it would have categorized to the wrong date by my auto-sorting script. It's even worse if that's the last day of the month because then it might be sorted into the next month, not really reflecting the actual month the photo was taken (or even worst if it's the last day of the year!). Is there a way to configure OneDrive how to rename my photos?

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5 answers

Answer 1

Anonymous

Why can't the OneDrive app make this configurable with "Settings". Then everybody would be happy and customized it the way they like it.

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Answer 2

I use OneDrive - personal for many years and with iPhone 14 Pro Max IOS 17.6.1 and have not had a problem with the names being modified with a timestamp. This only has started to occur recently. Is this a bug and will it be fixed, as I do not want the file names to be modified when saving a file using my iPhone. It does not do this when saving a pdf file using my windows 10 pc. I want to control the file names not OneDrive

Answer 3

Hi,

I actually don't want any timestamp (correct or incorrect) to replace the file name (picture / movie).

All I ask OneDrive is to save the fine name as it is on iOS / only iPhone. I am selecting media on my iphone and when I want to send the same names to my family to select from the OneDrive, it is showing different names... it is not acceptable

Thanks

Sunny

Answer 4

When the OneDrive app automatically backs up photos and videos on iOS devices, it does rename the files by the time they were uploaded and adds a timestamp to the file name. This timestamp usually reflects the time the file was uploaded to the OneDrive cloud storage, not when the photo was actually taken. This renaming method may be useful for some users because it helps them organize their files in the order in which they were uploaded. However, it may be inconvenient for users who want to organize their photos by the time they were taken.

Apart from this being frustrating behavior by the OneDrive app, I don't think this statement is accurate. In my experience, it appears to rename the file with the timestamp in UTC of when the photo was taken. In the example OP posted, the timestamp of 2:09:22.515 AM on 7/5 might imply that OP is five hours behind UTC.

If you "share" photos to your local device files first, you can browse and upload them manually from within the OneDrive app--one at a time. It keeps the exact IMG_#### naming convention but it is clearly unacceptably tedious to have to use this process.

A year ago, I had success first sharing my photos to local device files and then selecting and "Move"ing the files from the Files app into OneDrive. It would rename the files to IMG_#### + timestamp, but it would at least preserve the IMG_#### portion and the rest could be pretty easily trimmed from the filename with automated processing. I used the free version of FolderMill to do so. This year, this process does not work because the files I attempt to upload this way never appear on OneDrive from any other device. However, they appear in the OneDrive app on the iPad indefinitely with the correct size and upload time, but unable to be opened.

Answer 5

Hi, mts_492

Thank you for using Microsoft products and posting them to the community.

When the OneDrive app automatically backs up photos and videos on iOS devices, it does rename the files by the time they were uploaded and adds a timestamp to the file name. This timestamp usually reflects the time the file was uploaded to the OneDrive cloud storage, not when the photo was actually taken. This renaming method may be useful for some users because it helps them organize their files in the order in which they were uploaded. However, it may be inconvenient for users who want to organize their photos by the time they were taken.

The OneDrive app itself doesn't provide options to change this renaming behavior; it defaults to using the upload timestamp to rename files. However, there are a couple of things you can do to work around this issue:

Manually change this date: You can manually change the date of a photo to modify when it was taken. This can be done by looking at the photo's metadata (in the Photos app on your iOS device) and changing it.

Tweak the auto sort script: If you have an auto sort script, you can try modifying the script so that it takes into account the time the file was taken, rather than the timestamp in the filename, when sorting the files.

Turn off automatic backups: If you don't need OneDrive's automatic backup feature, you can turn it off in Settings and then manually upload and rename your files.

I hope the above information can help you. Feel free to send a message if you need further help.

Best wishes

Aiden.C - MSFT |Microsoft Community Support Specialist