Modified date when importing photos instead of created date

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Level 1

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Modified date when importing photos instead of created date

Hi!

When I moved from Windows to Mac in 2019 I moved all my files to Mac via an external drive.

At the moment I am importing my old photos into the Photos app. However, it seems that all these photos have the date 16/9/2019. The date that I transferred the photos to my Mac.

Now, when I click on the photos within documents and get their info it says created 16/9/2019 and modified the date the actual photo was taken.

I find it weird that modified in this case is the actual date of the photo and not created. Any how, is there any way to make Photos import the modified date instead of the created date? Have already been manually adjusting 100's of photos but it is too much work.

Or is there any other easy way around it?

Posted on Mar 3, 2022 5:36 AM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

Matti Haveri

Level 6

16,703 points

Mar 3, 2022 7:01 AM in response to Isaura01

The correct date should be in the internal ExifIFD:DateTimeOriginal metadata tag. But sometimes that tag might be missing if some social media (Facebook, WhatsApp etc) has stripped it off.

So check if that is still there (with Preview.app's Get Info, for example). If not, is the correct date in the (quite robust) filename? Or in the (very fragile, as you have found out) FileCreateDate or FileModifyDate? Or maybe in some more obscure IPTC or XMP tag?

If you find the correct date, then you can copy it to all relevant date metadata tags, especially that ExifIFD:DateTimeOriginal with tools like GraphicConverter or exiftool.

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Answer 2

Mar 3, 2022 12:38 PM in response to Isaura01

Hi

If you import the images into the photos app, it will show the date the photo was captured. Finder (eg in documents)_ however uses the file creation date - which in this case is when it was copied. That is when that copy of the file was created.

More info:

You need to distinguish between the file metadata (information about the file) and the image metadata (information about the image in the file)

If you copy a file the copies creation date will normally be set to the date the file was copied. The image metadata inside the file (which you can view in preview with the inspector window, iptc tab) will show the image capture date.

Summary:

The File metadata is kept in the file system, and represents when that copy of the file is created or modified

The image metadata is kept inside the file, as exif and IPTC data. This won't change when you copy / move the file.

(Depending on your system version, if you export unmodified original from photos, you will usually get a file with the same creation date as the image) 

You can also see the two different dates in finder, as shown in the screenshot with finder in column view. This is from an image I exported from photos in july 2019 - so the file has been created and last modified then, but the content creation date is still showing 2011...

However, finder (which is a file manager) can only sort by file dates, not by the photo metadata. You need a photo app for that.

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Answer 3

Isaura01 Author

Level 1

4 points

Mar 3, 2022 1:22 PM in response to TonyCollinet

Thanks for the explanations!

That is the thing tho, I have opened a few pictures and it is only showing created and modified date, not the content created date.

This photo was taken on 6 February 2017, but that date is only shown as modified for some reason. I understand that the creation date, the date is that I copied the pictures to my Mac. However, what you showed in your picture, my pictures do not even include the content created date.

I checked ITPC but there is no details there either. I have checked this for a few pictures, not all tho

Also, when I then import the pictures from Finder to the Photos app it just copies the 16th of August instead of the creation date (which in this case looks like the modified date). Any solution as how to fix that when I import it to the Photos app? Especially since every picture has a different date/time

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Answer 4

Mar 3, 2022 1:25 PM in response to Isaura01

Then those files have had the metadata stripped from them before arriving where they are now.

This is what a fully populated file looks like in the exif info tab:

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Modified date when importing photos instead of created date

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