You can make a difference in the Apple Support Community!

When you sign up with your Apple Account, you can provide valuable feedback to other community members by upvoting helpful replies and User Tips.

Looks like no one’s replied in a while. To start the conversation again, simply ask a new question.

Photos export unmodified changes photo date and time

I have a series of photos taken on 7th November 2018 in an album in photos. The first photo was taken at 15:44:59. the subsequent photos all have the time later by a few minutes according to when I took them. This information is correct in photos and in the album on my iphone.

When I use File -> Export -> Export unmodified original, all 82 photos are exported onto my mac with the same wrong date and time: Created Thursday 8th November at 17:22.

I asked for the export to use the moment to create the directory on my desktop: this is labelled Paris, 7th November 2018, which is correct.

I don't understand where this wrong date and time come from or how to stop the export screwing up the information

Windows, Windows 6

Posted on Aug 22, 2023 10:35 AM

Reply
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Aug 23, 2023 6:38 AM

When you export photo from Photos, Photos will create a a new file, and this new file may have the file creation date the photo has been downloaded from iCloud or imported to Photos, when exporting as "unmodified original". The original capture date, when the photo has been taken, as set by the camera, will still be embedded in the EXIF tags of the exported image file, so the original capture date will not be lost. It is just not necessarily the file creation date of the exported image file.

Have you been using iCloud Photos to transfer the files? The download from iCloud is changing the file creation dates in Photos.



Similar questions

4 replies
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Aug 23, 2023 6:38 AM in response to phild91

When you export photo from Photos, Photos will create a a new file, and this new file may have the file creation date the photo has been downloaded from iCloud or imported to Photos, when exporting as "unmodified original". The original capture date, when the photo has been taken, as set by the camera, will still be embedded in the EXIF tags of the exported image file, so the original capture date will not be lost. It is just not necessarily the file creation date of the exported image file.

Have you been using iCloud Photos to transfer the files? The download from iCloud is changing the file creation dates in Photos.



Aug 23, 2023 8:02 AM in response to léonie

Thanks for your reply. Yes, I performed some experiments and it seems that Photos on the mac puts on the file the date and time that it downloaded the photo from icloud photos as part of the synchronisation process. I'm not sure why anyone would want to know that rather than the original file creation date in the iphone camera.

Photos export unmodified changes photo date and time

Welcome to Apple Support Community
A forum where Apple customers help each other with their products. Get started with your Apple Account.