iphone / mac photo sync incorrect date

That works for me. But I don't quite use your Photos-only workflow.

Instead, I import images and movies from iPhone via Applications/Image Capture to Finder folders. Then I edit or add dates, locations, Captions, Keywords etc with GraphicConverter or exiftool so all that metadata goes to the images and movies themselves instead to Photos database. THEN I import the images and movies to Mac Photos which then imports the metadata to its database (I make sure to use compatible metadata tags) and then sync them to iPhone or iPad.

I don't 100% trust Apple/Google Photos etc databases because both have old bugs and limitations. Instead, I prefer to more robustly edit and add metadata to the files so it then travels with them.

I think the what you've found is that transferring pictures from a computer to an iPhone by cable isn't and never was synchronizing (in spite of Apple using the word "sync" without any real definition.) Transfer with AirDrop is much better, though it doesn't do albums and folders.

If you want true synchronization, then that's what Apple made iCloud Photos for. Cable transfer isn't that. While I have no idea about Apple's plans, it looks to me like they aren't interested in beefing up cable transfers since they've provided iCloud synchronization.

Photos is a non-destructive editor. The Original picture file is never changed. When you change a date, you are not changing the picture, but rather you are adding information to a database, and that's what's displayed. Changing a date on a picture doesn't change the Original file. So, when you export a picture in Mac Photos, at iCloud.com, or Share in iOS, you're given the choice of exporting the Unmodified Original or the Edited version. I'm not sure you get a choice in cable transfer, but if you are, you should choose the edited version.

Can your Mac be upgraded beyond Ventura?

Starting with macOS Sequoia we can change the file creation date on export from Photos for Mac.

When I now "Adjust Date&Time" in Photos for Mac, then use "File > Export" to export the modified version, the exported file will show in the Finder the corrected date as the file creation date and the content created date. And exiftool is showing this for the exported file (I adjusted the date to Christmas 1973)

exiftool ~/Desktop/Heiligabend\,\ 24.\ Dezember\ 1973/img213.jpeg | grep Date

File Modification Date/Time     : 2025:10:29 09:44:10+01:00

File Access Date/Time           : 2025:10:29 09:50:13+01:00

File Inode Change Date/Time     : 2025:10:29 09:50:11+01:00

Modify Date                     : 1973:12:24 16:26:53

Date/Time Original              : 1973:12:24 16:26:53

Create Date                     : 1973:12:24 16:26:53

GPS Date Stamp                  : 2016:06:14

Date Created                    : 1973:12:24 16:26:53+01:00

Create Date                     : 1973:12:24 16:26:53.000+01:00

Date/Time Original              : 1973:12:24 16:26:53.000+01:00

Modify Date                     : 1973:12:24 16:26:53.000+01:00

GPS Date/Time                   : 2016:06:14 08:00:46Z

One caution - on macOS 26 Tahoe, the dates for exported files will all be 1970, if we adjust the date &time to a year before 1970. So it will not work for very old family scans.

But I don't need third-party apps to correct the creation date for exported files any longer since Sequoia.

Mark, you are right, the manual syncing is great, if we just want to view our photos on the iPhone or iPad, and Apple should fix the bugs. It has the advantage, that we can transfer just a manually selected subset of our photos and videos. This is not possible with iCloud Photos. The syncing with iCloud Photos is all or nothing.

Tere is one problem however - I stopped to use the manual syncing a long time ago, because I had always problems with duplicate images. Whenever I edited a synced photo on my iPad, it has been saved as a new photo on the iPad and synced back as a new photo to my Mac, and I had two versions there, one with a good resolution, one with a poorer resolution, and I had to take care not to delete the better version. The hand-off and full syncing of iCloud Photos has made things easier, if only the iCloud syncing were faster and more reliable. It helps to avoid "optimize storage", so we will always have access to all photos, even without internet connection.

appletastic45 wrote:

wrt the tools for converting the metadata, the ones you mention are the paid for ones in the app store or other ?

