Bulk Change Date/Time EXIF Data in Folder of Images

I have struggled with a similar issue. The best solution I have found is an app HoudahGeo (houdah.com) that I use to add GPS data to photos. But it also has a separate functionality to update creation date stamp and/or IPTC data. The creation date has a specific format of date and time. I have experimented with creating a text file with the dates in the appropriate format and then do an individual copy and paste into the selected image data date field. You can select as many image files as you wish into the app and then step through each one.

The app costs $39 but it does have a free trial period. Support has been excellent.

It will update the file or access your Photos library. It would make sense to experiment on a copy of your scans. That would include adding the modified file to a test Photos library.

I was searching for something else, but came across this neat script by Léonie that could be helpful. See https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-250000327 . It looks like you could modify the increment via a file to be the difference in times between each image rather than a fixed one minute. I am not at all skilled in AppleScript, so perhaps someone can help you with that.

I am adjusting the dates after importing the scanned images to Photos by running an Apple Script.

What I am doing is to arrange photos that have been taken at the same day in a top level album, drag them manually into a reasonable order, then adjust the date and time manually for the first photo in the album with "Image > Adjust date and Time".

Then I select all photos in the album and run the script to lift and stamp the metadata from the first photo to all other selected photos, with a time increment of one minute between successive images.

• This script will just adjust the date and time for all selected photos in the album: Script: Batch Change the Date and Time to a Fixed Date
• This script will copy the locations and titles as well: Script: Lift and Stamp all Metadata from one Photo to All Other Selected Photos

Perhaps you can adjust the Apple Scripts to get the date and time from you file instead of stepping the date automatically.

GraphicConverter has many options to set EXIF dates and other metadata (GPS, captions, keywords) to images and lately also to movies. I often use it to set EXIF date to images in certain timed intervals. It can also set EXIF dates based on file creation/ modification dates or filenames like YYYYMMDD-hhmm-ss etc.