WD Photos renames and changes dates

How do I upload photos to MyCloud without the files being modified? At the moment, the WD Photos and My Cloud apps for iPhone rename the photos and change the date to when they were uploaded to the WD MyCloud. I’d like to retain the original file names and capture dates. How do I do that?

Thank you.

-Cory

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I believe the issue stems from the iPad and iPhone having proprietary file naming conventions and file structures for storing photos on the devices. I’ve put in a request to have “date taken” as a sortable field in WD Photos - at least that way the files would be in chronological order.

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That’s strange. FTP applications can access the files and transfer them with their original name and creation date.

Jon.ny wrote:
I believe the issue stems from the iPad and iPhone having proprietary file naming conventions and file structures for storing photos on the devices. I’ve put in a request to have “date taken” as a sortable field in WD Photos - at least that way the files would be in chronological order.

As far as I can see with an itouch the file is renamed and given the date of the copy plus exif data is stripped out. Where does your ‘date taken’ come from if this is the case.

View the folder on the NAS using Windows Explorer, then right click on the field headings, scroll down to the date fields and add date taken. This seems to show the date the photo was originally taken or created after I have used Snapseed to create a new version. A few come up blank but I have yet to isolate where this is the case. The majority are correctly populated.

Thanks, Jon.ny. That would work if I was on a PC and didn’t mind that the files were renamed and had different dates. I’m on a Mac and am annoyed in general that the app changes anything, much less the most important traits of the files. I’ve found a work around.

Using an app named FileExplorer ($2.99 on iTunes), I can upload photos to MyCloud using the NAS/Computer interface by punching a hole in my router’s NAT settings for port 445. Works like a charm. Same filename, same creation date and everything. It’s a thing of beauty. Now I just need to find a way to automate it so new photos are automatically uploaded.

-Cory

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That’s good to know.

Out of interest, I have two My Clouds in different locations. If I don’t use Windows Explorer or Mac Finder to transfer the files between the two NAS, but use the My Cloud app, I think it loses the EXIF data in this use case too. I need to double check this bit it was certainly the case for one folder I transferred using this method.

I think WD needs a fix to transfer across the EXIF data. I’m not overly bothered about the name of the file but it’s a big annoyance to loses the rest of the metadata.

Hi Cory,

I never will thank you enough for this suggestion.

FileExplorer does what MyCloud and/or WD Photos would have to do, and, over all, with a most serious GUI.

Tried on both iPhone 4 and iPad 2, FE is working very well.

Many many thanks.

Bye

Paolo

anybody else has other ios app recommendation (besides FileExplorer which is $2.99 AND only 1 user review and it’s a bad one).

Just like the orig poster - I would like to be able to store/upload/move all my ios camera roll photos to MyCloud while perserving its original unique filename and metadata (time, place the pics were taken).

Thanks,

RJ

I have the same problem. My pictures and videos are renamed to “WD_dddd.jpeg” or “WD_dddd.mov” by the WD My Cloud apps.And the numbers “dddd” are determined by the order of the imports, which are totally different from the numbers in the original file names.

If I were to copy those files directly from my iPhone to Windows, they would have been named “IMG_dddd.JPG” or "“IMG_dddd.MOV” respectively. If Microsoft can figure out the file names correctly, I don’t know why WD cannot. This is clearly a bug and it’s highly annoying to users who want to keep original files unchanged and organized.

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I think the best solution to these 2 problems (uploading without renaming the files and automatic upload of taken pictures) would be to modify the mobile app in such a way to include these features. I think all of us bought this product in order to use it at its full potential and it seems that in order to accomplish this the app needs to be modified in order to best suit our needs. I also have a problem when I’m trying to see some of the pictures I have on the device. It takes a very long time to open a picture even if I’m connected on my local network on which I have the Cloud connected. I have to confess that my pics have somewhere between 3 to 5 MB because they are 4608 x 3072px, but let’s face. I don’t need this resolution on my 7" Ipad. So it would be great if the app would resize my pic before downloading it on my Ipad in order to be able to see my pic in a few seconds and not a few minutes. As I heard there are some Cloud space providers that have this very nice feature.

I’m new to MyCloud, but this problem with the photo files being renamed is the first thing I noticed. And it is a huge problem for me. So to verify where the problem lies, I moved some files from my Ipad 2 to dropbox (no renaming or re-dating occurred). Then From the mycloud app, I selected the photos on dropbox, clicked COPY, then navigated to my WDCloud and PASTED them in my photo folder. The names were retained, but the dates were changed to the current date. I guess I can live with the date issue as long as it is somewhere in the metadata, but REALLY, this name changing is clearly a MyCloud APP problem and needs to be fixed!!

