Using “Save images and videos to photo album” saves low-quality copies with metadata stripped

Expected behaviour

Using the “Save images and videos to photo album” button should produce identical behavior to opening the file and using the share menu to download it: downloading the original file.

Actual behaviour

The button in fact saves a more compressed version of the image with all its metadata stripped.

Steps to reproduce

Go to a folder with photos and use the hamburger menu → select some photos → go to the hamburger menu again → choose “Save images and videos to photo album”

Open the same photo with the app, then use the share menu to save the image. If you open the Photos app, you’ll find that the photo saved with the first method will end up at the end of the photos with a date reflecting the time you just downloaded it from the app, while the photo saved using the share menu appears at the time it was actually taken. Using a metadata viewing app like Metapho, you can confirm that the two images have different file sizes (the one downloaded using the “Save images and videos to photo album” button being smaller).

iOS version

12.4

App version

2.24.1

Server configuration

Operating system:
Debian 10 (docker container)
Web server:
nginx
Database:
MariaDB
Nextcloud version: (see Nextcloud admin page)
16.0.4

No source file or test is named. Reproduce the issue on iOS by comparing “Save images and videos to photo album” with the share-menu save for the same photo, then trace the implementation of the album-save button and verify that the saved file preserves the original quality, metadata, and capture date.