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I see there are a number of convoluted ways to work around Apple taking the easy way out with by changing the original creation date on photos, but it seems it would save individual users a lot of tediously going through each photo to recapture the original creation date if Apple could establish an option for maintaining the original date.
iMac 24″, macOS 15.0
Where are you seeing this changed Creation Date? In the Finder? If so that's the problem because there are two types of metadata: that of the image and that of the image file.
The image capture date can be seen in the finder if you're in the as Columns view:
The EXIF metadata is added to the image by the camera and does not change unless it's removed for privacy reasons somehow.
How did you create the folder with the photos on your Mac?
Apple has already changed the way the file creation date is handled in Photo 10 on macOS 15 Sequoia.
When I now export an image file from Photos, either the original version or the edited version, the file creation date is the "date taken" assigned by the camera or assigned by us in Photos.
There is one unfortunate glitch, however. All photos, where we have assigned a capture date from before January 1, 1970, for example old scanned family photos, will be exported with the same file creation date January 1, 1970.
For example, this is a scan of an old photo from July 1967:
All my scans with capture dates from before 1970 are now exported with the identical file creation date.
But it is fine fore photos taken with a digital camera after 1970.
There has been a short time on macOS 14 Sonoma, when my exported image files have shown file creation dates before 1970, Matti.
I even wrote a user tip in the German communities (in German), because I loved it: Neu in macOS 14.4 Sonoma - Beim Exportier… - Apple Community
See the screenshot showing exported originals - the second file has a creation date 1791 - the date I assigned in Photos as a capture date for the scanned document; on Sonoma macOS 14.4 all my exported images had file creation dates matching the capture date, even for years from long before 1970.
Below are about the earliest file creation and modification dates I could set in macOS Sequoia 15.
Usually such pre-1970 file dates dates are reverted to some weird future date after a reboot but now when I tried they were not reset at least yet.
Photos supports internal metadata image EXIF and movie QuickTime Keys:CreationDate metadata dates down to year 0001. Movie QuickTime:CreateDate is supported down to year ≈1904.
Unix time begins at 1970 GMT/UTC so Unix timestamp 0 corresponds to Thursday, January 1, 1970 12:00:00 AM GMT.
https://www.epochconverter.com/
Your suggestion worked to a point. What happened was the photos got arranged in the correct (or very close) sequence, but the column was labeled modified and all the photos had a time assigned that was different for some, or the same for a group of photos. So thanks for the tip, at least the photos were sorted.
But it would be even better if Apple could fix it so the actual creation dates were used.
I know, but it is not very convenient when Apple is changing the file creation date of old scans to 1970, just because the capture is before the first file creation date and giving most of my exported image files the same file creation date. In that case the original file creation date should be preserved on export (the date the image has been scanned) and not changed to a wrong, useless version of the assigned capture date. When I first tested the export of old scans on Sequoia Photos created very file creation dates even before 1900, but Apple stopped doing this.
file creation dates even before 1900, but Apple stopped doing this.
I think this has always been the case.
FileCreateDate 1970:01:01 00:00:00 UTC is the earliest date macOS or UNIX related OSs support. Some apps like GraphicConverter might temporarily set it to an earlier date in Finder dates but usually after a reboot it is changed to some weird future date. And backup applications often needlessly re-backup such pre-1970 images.
The earliest FileModifyDate seems to be something like 1677:09:21 01:52:33+01:40 (the exact time might depend on your location and timezone).
So, my latest attempt to get original creation dates assigned to a batch of 55 photos ended up with about 1/3 of them near the bottom of the list suddenly showing the correct date. I have no idea how only part of the batch was changed.
léonie wrote: … All photos, where we have assigned a capture date from before January 1, 1970, for example old scanned family photos, will be exported with the same file creation date January 1, 1970.
Good Grief-- that's awful!
I thought that changing the original file's "scanned date" to the adjusted date (which contradicted the "original" moniker) was wrong. Now, apparently, the export isn't either one. Wow!
I have been scanning so many old family pictures that I have been putting the date in the title, and I sort by that. Of course, that doesn't work on an iPhone.
"I have been scanning so many old family pictures that I have been putting the date in the title, and I sort by that. Of course, that doesn't work on an iPhone."
That is a nice workflow, Richard. I want to keep the title field for some other information, useful below the thumbnails. And want the old photos and documents sorted automatically into the Years and Months in Photos, so I have changed the capture dates in Photos. When I export them from Photos I am using the folder naming scheme "Moment name". So the enclosing folders will automatically show the correct date and location.
Send Apple feedback:
There were no file dates before unix.
Keep Original Creation Date on Photos
