My photos aren't sorting by date when taken from different devices

You should collect all the pictures from the camera that is off, maybe using a Smart Album like this:

searching for the camera model and. if necessary, restricting the date to the right range.

Then, if you've determined that they are all off by 1 hour, or 21 minutes or whatever, you select them all, and choose Image>Adjust Date & Time:

It will show the date and time for the first one in the selected images. If you correct the time for this one, then all the others will be corrected by the same amount (and not to the same time.)

Before cameras had GPS, I had to do this with four cameras with different clocks. It could be worse. ( It could be raining…⛈️ )

The problem usually occurs, when you are importing the photos from your cameras, when you are no longer in the timezone where the photos have been taken, for example, when you import them at home, after you return from your trip.

Then Photos.app is making an estimated guess what the timezone has been, that the camera has used when it took the photo.

For example,

• if a photo is tagged with GPS, Photos may interpret the date and timestamp of the photo as having been taken in the timezone of the GPS coordinates.
• If the photo is not tagged with GPS, the Photos.app may use the system time settings of the Mac, where you are importing the photos.

This may be giving strange results, if the iPhone or camera is receiving temporarily no GPS signal, for example in a museum with thick walls.

A few things can help when importing photos from different cameras after returning from a trip to a different timezone:

• set the location of your Mac and the timezone to the timezone, where the photos have been taken, that you are importing.
• separate the photos into smart albums by the camera model.
• separate the photos into smart albums by "tagged with GPS".

You can see the timezone assigned by Photos in the "Image > Adjust Date&Time" Dialog below the map with the timezone strip. The "closest city" will tell you the timezone that is used for the timestamp.

I am always taking my MacBook Air with me, when I am traveling. So I can import photos to my Mac while I am still in the timezone where the photos have been taken. This does not help, if we have crossed a border between timezones and are importing the photos from both sides of the border. Then the photos of one side of the border will be imported in the wrong timezone.

I am taking a photo of my wristwatch when crossing the border. Then I can easily where I have to split the import.

I am forcing Photos to show the timezone suffix for the date and time. That makes it easier to compare dates.

For example, for the photo below the timezone has been set to GMT on import.

Showing the timezone suffix requires to change the time format using the Terminal. Try it only, if you are familiar with shell commands and the Terminal.

defaults write NSGlobalDomain AppleICUTimeFormatStrings -dict-add "2" "HH:mm:ss z"

and to revert back:
defaults delete NSGlobalDomain AppleICUTimeFormatStrings

One common cause for this is that different devices insert different time, time zone or location or no location to the images and movies.

The simplest fix is to force such photos in line by adjusting their time zone or/and time via the Photos date panel.

A more involved fix is to do some sleuthing and find out just what metadata difference might cause it and fix it with 3rd party utilities like GraphicConverter or exiftool to the images and movies before importing them to Photos.

TorontoBeach14 wrote:

I look at the Metadata for the photos, the time is actually correct but they do not go into that date sequence when I try to sort them. For example, one photo can be a 2 pm, then the one after it can have been taken at 12:15 and then the following one reverts the ones taken after the one showing 2 pm.

This can happen if some image has GPS location and the other image does not. Or if some image has time zone offset tag and the other image does not. Or if the time zone offsets differ.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-5wpm-gesOY

There are also more obscure cases. For example Photos might report the correct date but the time is reported as "0.00" even though it is correctly in 'ExifIFD:DateTimeOriginal'. Root of that problem is that 'IPTC:DateCreated' is missing its 'IPTC:TimeCreated' counterpart or a missing time in 'XMP-photoshop:DateCreated' if "IPTCDigest is not current".

Also just what metadata date are you looking at? In your other reply you mention "date taken" which hints you are using Windows. Unfortunately Windows and also macOS might use different name for the exact same date tag. macOS Finder reports EXIF:DateTimeOriginal as "Content Created" while Preview.app (and GraphicConverter) reports it as "Date Time Original" and AFAIR Windows reports it as that "Date Taken". And I have noticed that if that tag is missing from an image, then another tag might be reported with the same label. So those reports might be very misleading and ambiguous.

I regard exiftool as the golden standard when inspecting dates and use the following command to check (almost) all of them in an image or movie:

exiftool -a -G1 -s -api QuickTimeUTC=1 -api RequestTags=FileCreateDate -Time:All image.jpg

Or check all images and movies in a folder ('-fileOrder5 FileName' is needed to sort files by their filename because otherwise in APFS they are sorted in random order):

exiftool -a -G1 -s -fileOrder5 FileName -api QuickTimeUTC=1 -api RequestTags=FileCreateDate -Time:All .

Also 3rd party apps like GraphicConverter can display similar info but not in so neatly arranged and customized format.

See also:

Movie dates and Photos.app - Apple Community

TorontoBeach14 wrote: … So, here is the part that I don't understand with mine. When I look at the photos that are not correctly sequenced by date and I look at the Metadata for the photos, the time is actually correct but they do not go into that date sequence when I try to sort them. … fI hope that I explained that more clearly. But it just doesn't add up me, how and why intermittent photos can be out of sequence when the time stamp on each photo is "correct" but they don't sequence.

As Matti discussed, there are different date formats and date fields in the Exif metadata, and which field is used by different devices is undependable. Time zones are teated differently, for instance, and there are Time fields, Time Zone fields, and Time fields that include the time zone. And sometimes a device doesn't believe the time zone and uses the GPS data to try to figure it out. All kinds of contradictions turn up.

I don't think the cause matters-- you just need to fix it with "Adjust Date and Time." Sometimes just changing the time zone there works, but I wouldn't count on it. Just change the date and time so they agree with the other cameras. Who knows, when the OS changes, or when you change cameras, it may all go haywire.

I use GraphicConverter, but that and other 3rd Party apps should never be used on pictures already imported to the Photos Library. Even if you were to change the metadata of a file, that information has already been copied to the database, and so no change would occur in the Photos display. [ PowerPhotos ($35) is an exception, but it doesn't do dates and times. ]

You're welcome. Good Luck, TorontoBeach14 😊