Airdroid modifies timestamps of copied files MTP does not work in Ubuntu so I am using Airdroid to copy photos off my phone (Galaxy Nexus) to my computer (Ubuntu 12.04).  My problem is that the files downloaded via Airdroid all have modification date of when I transferred them.  I want the files to keep the timestamps they have on the phone (which is the date and time I took the photo).  

How can I do this?
Reason is your client saves them at that time, and doesn't ask the "server" (your Android device) for the original time stamps.

You could try using a SSH server on your Android device. DroidSSHd would be a good choice, for example. To copy your files then you need to start this SSH Server first on your phone, which usually tells you the IP and port used. Now you can use any SSH client on your Ubuntu workstation, or from the shell, use the scp command:

scp -p -P 2222 192.168.1.15:/sdcard/DCIM/*.jpg .

would be an example:


-p: Preserves modification times, access times, and modes from the original file
-P 2222: Use port 2222 (that's what DroidSSHd uses by default)
192.168.1.15: IP of your device (replace this with what the SSH server shows)
/sdcard/DCIM/*.jpg: All JPEG files from your camera folder on the SD-card (check for the correct path)
.: Copy files to the current working directory


Note that at least on Linux, for ease of use you can tell SSH in its config to always use port 2222 for this IP adding the following lines to your ~/.ssh/config file:

Host 192.168.1.15
    Port 2222


Having done that, you no longer need to specify -P 2222 with each command.

There might be graphical solutions available as well -- but I mostly work from the command line, so I cannot give you examples for those.