Ventura Finder Showing My JPG Pics with WRONG Time Zone

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Level 1

143 points

Ventura Finder Showing My JPG Pics with WRONG Time Zone

Ventura 13.4 on a 14" M1 Max MacBook Pro.

Just back from a trip to the UK, and have just now finished transferring all the photos I took on my Canon SX740 point-and-shoot camera, as well as both my and my wife's iPhones, onto my hard drive for initial sorting. All were set to the time zone called "British Summer Time" -- automatically on the iPhones, and manually on my Canon. And while still in the UK, the ones I transferred onto my laptop continued to show that correct UK time zone in the Finder. But now that I'm back in Eastern Daylight time zone, Ventura has decided to suddenly display the timestamp for each picture in its EDT equivalent, i.e. five hours earlier. I do not want this. In fact I couldn't care less what time it was back home when I took a given picture; I only want to see the time of day for the Time Zone I was actually IN when the picture was taken.

I've tried turning all the "Set Time Zone Automatically" options on and off in various combinations, but the Finder still insists on "converting" the correct camera time to EDT. (And it's doing it not just for my Canon, which I manually set to the local time zone, but for images from our iPhones as well!) And unlike earlier OS incarnations, I can't seem to find any "Advanced Time" options to force the Finder to include Time Zone information for individual image files.

Am I really now going to have to use Photos, or some third party app, to manually batch change all my image files so they display in the Finder with their original, correct, timestamp info?

Seems slightly ludicrous -- any suggestions welcome!

MacBook Pro 14″, macOS 13.4

Posted on Sep 13, 2023 3:15 PM

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Answer 1

dialabrain

Level 10

136,385 points

Sep 13, 2023 8:02 PM in response to John Bertram

I may not have explained it well. Open one of the files in Preview. Then choose "Show Inspector" under the Tools menu. The info under the Exif tab should be the original time.

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Answer 2

John Bertram Author

Level 1

143 points

Sep 13, 2023 6:17 PM in response to dialabrain

True, although in this particular case the JPG file recorded by the camera has not been processed, altered or re-saved in any way, just transferred from the memory card (or iPhone) to my hard drive. So that still leaves me scratching my head as to why the Finder shows those files as having been taken/created/recorded at the correct local time of day, but then displays those same files as having been taken/created/recorded five hours earlier when displayed here in the Eastern Time Zone -- in other words, it technically displays the exact same time, but in a different time zone than the one in which the file was first created (taken, recorded, captured, or whatever).

So the question I'm still trying to figure out is: in Ventura, how do I "force" the Finder to display a JPG's creation time in its original Time Zone, not the time zone my laptop happens to be in later on?

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Answer 3

John Bertram Author

Level 1

143 points

Sep 13, 2023 10:36 PM in response to dialabrain

Sample screenshots attached: Either way (via Finder or via Preview) it shows this picture as having been taken at 6:57 am on Aug 28, whereas it was actually taken in the UK at 11:57am (which of course is the same moment as 6:57 here) -- but I want the time to always be expressed in the Time Zone where the picture was taken, NOT "translated" into whatever time zone my laptop happens to be in later on. (And while still in the UK, the Finder did indeed show these JPGs with the correct time as to when they were taken.)

And yes, in Preview, if I take the time to burrow down to the EXIF tab, it does indeed show what I already know: the correct 11:57 timestamp. So I guess another way to phrase my question is this: I already know what time of day the picture was actually taken, but how do I get the Finder to display that same "EXIF time" no matter what time zone my laptop and I happen to be in down the road?

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Answer 4

dialabrain

Level 10

136,385 points

Sep 13, 2023 10:42 PM in response to John Bertram

John Bertram wrote:

And yes, in Preview, if I take the time to burrow down to the EXIF tab, it does indeed show what I already know: the correct 11:57 timestamp. So I guess another way to phrase my question is this: I already know what time of day the picture was actually taken, but how do I get the Finder to display that same "EXIF time" no matter what time zone my laptop and I happen to be in down the road?

I don't know that it can be done. Perhaps someone else knows.

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