Mac Photos ignoring Time Zone in photos from non-Apple camera

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Level 1

12 points

Mac Photos ignoring Time Zone in photos from non-Apple camera

When I import photos from my Sony camera, they appear out of order in Photos. I traced the problem down, and found that Photos is ignoring the Time Zone stored in the photos' metadata.

On vacation, I always set the time zone on my camera to the local time zone (Ireland in this case).

When I import into Photos, the pictures from the Sony camera are out of order.

Looking at "Info" of the photo, the Photos app says it is in my home time zone (pacific time).

I look at the photo metadata and the time zone IS there:

Create Date : 2023:05:23 18:05:55+01:00

Date/Time Original : 2023:05:23 18:05:55+01:00

Modify Date : 2023:05:23 18:05:55+01:00

But the Photos app says the photo was taken at 18:05 Pacific time

This is the same problem as discussed in this (locked) discussion from 3 years ago:

Mac Photos changes time and time zones ta… - Apple Community

This appears to be a bug because the photo metadata has the correct time zone.

My workarounds are to set my Mac to the vacation time zone when importing, or manually adjust them after importing.

Please fix this Apple!

iMac, macOS 10.13

Posted on Jun 17, 2023 6:54 AM

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Answer 1

Jun 18, 2023 2:53 AM in response to curt0048

Thanks for the tip! I tested this by first deleting all internal metadata from a .jpg and .mp4, m4v and .mov. I.e. leaving only file creation date where Photos.app gets the date as a last resort.

I duplicated those files and gradually added more metadata and checked macOS 13.4 Photos.app Image > Adjust Date and Time... dialog:

- An image or a movie without internal metadata, or with added ExifIFD:DateTimeOriginal or QuickTime:CreateDate display the computer timezone (seems to be always shown with the computer's current DST no matter if the date is winter or summer):

If I add New York City GPS, then its timezone is displayed:

If I add ExifIFD:Offset*=-07:00, or Keys:CreationDate=2000:06:01 12:00:00-07:00 then that timezone is displayed (GPS is still in New York):

IPTC/XMP dates do not usually matter, but some apps display wrong date if "IPTCDigest is not current". With such images macOS 12.4 Monterey apps like Photos.app 7.0, Preview.app and Finder preview erroneously grab the date from 'IPTC:DateCreated' & 'IPTC:TimeCreated' instead using 'ExifIFD:DateTimeOriginal' (luckily usually those dates are the same). Or display time as "0.00", root of that problem was that 'IPTC:DateCreated' was missing its 'IPTC:TimeCreated' counterpart or missing time in 'XMP-photoshop:DateCreated' if "IPTCDigest is not current". I fixed those errors with exiftool.

I have seen .jpg sorted incorrectly because in some images the iOS device managed to grab GPS:GPSTimeStamp in somewhat different time compared to the actual time (after going from indoors to outdoors, for example).

Before Ventura it was possible to modify the Times > Medium format so Photos.app handily showed the timezone in its Get Info dialog:

This dialog is no longer in Ventura (timezone dragged to the Medium format). There are some Terminal commands that do somewhat the same, though.

p.s. I usually check the dates with:

exiftool -a -G1 -s -fileOrder5 FileName -api QuickTimeUTC=1 -Time:All -api LargeFileSupport=1 .

exiftool -a -G1 -s -fileOrder5 FileName -api QuickTimeUTC=1 -Time:All -api RequestAll=2 -api LargeFileSupport=1 .

and Locations:

exiftool -a -G1 -s -n -ee -Location:All -api LargeFileSupport=1 .

or almost all:

exiftool -a -G1 -s -n -api QuickTimeUTC=1 -api LargeFileSupport=1 .

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Answer 2

curt0048 Author

Level 1

12 points

Jun 17, 2023 5:13 PM in response to Matti Haveri

Thanks Matti,

The new way to see the timezone in the Photos app is to do "Get Info", then double-click on the time on the info popup. That will cause the "Adjust date and time" window to pop up, showing the time zone it thinks the photo is in.

