Exporting photos with all metadata

Select the photos in Photos and use the command "File > Export > Export .... photos".

In the Export dialog enable the checkmarks to include the metadata you want. The capture date will always be embedded in the exported photos. The file creation date will be the date you iexported the photos, however.

Using the Subfolder format "Moment Name" makes it easier to organize the exported photos in the Finder. This way all photos taken at the same day at the same place will be grouped together in a folder named by the date and the location.

If you are exporting from your local library just export the unmodified Original. That will keep the EXIF (creation date) and GPS (location) information.

If you also want the Title, Caption and Keywords then export as an edited photo and check these checkboxes:

Remember that the File creation date may changed but the Image Creation date will be embedded in the EXIF fields of the image file. You can check that out but exporting and viewing the image in Preview's Inspector pane.

When you export "File>Export>Export nn Photos" you are exporting a possibly edited picture, so it makes sense that the Finder's file creation date for an image that has been changed will not be the original image creation date.

However, the metadata still includes the picture's creation date. Here is some of the Exif metadata for a picture I took in 2005 but just exported:

The finder will show the "File Modification Date" (in 2023), but Photos still uses the "Date/Time Original" date (2005).

When you are using iCloud Photos, the file creation date will even be changed, if you are exporting the unmodified originals with "File > Export > export unmodified original". The creation will already have been modified by iCloud Photos, as soon as Photos is downloading the file from iCloud.

That image of the Exif metadata for the exported image was from GraphicConverter ($40)-- a program I have used since 1990 (!) which just keeps getting better. You can use it to do bulk manipulations of metadata, like copy the creation date to the file date, generate titles, and so on-- but only on pictures outside of Photos. (Photos keeps that sort of information in its own database, so there are very few 3rd party apps that you can trust with Photos Libraries. ) It does lots of other useful things, as well.

There are other Exif readers available at the App store, some for "free," but, like GraphicConverter, they don't work on pictures inside of Photos.

Thank you, the Subfolder Format "Moment Name" solved it for me.