GraphicConverter is $39.95 / €34.95. exiftool is free (the developer accepts donations but does not insist getting them) but you need basic Terminal skills and there is some learning curve.

I use GraphicConverter for almost every metadata edit (it uses exiftool under the hood), and exiftool for some custom things where there is no GUI in GraphicConverter.

https://www.lemkesoft.de/en/products/graphicconverter/

https://exiftool.org/

Manual syncing always seemed really awkward to me, possibly because I didn't (don't) understand it. I expect it to work like you're moving stuff to a drive, just popping things in and out-- but the Photos database can't work that way. (It would be great if PowerPhotos showed a Phone's Library!) So I think it will always be awkward.

Doing partial syncing with iCloud and iDevices is pretty much solved by using a separate Mac Library, or by using a a Shared Library.

The slow syncing of iCloud is hard to fathom-- it's often quite fast, nearly AirDrop fast. But adding 30 pictures in an album can take hours. That's hard to fathom, since all the checks have already been made by the Mac. Maybe that can get fixed.

"Doing partial syncing with iCloud and iDevices is pretty much solved by using a separate Mac Library, or by using a a Shared Library."

That is what I am doing too, Richard, but it is a bit limiting. All photos we need to use together for any project we want to be able to do should be in the same library, and this library has to be the System Library, so we can access it in the Media Browser from other apps. The iCloud Photos Library also needs to be the System Photos Library. If we want to use our iCloud Photos Library just for syncing a few selected albums, the iCloud Photos Library will not suffice as our main working library. We would continually have to switch the System Photos Library status between our larger, main working library and the iCloud Photos Library with selected albums. That is not feasible - so my main working library on my Mac is also my iCloud Photos Library for syncing to all other devices, and it keeps growing over the years. Initially I managed to keep the library size small, below 50000 items, but by now it has grown and a size of 80000 items with all unfinished projects in it.

My iCloud Library is still only a selection of my photos. I am keeping an archive of all photos on external disks, with many separate libraries for each year and major photo shooting event, but I need a System Photos Library with photos and videos from many years.

The Shared Library is technically a part of our iCloud Photos Library. When we set up a Shared iCloud Photos Library, we are splitting our iCloud Photos Library into two sections, a shared part and our personal part, but both will sync with iCloud Photos Library to all our devices. We are free to display only the Shared Library or the personal library on our mobile devices and to switch freely between them, but both libraries will take up storage on the them.

Yeah-- switching System Libraries is asking for trouble-- you'd have to turn iCloud (or wifi) off before switching there and back again.

I have a Nikon Library that is the first place "Photography" pictures go, and that's where I curate them. Then I copy them to the Favorites Library that's the System Library. So I have two copies of the best ones. But if I see something in Favorites I want to fix, then the archival version becomes different from the Favorite version. This applies to other archival Libraries, so I now have different versions of all these pictures. I'm not quite sure where the "standard" version resides. The Shared Library sounds like a solution for this, but I'm not sure. I'm a slow adopter-- still using OS15.

I tend to not use the System Library for other projects, but instead I export pictures and fiddle with cropping and one-time details in GraphicConverter.

Usually I am doing all my editing and organizing on my Mac as well, but occasionally I am away from my Mac and have only my iPad or iPhone with me, not even my MacBook Air. Sometimes someone is asking me for a copy of some photo when I am away from all Macs, and then I am editing the photo on my mobile devices, straighten the horizon etc., because I do not want to share a photo that needs editing. So there are just a few duplicates in the import, but hard to track down. I had a similar problem with My Photo Stream, when I used it to transfer new photos between my Macs and other devices.

None of the syncing methods offered by Apple is already perfect, but for my workflow iCloud Photos is a huge improvement over the manual syncing. It is working well, seamlessly and automatically on all my platforms (only my old MacBook G4 from 2005 is left out), independent of the system version, preserving the lossless workflow, with the added bonus of an offsite storage of my most important photos.

I would call iCloud Photos perfect, if only my iPad and iPhone could show the smart albums and the keywords and the titles as well. iCloud Photos is syncing these important items, but the iPad and iPhone cannot show them.