Why does the Export of a WhatsApp Picture (which was send to me) from the Photos App does not Export the Date and Time which is shown in the Photos App Metadata/ EXIF data (which is the time I received it)?

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Why does the Export of a WhatsApp Picture (which was send to me) from the Photos App does not Export the Date and Time which is shown in the Photos App Metadata/ EXIF data (which is the time I received it)?

When I want to Export a Picture from the Photos app, which was send to me via WhatsApp it does not Export the Date and Time which is shown to me in the Photos app.

The Date of the Example picture is shown in the photos app as 6. February 2022 at 16:54:47, which is also the Date and Time I received the Picture on WhatsApp.

When I Export the Picture, no matter if 'normal' or as 'unmodified original' export it does not show this date at all and the Creation or Modification Date shows some other seemingly random date (7.November 2022).

Pictures of one Example Export is attached.

Addition: When I Export a Picture from the WhatsApp Album which I took and send to someone I do not have this problem.

I'm really thankful for any help because I don't know how I can solve this problem!!

Elias

Screenshot of Picture in the Photos App:

Screenshots in Preview of the Picture after I Exported the Picture:

MacBook Pro 14″, macOS 13.2

Posted on Feb 8, 2023 9:52 AM

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Answer 1

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Elias981 Author

Level 1

4 points

Feb 11, 2023 12:03 AM in response to Elias981

Hi all,

I solved it and probably made a mistake when trying it.

When exporting the Picture as unmodified original it did not export the Date and Time displayed.

Now I did a normal export, wich created EXIF data with the displayed time in the photos app.

Sorry for the trouble. Happy Weekend :)

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Answer 2

Feb 8, 2023 10:50 AM in response to Elias981

In my experience social media apps like WhatsApp, Facebook, Youtube etc strip metadata like dates, locations etc from the images and movies. So I insert them to the files with 3rd party tools like GraphicConverter before importing to Photos library (you can also do that in Photos). AFAIR usually WhatsApp images have date in their filenames so I copy it from there to the internal metadata. Or check the phone when I received the images and guess when it was actually taken and insert that date (sometimes I get the same image via different routes and end up with duplicates and have some headache deciding which one I consider the "original" and a keeper).

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Answer 3

Elias981 Author

Level 1

4 points

Feb 9, 2023 9:42 AM in response to Matti Haveri

Hi Matti,

thanks for your reply!

I am familiar that apps like WhatsApp strip the metadata as well as mess with the Image quality and such, which is annoying but one has to live with it.

The problem is that I already have them in photos and they are a lot so I actually want to bypass changing date and time for every single one. (even if date and time are not corresponding to when the picture was actually taken).

I don't understand why it shows the right time in the photos app but is not able to export it properly, and if it is possible how it's done.

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Answer 4

Feb 10, 2023 8:02 AM in response to Elias981

Try File>Export>Export Unmodified Original and see if that does what you want. It should show the original date of the picture. Pictures exported with File>Export>Export nn Photos will have the date they are exported.

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Why does the Export of a WhatsApp Picture (which was send to me) from the Photos App does not Export the Date and Time which is shown in the Photos App Metadata/ EXIF data (which is the time I received it)?

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