Hi, I’m new to Nextcloud and not very experienced, and I hope someone can help me. I just installed the android app recently. Whenever I upload a photo or use “Sofort-Upload” (the feature which automatically uploads all photos of a folder) via the android app, the date of the photo on the server is the date on which I uploaded it, not the date on which it was taken. However, when I upload a photo just using the browser version on PC, the date of when the photo was taken is preserved. I cannot find anything in the settings that could change this behaviour, but if I missed something, let me know.
I tried finding an answer to this in the forum or elsewhere on the internet, but I could not find anything that helped me. I hope this is the right place to post this question! Thank you.
Don’t rely on file data which might change - use EXIF metadata in the file, which every recent camera and mobile writes into the images.
I am using pictures from a modern phone, so I am assuming the metadata is already EXIF metadata, so I don’t know what your suggestion is, specifically.
If it helps, I tried connecting the phone with my PC and uploading a picture from the phone to nextcloud via browser - and the date is the date the picture was created.
However, if I upload the same image using the Nextcloud app without using my PC as a go-between the date on Nextcloud is instead “a few seconds ago”.
So if it’s the same photo and the date is only wrong if uploaded via the android app, it’s probably not the metadata’s fault, right?
I believe you are not looking at the metadata here. “a few sconds ago” is the time the file was created (which appears to be accurate). The time the picture was taken is not stored the same way; it is actually stored inside the file. There is two kinds of meta data here: file metadata, including things like the file creation date, size, access rights etc., and the picture metadata, which is stored by the camera (or on android, by the camera app) inside the picture file (usually, in EXIF format). This data can contain many fields, such as the creation data (and time), GPS location and compass orientation, camera settings (ISO, aperture, exposure time, …).
IMHO, Nextcloud is right to set the file data to “now”, because that’s when the file was created. File dates may also be modified for numerous reasons, so they are not a reliable indicator of when a picture was taken. You should look at the EXIF information instead (photo management software can usually do that without effort).
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Oh I see, thank you!
Then I misunderstood the previous point. I didn’t think it was wanted behaviour, because when I upload hundreds of pictures, it would be nice to sort them by date. But yeah, when I download the picture again, I can see “time created” in its properties. So, not exactly the solution I was hoping for, but at least I understand it now. (Though, if someone ever finds a setting in the android app to change this behaviour so that the file date is set to the EXIF date, let me know)
Thanks!