Cloud drives

[audi321]

I really want to embrace a cloud drive but whenever I’ve tested a couple (Google and iCloud) I get frustrated by the fact that it loses the data from when the document/photo/video etc was created. It just resets everything to the upload date.

Is there something I’m doing wrong or is there a way of uploaded which protects this information?

[Harpoon]

I've just copied (the regular Copy from a network path > Paste in my OneDrive folder on Windows 10) a new folder to OneDrive and the time stamps on the individual images have retained the original creation date.



The parent folder in OneDrive shows as today's date which I would expect.

[andygo]

Yes, that happens with my Mac icloud folder.Everything seems to be the same date, which makes it a bit harder when looking for a paricular file as you cant seach by date.

Edited by andygo on Friday 25th November 21:23

[audi321]

It’s so frustrating. Not just with photos but documents.

I’ve not tried one drive to be honest. Might give it a go.

Any others I should consider?

[Insert Coin]

Don’t save anything in OneDrive that you don’t have thoroughly backed up elsewhere.

[Gren]

Anything I copy to my Google Drive retains the date stamps. I've just checked to make sure. Original date is kept in both the Windows file explorer view and the web view

[audi321]

Gren said:

Anything I copy to my Google Drive retains the date stamps. I've just checked to make sure. Original date is kept in both the Windows file explorer view and the web view

Is that for both photos, videos and documents?

[xeny]

Just to check, are you installing the local sync application and using that to upload, or dropping them in via a web browser? I'd expect better behaviour with the former approach.

[Gren]

audi321 said:

Gren said:

Anything I copy to my Google Drive retains the date stamps. I've just checked to make sure. Original date is kept in both the Windows file explorer view and the web view

Is that for both photos, videos and documents?

Tried with photos and spreadsheets. Both kept date stamp. Photo also keep the meta data with date taken. This is simply copying and pasting from within Windows explorer.

[Sheepshanks]

Insert Coin said:

Don’t save anything in OneDrive that you don’t have thoroughly backed up elsewhere.

In case you get blocked from accessing it? Or some other reason?

[audi321]

Gren said:

audi321 said:

Gren said:

Anything I copy to my Google Drive retains the date stamps. I've just checked to make sure. Original date is kept in both the Windows file explorer view and the web view

Is that for both photos, videos and documents?

Tried with photos and spreadsheets. Both kept date stamp. Photo also keep the meta data with date taken. This is simply copying and pasting from within Windows explorer.

Maybe I’m doing it wrong as I’m just dragging and dropping into chrome browser from my finder window. Could you try a video as this is what I’m most concerned about really as I’ve loads of videos of the kids which I’d hate to lose the ‘created date’ of.

[Gren]

Video files identical to photos with date/time details retained.

Just to confirm. I am using Windows file explorer to copy and paste (using right click menu or drag and drop) from any regular folder to my Google Drive folder. Same details appear in both the Google Drive folder in Windows and through a browser.

Screenshot below is of the files now in the Google Drive folder

Edited by Gren on Sunday 27th November 08:24

[Alorotom]

The problem here isnt the upload process or what it loses, its the naming convention used from the outset - this needs to be corrected and then anything else essentially becomes moot.

This should help:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UKvkPnbQqwI

It'll rename all the pics/videos to the date taken (assuming you're a windows user)

[Insert Coin]

Sheepshanks said:

In case you get blocked from accessing it? Or some other reason?

Because if Microsoft decide they don’t like what you store in the ‘their’ cloud then you’ll lose access to it without any kind of worthwhile appeals process.

A few pictures of my kids when they were young messing about in the bath and some ‘arty’ pictures of my wife was enough for Microsoft’s PhotoDNA software to brand me a nonce and shut my account with absolutely no chance of appeal. 20+ years worth of content lost forever, emails, photo’s, £1000’s in Xbox digital purchases all gone.

A real nonce/terrorist/wrongun would encrypt their data before uploading, I had nothing to hide so just uploaded on the fly.

[audi321]

Insert Coin said:

Sheepshanks said:

In case you get blocked from accessing it? Or some other reason?

Because if Microsoft decide they don’t like what you store in the ‘their’ cloud then you’ll lose access to it without any kind of worthwhile appeals process.

A few pictures of my kids when they were young messing about in the bath and some ‘arty’ pictures of my wife was enough for Microsoft’s PhotoDNA software to brand me a nonce and shut my account with absolutely no chance of appeal. 20+ years worth of content lost forever, emails, photo’s, £1000’s in Xbox digital purchases all gone.

A real nonce/terrorist/wrongun would encrypt their data before uploading, I had nothing to hide so just uploaded on the fly.

Jesus that’s st. I’d never even thought of that. I’ve got bath pictures and videos of the kids which were taken 15 years ago and would have just uploaded these without thinking.

I might need to rethink this whole exercise! I assume they’re all going to have this policy (and rightly so) but something I’d completely overlooked.

[Insert Coin]

Because I used the same Hotmail email address across all the Microsoft services (O365 and Xbox) I lost access to everything including my own 365 Family access so my kids lost their email addresses and content too.

I’m all for cracking down on illegal content, but with MS there’s no way to effectively appeal a false positive.

I also have cloud backups on iCloud and Dropbox, plus 3 local copies on usb drives.

Just don’t back up to one single cloud provider, would be my advice, and fk Microsoft.

[Sheepshanks]

Insert Coin said:

Because I used the same Hotmail email address across all the Microsoft services (O365 and Xbox) I lost access to everything including my own 365 Family access so my kids lost their email addresses and content too.

I’m all for cracking down on illegal content, but with MS there’s no way to effectively appeal a false positive.

I also have cloud backups on iCloud and Dropbox, plus 3 local copies on usb drives.

Just don’t back up to one single cloud provider, would be my advice, and fk Microsoft.

To be fair, IIRC you’re making an assumption about why the account was blocked? Almost every parent and grandparent is going to have bathtime pictures of kids.

[Insert Coin]

Sheepshanks said:

To be fair, IIRC you’re making an assumption about why the account was blocked? Almost every parent and grandparent is going to have bathtime pictures of kids.

That’s true, MS won’t explain why they banned my account (many others too), but I believe it’s the most likely reason based on what I’ve read.

[Brother D]

Insert Coin said:

Sheepshanks said:

To be fair, IIRC you’re making an assumption about why the account was blocked? Almost every parent and grandparent is going to have bathtime pictures of kids.

That’s true, MS won’t explain why they banned my account (many others too), but I believe it’s the most likely reason based on what I’ve read.

I think it was yourself I read about a year or two ago (and had to get lawyers involved)?

I wondered if your predicament ever got resolved... Although not much consolation to yourself, I (and I suspect others) now have subsequently made local backups of data stored on cloud providers - mine is on an air-gapped NAS that only gets synced every few months.

The push from all angles to put all your data 'in the cloud' can have serious consequences if the provider arbitarially decides your data is not acceptable to them and you have little recourse.

[Pistom]

Reading these posts makes me realise how vulnerable I am with using OneDrive or any cloud service for that matter.

So how should I be storing important data?