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I am having the same problem.  When I use the iPhone, iPad, iPod apps to upload pictures or videos to the MyCloud device it renames the files and changes the date to the time the file was uploaded. THIS IS UNACCEPTABLE. I also have a PogoPlug Cloud device and it does not have this problem.  I bought the WD MyCloud because it has more features but the problem with the date and filenames being changed will cause me to return the WD MyCloud to the store for a refund.  I have 22 days left to return the MyCloud for a full refund. So Western Digital has 21 days to fix this problem or I will return the device and have to go back to using my PogoPlug and start looking for another Cloud device.  The MyCloud is an almost perfect product except for the problem mentioned above and it is missing an autosync upload feature for files.

Jon.ny wrote:
… I’ve put in a request to have “date taken” as a sortable field in WD Photos - at least that way the files would be in chronological order.

I came here looking for a solution.  I’m loving the My Cloud (which my husband bought on Sunday, so we’re still checking it out) but I want it mainly so I can store pictures so that I always have access to them with my phone when I’m away from home.  I take a lot of photos on my phone and right now I’m storing over 12,000 of them that have been taken over the past 4 years.  I was excited to find that the “WD Photos” app would let me “select all” and upload them and it seems to not duplicate the photos if I have to stop and start over.  The “My Cloud” app makes me choose each one individually…a daunting task with the number of photos I have.  However, the photos show up in the app in random order and they all show the same “Creation Date” when I tap the “i” on the photo.  That makes it impossible for me to find a particular photograph.  I thought a simple solution would be to find a way to make the file date match the “picture taken” date from the EXIF data.  I used free Windows software that did that very thing quickly and simply and I assumed my problem was solved.  But when I opened the the WD Photos app again, it still shows the "Creation Date for all the photos I transferred today as Mar 18, 2014, so I guess Creation Date is NOT the same as the date of the file.  Being able to sort (or to filter) by the date that the photos were taken would make it usable, but as it stands, it’s impossible for me to use the app for transferring photos to the My Cloud drive.  I’ll have to download them to my computer, then transfer them to the drive :grumpycat:

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Completely agree with these posts.  I cannot beleive that when I upload my photos from my phone - which could be a nice feature - the photos are saved in a completely random order.  For a piece of software these days - I would say is completely unnacceptable - there should be a very clear warning on this product when you buy it, that there is no logic to its storage system.  When using any other photo software it lists the photos in the correct order that they were taken.  WHAT USE is a piece of photo software that essentially throws the images up in the air and lets them fall in whatever order they may take?

I was recommended this drive by a friend.  however I will certainly tell people to avoid this drive unless Western Digitial do something to correct this malfunction.

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The same happens to me when I use the Ipad 3 with IOS 6.1.3.

It does it also in other applications. I really dont like the change of dates because you can never do a time line then if the dates changes to for e.g. todays date. They will be all on the same line. Which defeats the purpose of Timeline.

My problem is related but a little different.  I am using the drive to copy across files (largely non-photo)  from a smaller external drive.  It doesn’t change the names but it associates an incorrect date that is a little more than 3 months out-of-date – and it rolls forward so that the associated date for a file copied tomorrow will be one day later than for a file copied today. 

I corrected my problem by going into Dashboard Settings and resetting the time and date.  However, it wouldn’t let me do that until the NTP server settling was disabled

“anybody else has other ios app recommendation (besides FileExplorer which is $2.99 AND only 1 user review and it’s a bad one).”

Try Documents (by Readle). It’s free and you can easily access Mycloud through FTP and/or SMB. Nice UI and integration with third party cloud storage as well.

I had same problem here, but i could use my PC as a transfer using the network. 

In order to preserve my photos names and dates,

If you had your pictures on your PC (windows) you can connect to MyCloud on the explorer browser like \Mycloud\ then you can select the shares where you want to upload ( the server ask the password needed ) and just grag the files or the folders that you want , it preserve the files names and  date except for the folders that it use the name but the date is the actual.

In case of Iphone or Ipad to upload the photos , just connect the iphone or ipad onto the usb port of your computer and normally appears a windows ask about if you want to view files or import, if you select the view files, then windows open a explorer pointing the DCIM (wich is where the actual photos of your device is stored)  so if you want to upload just drag the folders or photos that you want to the network connection as before.

Of course this alternate is just if you are on the same network that the cloud is . (wich I assume because transfer a lot of pictures will be better do it locally)

If you are outside i tested the file explorer on ipad it work , other if you are on a pc could be smartftp, but you must activate the ftp function on the cloud.

hope this coukd help someone.