Effect of GPS on Apple photos sorting by date

Question

Level 1

4 points

Effect of GPS on Apple photos sorting by date

In sorting through photos taken in Tasmania a few years ago, I have seemingly found a disquieting problem. My Sony camera has onboard GPS which takes a few minutes to acquire the coordinates. On photos taken on 1 January 2015 I find that when the GPS has acquired, Photos resolutely sorts the photos - when using the Smart Album option - into 31 December of 2014. But when the GPS has not been acquired, Photos sorts it into the correct 2015 file. The EXIF data on the photos show the capture time as 1 January in all photos.

It is almost like Photos recognises that most of the photos in the library use GMT -7 and converts the time from Eastern Australia time to Mountain time.

The issue seems to be only with the Smart Album option. In the Library in which all photos are stored, the photos are stored in the correct order.

Any thoughts? Where have I blundered?

MacBook Air 11″, macOS 10.12

Posted on Jan 9, 2024 9:09 AM

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Answer 1

Jan 9, 2024 11:12 AM in response to reiseviaje

1. Image's internal metadata 'ExifIFD:DateTimeOriginal' sets the date and time.

If present, the following internal metadata tags might affect sorting up to ±12 hours if they happen to be present in some image:

2. 'GPS' location sets the time zone.

3. If 'ExifIFD:OffsetTimeOriginal' exists, it overrides all other time zone tags above.

More details at:

Movie dates and Photos.app - Apple Community

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Answer 2

Jan 9, 2024 9:19 AM in response to reiseviaje

Are all the wrong dates off by the same amount? If so, you can select only the wrong ones--since they differ by so much, you should be able to separate them fairly easily., Then correct the first in Photos with Image>Adjust Date and Time, and the others will correct by the same amount. I've been confronted by multiple cameras taking pictures of the same event, but with different clocks, and this takes care of it.

Exif stores multiple dates, and Photos gives priority to GPS, I think. Time zones are often a pain!

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Answer 3

reiseviaje Author

Level 1

4 points

Jan 9, 2024 9:11 AM in response to reiseviaje

As an erratum, I am using MacOS 14.2.1 rather than the 10.12 mentioned in the post.

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