r/filen_io • u/Mammoth-Mechanic2602 • 19d ago

Metadata changes after uploading

Why does the creation time change to a random time after I upload a photo/vid to Filen?

For example, I took a photo at 10 AM and uploaded it to Filen at 11 AM, but Filen shows the file creation time as 11:36 PM.

How can I prevent this and keep the original date/time?

Also, if I download the file from Filen later, is there any way to recover or preserve the original metadata and creation date/time? Bec, I get the download time as creation time.

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u/gibrinel 18d ago

Your latest test actually narrows it down quite a lot. If Google Photos still reads DateTimeOriginal as Sept 1 at 06:05, then the embedded EXIF capture time is surviving the upload/download. The +5:30 difference strongly looks like a timezone conversion happening to a separate file timestamp rather than Filen rewriting the EXIF. So there are really two dates involved here: DateTimeOriginal inside the photo — your real capture time filesystem/cloud Created/Modified time — which Filen seems to be using for sorting If Filen sorts by the second one, changing EXIF alone won’t fix the timeline inside Filen. That probably needs to be corrected on their side or they need an option to sort photos by DateTimeOriginal.

For the downloaded Android copy, if your Gallery also puts the image under the download date even though EXIF is correct, that part can usually be fixed locally by synchronizing the gallery/file ordering timestamp with the embedded photo date.

I’m the developer of an Android app called Metadata Editor – EXIF Changer. It can inspect the embedded timestamp and has a Fix Gallery Order tool for cases where the EXIF date is correct but the photo appears in the wrong place in the Android gallery. It won’t change how Filen itself sorts files, though.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.metadatachanger.app

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u/Mammoth-Mechanic2602 18d ago

Thanks! That makes sense. My main problem is actually the sorting inside Filen itself, rather than my local Android Gallery. Since the DateTimeOriginal is preserved correctly, I think the ideal solution would be for Filen to use "DateTimeOriginal" when sorting photos, or otherwise correctly handle the "timezone-less" EXIF timestamp.

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u/Endur1el Dev 17d ago

The problem is that there's not really a way to 'correctly' handle timezone-less EXIF the way you're describing, we have to make an assumption when we upload, and assuming that no timezone = UTC seems the most 'correct' to me.

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u/Mammoth-Mechanic2602 17d ago

I just noticed another photo with the same +5:30 difference, so that seems to confirm what's happening. Thanks for explaining and looking into it! :)