How to retrieve the date a photo was taken from iCloud

Check if the correct date is in the image:

a) Open the image in Preview.app > Tools > Show Inspector > "i" icon > Exif tab > "Date Time Original" should show the shooting date ("the date and time when the original image data was generated"):

b) In Finder > View > Show Preview > Show More > "Content created" should show the shooting date (IMHO it should also read "Date Time Original" there):

c) In some 3rd party tool show the dates and check which one is the correct.

The shooting date is 'ExifIFD:DateTimeOriginal' but sometimes the correct date can be in the filename, or in the fragile 'MacOS:FileCreateDate' or 'System:FileModifyDate' or maybe in 'ExifIFD:CreateDate' or maybe in some other date metadata. Many social media sites strip off dates so you must guess the correct date.

exiftool -a -G1 -s -time:all -api RequestAll=2 image.jpg 
[ExifTool]      Now                             : 2022:03:29 10:45:54+03:00
[System]        FileModifyDate                  : 2022:03:29 10:30:09+03:00
[System]        FileAccessDate                  : 2022:03:29 10:45:44+03:00
[System]        FileInodeChangeDate             : 2022:03:29 10:45:43+03:00
[MacOS]         FileCreateDate                  : 2022:03:29 10:30:09+03:00
[MacOS]         MDItemContentCreationDate       : 2001:01:01 12:00:00+02:00
[MacOS]         MDItemContentCreationDate_Ranking: 2001:01:01 02:00:00+02:00
[MacOS]         MDItemContentModificationDate   : 2008:08:08 08:08:08+03:00
[MacOS]         MDItemContentModificationDate_Ranking: 2008:08:08 03:00:00+03:00
[MacOS]         MDItemDateAdded                 : 2022:03:29 10:30:09+03:00
[MacOS]         MDItemDateAdded_Ranking         : 2022:03:29 03:00:00+03:00
[MacOS]         MDItemFSContentChangeDate       : 2022:03:29 10:30:09+03:00
[MacOS]         MDItemFSCreationDate            : 2022:03:29 10:30:09+03:00
[MacOS]         MDItemInterestingDate_Ranking   : 2022:03:29 03:00:00+03:00
[MacOS]         MDItemLastUsedDate              : 2022:03:29 10:31:37+03:00
[MacOS]         MDItemUsedDates                 : 2022:03:29 00:00:00+03:00
[MacOS]         XAttrLastUsedDate               : 2022:03:29 07:31:37
[IFD0]          ModifyDate                      : 2008:08:08 08:08:08
[ExifIFD]       DateTimeOriginal                : 2001:01:01 12:00:00
[ExifIFD]       CreateDate                      : 2008:08:08 08:08:08
[ExifIFD]       SubSecTimeOriginal              : 65
[ExifIFD]       SubSecTimeDigitized             : 65
[ICC-header]    ProfileDateTime                 : 1998:02:09 06:49:00
[XMP-exif]      DateTimeDigitized               : 2008:08:08 08:08:08
[XMP-exif]      DateTimeOriginal                : 2008:08:08 08:08:08
[XMP-photoshop] DateCreated                     : 2008:08:08 08:08:08
[XMP-xmp]       CreateDate                      : 2008:08:08 08:08:08
[XMP-xmp]       MetadataDate                    : 2022:01:04 16:47:15+02:00
[XMP-xmp]       ModifyDate                      : 2008:08:08 08:08:08
[XMP-xmpMM]     HistoryWhen                     : 2022:01:04 00:46:53+02:00, 2022:01:04 15:08:59+02:00
[Composite]     SubSecCreateDate                : 2008:08:08 08:08:08.65
[Composite]     SubSecDateTimeOriginal          : 2001:01:01 12:00:00.65

The file creation date is not necessarily the date the photo has been taken. It is the creation date of that particular copy of the image file. Downloading from iCloud and uploading to iCloud is creating a new file, and this file will have a new creation date.

Why? When you can just as easily get a full download of your photos at iCloud.com? It seems an odd hill to choose to die on.

Oh - and most likely apple are not reading this.

Feedback to apple here:

Product Feedback - Apple

Hi

Here is the Exif data on a file I have just downloaded from iCloud, viewed in Preview. Capature time is present:

How are you downloading? (Using the download button, or right clicking and saving).

How are you viewing the EXIF data?

Adobe bridge is a photo management app.

But yes, technically finder could do it, there is nothing technically to stop it looking in the exif data. It just doesn't. Hang on though - it might be possible to do a search based on it....

Edit - yes you *can* use an advanced spotlight search. Not sure if this will do what you want, but here are a couple of examples...

Or a range

> Adobe Bridge can filter by creation date. Shouldn't finder be able to do it as well?

Finder can list files also by 'Date Created' -- just add its column via right-click (a field for EXIF date would indeed be a nice addition although maybe with some CPU overhead):

But I always add the date to most relevant metadata fields so wrong dates are easy to spot. I routinely copy the 'ExifIFD:DateTimeOriginal' also to the filename and file creation & modification dates to all new images.

With GraphicConverter (or exiftool) this is a quick task with its "Rename files based on Exif date" and vice versa "Set Exif date based on filename" -- also the file creation & modification and digitized dates are optionally simultaneously modified. Many other 3rd party tool have similar options.

That is the date the file is created. He needs the date the photo was taken.

Well I can't pretend to know what apples thinking is here - but that is a site primarily intended to cover your "right to know the data apple holds on you" Part of which is your photos. It is not really intended as the user interface for your photos. I'm sure if you were able to ask them they would say they have provided other means to download your original photos.

That is www.iCloud.com or the photos app.

To get the data you want, you can either sync icloud with a library on your mac, and then export from there. Or on iCloud.com you can select all your photos (with CMD-A) or any subset of them (click first, then shift and click last) and download as a single zip file.

Finder can't do it directy. Finder is a file manager, so it looks at data about the file - eg file creation date - which has been created today when you copied it to your hard drive.

One solution is to find an app that can copy the content created date to the file creation date. One such is exif tools, but it is command line based (used in the terminal).

EDIT - I think this is the command you would use in exif tools:

exiftool "-FileModifyDate<DateTimeOriginal" folderpath

where folderpath is the path to the folder containing the images.