Problem in Photos 5: The adjusted date is not correctly embedded in the EXIF when exporting from Photos

by: léonie

Last modified: Dec 23, 2019 8:13 AM

1 998 Last modified Dec 23, 2019 8:13 AM

In the earlier versions of Photos we could easily use Photos to organise old family photos, scanned from slides or paper prints. When we adjusted the photos with "Image > Adjust Date & Time" to set the capture date to the original date taken, the added capture date would be embedded in the EXIF tags, when we export the photo from Photos and we could move it between Photos Libraries by exporting and reimporting.

This used to work:

Adjust the date of a photo with "Image > Adjust Date & Time"
Export the photo with "File > Export > Export ... photos" as a JPEG or TIFF.#
Import the exported version to a new Photos Library.

The photo would still have the corrected date in the other Photos Library.

But since Photos 5.0 the corrected date does no longer stick, when we export a new scanned photo or a screenshot. The photo will be showing the date of the export in Photos or the date, the photo has been scanned. We are now having the same problem for scans as we had for videos all along.

I can still export older scans correctly, but for new scans I have to use my Mac, that is still running Photos 4.0 on Mojave.

As a work-around, I recommend to write the correct date and time into the title of the photo, so it will be saved with the photo. Or export the original (if no adjustments have been applied) with an XPM sidecar file.

The problem does not apply to photos taken with a camera. For photos taken with a digital camera the correct date will still be embedded in the EXIF tags on export, so Photos can recognize it on import into another Photos Library.