why does Photos change the date a picture is taken?

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why does Photos change the date a picture is taken?

I was trying to move images from an Android phone to my iMac today. The USB only worked with Photos as the go between. I discovered that Photos has been changing meta data on a regular basis - in particular the date the image was taken on the Android.

why should this be happening with the user’s consent? The date of the image is important if it is to be used as evidence.
how can I avoid this?

the method of transfer out of Photos into a separate folder is to use “Export to…. “ It gives you a choice of either modified or un-modified image transfer. Both methods produce a modified image.

iMac 27″, macOS 10.13

Posted on Sep 19, 2021 8:20 AM

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Answer 1

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DavJam Author

Level 1

29 points

Sep 20, 2021 10:20 AM in response to DavJam

In reply to all the contributors so far....thanks.

I have now spent some considerable time running round in circles! It looks as though the culprit in the process I was using was in fact a dodgy bit of programming in the Android File Transfer app. What appears to be happening is that this app sometimes changes both the file creation date and the modified dates - at random AND it affects the Exif date as well. It tends to happen more if there are many files being dragged and dropped, but can occasionally happen with just one file.

On top of this Photos sometimes corrupts files when exported (usually reducing the size to a thumbnail) and on other occasions doesn't allow drag and drop. In Export the choice of modified or un-modified is irrelevant - it produces the same dates either way. I've stopped using Photos for anything important! What I usually do is save the phone shots to a folder in "pictures" that is named by place/date. So I don't need Photos.

Thanks

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Answer 2

Sep 19, 2021 8:45 AM in response to DavJam

Hi

You need to distinguish between the file metadata (information about the file) and the image metadata (information about the image in the file)

If you copy a file the copies creation date will normally be set to the date the file was copied. The image metadata inside the file (which you can view in preview with the inspector window, iptc tab) will show the image capture date.

Summary:

The File metadata is kept in the file system, and represents when that copy of the file is created or modified

The image metadata is kept inside the file, as exif and IPTC data. This won't change when you copy / move the file.

(Depending on your system version, if you export unmodified original from photos, you will usually get a file with the same creation date as the image) 

You can also see the two different dates in finder, as shown in the screenshot with finder in column view. This is from an image I exported from photos in july 2019 - so the file has been created and last modified then, but the content creation date is still showing 2011...

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Answer 3

Yer_Man

Level 10

163,764 points

Sep 19, 2021 8:35 AM in response to DavJam

Photos gets the date from the Exif metadata in the image. If the date is incorrect or absent then other things are at play. Photos doesn't change the date. Where are you seeing these dats reported? What's your actual workflow?

There are apps which will move material from Android devices. Have you tried Image Capture (in the Applications Folder)? There are also third party apps like Android File Transfer.

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Answer 4

Sep 19, 2021 8:44 AM in response to DavJam

Obviously you are looking at the not-so-important file creation or modification date which is often modified when transferring files.

You can look at the important EXIF metadata date via Finder's Column or Gallery view or by the Show Preview option. Or by opening the image in Preview.app > Show Inspector [cmd-I] > Exif etc.

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Answer 5

Sep 19, 2021 4:56 PM in response to Banco_Solidoli

Looks like a modified date from the original file is being used also for the copy. Ignore file dates. The date you need is in the exif data, and is shown as "content created" in your screenshot. This is the date Photos (and pretty much any other photo management software) will use for sorting.

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Answer 6

Sep 19, 2021 4:27 PM in response to TonyCollinet

Thanks for explanation.

But I have additional question: how come that sometimes I see Created date is after Modified date?

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Answer 7

Sep 19, 2021 8:50 PM in response to TonyCollinet

Got it, thank you.

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why does Photos change the date a picture is taken?

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