Forum Discussion
How to preserve original/organic properties of a file as/after it is uploaded into SharePoint onilne
I agree - this is an absolutely egregious oversight when creating SharePoint and OneNote tools.
Unfortunately, all the solutions I see here are after migration.
Since SharePoint (and OneDrive) store the date created and modified as the date when STORED (created) and UPDATED (modified) and not the actual file date created and modified, this has created immense issues in finding which files are most recent, etc.
I am recommending to Microsoft that you use different terminology for SharePoint and OneDrive as suggested above Stored vs Created and Updated vs Modified. If there is ANY WAY you can query the metadata (which I can see when I open the file) for the actual File Created and Modified and automatically create and update metadata columns for those in SharePoint, this would be a HUGE win.
For now my files that were *actually* created from 2006 to when we migrated to our new SharePoint (company sold and split we have had two migrations in three years) all have the SAME CREATED and MODIFIED dates making it impossible to a) eliminate old files, b) determine which files (stored in folders which I hate) are the most recent, and so much more.
I have hundreds of files. In SharePoint, I had created manual metadata with FileDate and FileCreator (because it also stores the person who uploaded the file as "Modified by" (again should be "Updated by")) but lost all of that on migration AND am not willing to try to go through that again. I tried to figure out a way to query the files and pull date and time with an Excel macro but was unsuccessful. (And I made a mistake on several files when looking for the actual date modified and forgot to turn off the automatic saving feature and sadly lost that info - sigh.)
Dates are critical to document management and we really need to get this right.
Question: Is there a solution already that can help me (after files are already in SharePoint)?
- I know this is an older thread, but has anyone found a solution to this issue? I need to create a data retention policy for files based on the created date. Unfortunately, the original created date was changed after the files were migrated to SharePoint.
Have the files already been uploaded to SharePoint?
If the files have not yet been uploaded you can use 3rd party tools like https://directory.collab365.com/listing/slim-companion-explorer/to extract the original create date stored within the files and capture the values into a SharePoint column during uploading. This works for most common file formats such as Office (e.g. docx), emails, pdf, jpg, binary Office files (doc, ...), audio files, video files, ...If the files are already present in SharePoint things become more complicated. You will need to look for applications/scripts that can extract metadata from files stored in SharePoint and then update the SharePoint columns. For emails there are solutions (e.g., https://www.slimapplications.com/product/bulkmetadatamanager/) but you will probably have a mix of different file formats.
Shelli Godfrey
What files types do you have?
Rationale: popular file types contain embedded modify/create details such as
docx, xlsx, pptx, vsdx, pdf, png, jpg, tiff, msg, eml, dwg, psd, mov, mp4, ...
Some file types do not contain details, e.g. txt, zip, ...
I am not aware of tools offering that capability: extract modify/create details from files already present in SharePoint. But it is not rocket science to develop that. The main question: is there sufficient demand? Do others also perceive this as a problem. I personally fully agree with you. Retaining the original properties is key for user acceptance.
Paul | SLIM Applications (https://www.slimapplications.com/)
