Forum Discussion
OneDrive changing dates
I have an S24 ultra with pictures dating back to 2001 till the current day. I have thousands of family photos that I was able to gather and organize, and wanted them to be synced with OneDrive so I can access them on my PC and my phone. I decided to get OneDrive to be able to upload ALL of my gallery to OneDrive however, I noticed that around 80% of everything getting uploaded has its dates changed to the time it was uploaded, while a handful remains accurate. I made sure it wasn't the way I was viewing the folder and files, and checked the properties/info of the files and saw that all the dates and data were changed. Is there any way to fix this or prevent this from happening?
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OneDrive Mobile App is not ideal for keeping metadata intact — especially when it uploads in bulk.
When you upload photos to OneDrive from your phone — especially in bulk — OneDrive sometimes replaces the original “Date Taken” with the “Date Modified” or Upload Date.
This happens because:
OneDrive Mobile App (especially Android) doesn’t always preserve metadata on upload.
File system date (Created / Modified) is not always the same as the EXIF metadata (the real "Date Taken").
Depending on how the files are uploaded (manually, camera roll sync, or drag-and-drop), OneDrive may use the date of upload instead of the embedded metadata.
DO NOT use "Camera Upload" via OneDrive for your existing photo archive.
Instead:
Install the OneDrive desktop app on your PC or Mac.
Connect your phone via USB or use an SD card adapter.
Copy the photos manually into a local folder that’s synced with OneDrive (like Pictures > Family Archive).
That way, Windows will preserve the original EXIF “Date Taken”.
This avoids OneDrive Mobile stripping dates or modifying metadata during upload.
If You Still Want to Use Mobile Upload.
Try using the Google Photos app to back up the originals (it preserves date metadata better), then sync from Google Photos to PC, and upload that set to OneDrive from desktop.
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