Wrong created date on all of my photos

To explain what it's happening: you're seeing the file date and not the photo date.

There are two kinds of metadata involved when you consider jpeg or other image file.

One is the file data. This is what the Finder shows. This tells you nothing about the contents of the file, just the File itself.

The problem with File metadata is that it can easily change as the file is moved from place to place or exported, e-mailed, uploaded etc., and so this is why you're seeing this date.

Photographs have also got both Exif and IPTC metadata. The date and time that your camera snapped the Photograph is recorded in the Exif metadata. Regardless if what the file date says, this is the actual time recorded by the camera.

Photo applications like Photos, Aperture, Lightroom, Picasa, Photoshop etc get their date and time from the Exif metadata.

So, your photo has the correct date, and so does the file, but they are different things. To sort on the Photo date you'll need to use a photo app.

You can simply edit the file date to reflect the Exif date using an app like A Better Finder Attributes

https://www.publicspace.net/ABetterFinderAttributes/index.html

which is really quite good for those who don't speak Terminal...

> to put all of my photos. I had them in various cloud places...and wanted to downlaod them into one place. Only problem...when i did so and got them on my macbook pro. I noticed all...and i mean all, of my created by dates are WAY off

Oh, so many variables. The correct date should be in the ExifIFD:DateTimeOriginal metadata field.

Maybe the original images have lost that date in the cloud service and have only the file create date or otherwise miss the correct date. Sometimes a misbehaving app picks a random metadata date it happens to see first.

I'd put the images to a folder and manually check with some app like GraphicConverter which metadata date (ExifIFD:DateTimeOriginal, file create or modification date etc) seems to be correct and rename the files accordingly and set the ExifIFD:DateTimeOriginal correctly. Sometimes the metadata must be "rebuilt" with GC before some misbehaving app (Photos, Google Photos) gets it right.

Another easy to use tool to replace the file creation or modification date by the capture date is Raw Right Away (http://www.rawrightaway.com)

The primary purpose of the application is to improve the preview of a photo in the Finder. We can see the histogram and many photo specific metadata right in the Finder below the preview. But as an added bonus it is installing two services to copy the capture date to the file creation date, while observing the time zone.

To modify the dates ctrl-click the photo select the installed service:

I also like to use the improved photo specific preview options, particularly when browsing RAW files.

Here is a JPEG example:

Thanks for that handy command, VikingOSX!

jpg images should have the date in ExifIFD:DateTimeOriginal.

QuickTime based movies (mp4, m4v, mov) should have the date in QuickTime:CreateDate. iOS devices override that with Keys:CreationDate in Photos.app.

There are numerous other date tags and when troubleshooting you can use GraphicConverter or exiftool to check and correct them:

Show only the date tags (-time:all), actual tag names (-s), what "family 1 group" they belong to (-G1), duplicate tags (-a) and QuickTime tags with system timezone (-api QuickTimeUTC=1):

exiftool -a -G1 -s -api QuickTimeUTC=1 -time:all .

Show also MacOS:FileCreateDate:

exiftool -a -G1 -s -api QuickTimeUTC=1 -time:all -api RequestAll=2 .

A sample movie from iPhone 4S:

exiftool -a -G1 -s -api QuickTimeUTC=1 -time:all -api RequestAll=2 iphone4s_ios9.3.2.mov                  
[System]        FileModifyDate                  : 2020:01:01 12:00:00+02:00
[MacOS]         FileCreateDate                  : 2020:01:01 12:00:00+02:00
[QuickTime]     CreateDate                      : 2020:01:01 12:00:00+02:00
[Keys]          CreationDate                    : 2020:01:01 12:00:00+02:00

https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-250002750

There is also the free ExifTool (has macOS .dmg installer) to get the DateTimeOriginal in the EXIF data:

exiftool -if '$DateTimeOriginal' -p '$datetimeoriginal,$filename' 2>/dev/null . | sort -t, -k1,19 -n | column  -s, -t

That outputs a two-column listing sorted ascending by DateTimeOriginal and checks if the DateTimeOriginal is in the image before processing it. In this example, I am in the directory (.) with the images, but one can substitute ./ImgFolder instead.

Apple's Image Capture tool will use the EXIF metadata DateTimeOriginal when importing images with it. Otherwise, the Finder asks the operating system to use the current date/time stamp on images copied to the Mac or drivers under Finder control. Just the way a UNIX operating system works.