Does Android store file logs?

Factual Questions
1

My favorite camera app (Open Camera) names photos and videos either IMG or VID followed by year, month, day, hour, minute, and second that it was captured. (For example VID_20190808_221943.mp4.) I find it convenient to keep the date portion of the names, changing only the IMG/VID part to something more descriptive.
Earlier I was editing a file which was automatically saved with something appended to the front of the file name by the editing software. Satisfied with the edit, I deleted the original. Only then did I notice that the new file name lopped off the hour/minute/second part of the name and left only the year/month/day part. So I have a file named just “VID_20190808.mp4.”

It annoys me having that one file with the naming scheme broken. So I’m hoping that there is a log somewhere listing files created or deleted. Any tips? (To be clear, I don’t need to undelete the original file, I just want to know the original file’s name.)

2

I know this doesn’t answer your question, but do you actually need the original timestamp? Can’t you just rename the file with a made-up timestamp? If you have other pictures taken around the same time, you should be able to get a pretty close approximation from those.

3

It’s possible that your pictures get synchronised to Google Photos and/or your phone maker’s Cloud offering (Samsung Cloud, etc.). If so, maybe you can get a precise timestamp (or the original filename) from there.

Other strategies:

  • If you’re storing your pictures to external storage (microSD card), there is software that can recover deleted files. (Unless you’ve taken new pictures since you deleted the file.)
  • If you have a location-tracking app such as Google location sharing, you can determine when you were at that particular location. This is approximate.
  • If you sent the picture to someone else in a text message, well, you have a timestamp on that. The original filename is probably there, too.
  • If the picture happens to show a clock or a watch, look at the content. :wink:
4

Look at the timestamp of the file if you haven’t modified the contents. That will be down to the second.

Use a program like File Commander to look at files and their properties if you don’t already have something similar installed.

5

Also: there may be some metadata in the edited file showing the exact time of the snapshot. EXIF has a tag called “DateTimeOriginal”. That depends on whether your editing software has preserved it.