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PHOTOS DATE

Gaelle D. Finley

Aug 27, 2021, 15:20 GMT+1



Hello,

I have a query I hope you can help with, regarding the date of my

photos. I am not a techie so I'm explaining the problem in everyday language.


What I usually do is take photos with my Canon IXUS 80IS, then I put the

SD card in my Macbook Pro and I copy the photos to my photo folder in Finder, then drag them to the Photos app in order to tweak them. But when they're copied in Finder, the date is the one I'm

copying, not the date the photos were taken. I tried Date

added, Date modified, Get info, everything I could think of, it's always

the transfer date which appears.

Would you have any idea of what I could do so the date appearing in

Finder is the date I took the photo? And hopefully, therefore in Photos, Get Info etc too.

With many thanks.

MacBook Pro 13″, macOS 10.15

Posted on Sep 1, 2021 6:43 AM

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9 replies

Sep 1, 2021 9:36 AM in response to Marilou0121

There are two different types of metadata, that for the file itself and one for the photo in the file.


The Finder only reads the file's metadata and that can change when it's copied, moved between volumes, etc. The photos' metadata, EXIF metadata, is embedded within the file itself and can only be read by apps that can read EXIF fields in a file. Photos and Preview are two that can.


You might find an app that can put the EXIF capture date into the file's creation date field but it probably would be changed then next time it's moved to another volume, etc.


You would be best served putting the creation date into the file name with a 3rd party file remaining app like Name Mangler. When I was very active as the family photographer I would download everything I took each day into a folder and renamed the files with the date and a brief description of the event.



Then I can sort by date by sorting alphanumerically. A little effort up front saves a lot of problems down the line.


Sep 1, 2021 10:49 PM in response to Marilou0121

> what I could do so the date appearing in Finder is the date I took the photo


Use some 3rd party app like GraphicConverter to copy the EXIF date (if it exists *) to the file Creation & Modification date (and also to the filename as 2021-0902-0848-02.jpg for example).


* Some sites like WhatsApp and Facebook strip metadata from the images and movies and it is a pain to guess and put it back if one wants to archive such files with correct dates.

PHOTOS DATE

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