Unfortunately there are multiple date/time fields in image metadata, some in EXIF, some in IPTC. Some support timezone or offset, and some dont. Apparently Apple does not look at all the fields, or they would see the IPTC fields with the timezone offset that I showed in my original post. It was interesting to see Apples algorithm described in that discussion about image and movie sorting to which you referred. It shows that if they cant find a timezone offset in the limited set of date/time metadata tags they look at, they just use the computer's current timezone. Unfortunately they don't check all the date/time metadata

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Answer 3

Jun 17, 2023 7:09 AM in response to curt0048

Very nice detective work … and developed workaround.

Unfortunately you’re mostly addressing fellow users here (vice Apple).

Apple’s official mechanism to “inject” feedback back into their product development cycle is available here:

Feedback - Photos - Apple

It is unfortunately a diode-like (one way) system; you’ll probably not receive any meaningful reply much less an “attaboy” … even if an improvement is obvious and soon-adopted.

Given the billion or so Apple users, this is somewhat understandable; albeit “enthusiasm deflating” to the submitter.

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Answer 4

Jun 17, 2023 10:16 AM in response to curt0048

...hmm timezones, local times, UTC times, DST, locations, and computer timezones is a hot mess...

AFAIR pre-Ventura allowed users to display timezone in Photos.app info. But no more.

...are you sure you are not looking at your computer's timezone setting -- not the image's timezone?

Just one fly in the ointment is that some images have only local time:

[ExifIFD] DateTimeOriginal : 2013:10:14 16:08:05

But the image might have an additional OffsetTime which affects how Photos.app sorts the image:

[ExifIFD] OffsetTimeOriginal : -07:00

See also:

Photos image and movie sorting - Apple Community

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Answer 5

curt0048 Author

Level 1

12 points

Jun 17, 2023 5:32 PM in response to curt0048

P.S. here are all the date/time metadata fields in my photo for which the Photos app did not set the time zone correctly:

[EXIF]          Modify Date                     : 2023:05:23 18:05:55
[EXIF]          Date/Time Original              : 2023:05:23 18:05:55
[EXIF]          Create Date                     : 2023:05:23 18:05:55
[EXIF]          Offset Time                     : +01:00
[EXIF]          Offset Time Original            : +01:00
[EXIF]          Offset Time Digitized           : +01:00
[Composite]     Create Date                     : 2023:05:23 18:05:55+01:00
[Composite]     Date/Time Original              : 2023:05:23 18:05:55+01:00
[Composite]     Modify Date                     : 2023:05:23 18:05:55+01:00

Seems to me like it has plenty of time zone offset information. The Photos App should have been able to get it right.

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Answer 6

Jun 18, 2023 11:57 AM in response to Matti Haveri

> I have seen .jpg sorted incorrectly because in some images the iOS device managed to grab GPS:GPSTimeStamp in somewhat different time compared to the actual time

It seems GPS:GPSTimeStamp does not affect macOS 13.4 Photos.app sorting. The following four otherwise identical .jpg are sorted at the same spot:

[ExifIFD] DateTimeOriginal : 2000:06:01 12:00:00

[GPS] GPSTimeStamp : 05:00:00

[ExifIFD] DateTimeOriginal : 2000:06:01 12:00:00

[GPS] GPSTimeStamp : 12:00:00

[ExifIFD] DateTimeOriginal : 2000:06:01 12:00:00

[GPS] GPSTimeStamp : 19:00:00

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Answer 7

curt0048 Author

Level 1

12 points

Jun 17, 2023 9:59 AM in response to Chattanoogan

Thanks for the feedback link! I just submitted this info as feedback.

I hoped that Apple monitors these discussions, watching popular topics and "Me too" clicks. Maybe not :(

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Mac Photos ignoring Time Zone in photos from non-Apple camera

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