iPhone photo metadata, what does this mean?

Just wondering if someone could tell me what this means .. I have a few questions when some one sends a photo and instead of the IMG and photo number it gives me all this long combinations of letters and numbers


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iPhone 8

Posted on May 4, 2024 12:08 PM

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on May 4, 2024 12:51 PM

Do you mean the cryptic line to the right of the cloud icon with the checkmark?

The "long combinations of letters and numbers" is a unique filename. Photos is changing the filenames internally, when it is storing our photos, so each file has a different, unique name in hexadecimal numbers. You should not be seeing this name, however. Photos is using these unique identifiers only internally, and Photos is usually showing us the original names assigned by the camera. When we are seeing the internal names is ether an indication that something went wrong, and Photos has recovered a file that has lost the connection to its current version, or an external editor as managed the filenames incorrectly. Sometimes I am seeing these strange filenames also for photos imported from Shared albums.

You may want to check, if the photo in question is a duplicate of a photo that is still having its original filename. Then you can delete the version with the strange filename.




6 replies
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

May 4, 2024 12:51 PM in response to Foxy_n_Fun

Do you mean the cryptic line to the right of the cloud icon with the checkmark?

The "long combinations of letters and numbers" is a unique filename. Photos is changing the filenames internally, when it is storing our photos, so each file has a different, unique name in hexadecimal numbers. You should not be seeing this name, however. Photos is using these unique identifiers only internally, and Photos is usually showing us the original names assigned by the camera. When we are seeing the internal names is ether an indication that something went wrong, and Photos has recovered a file that has lost the connection to its current version, or an external editor as managed the filenames incorrectly. Sometimes I am seeing these strange filenames also for photos imported from Shared albums.

You may want to check, if the photo in question is a duplicate of a photo that is still having its original filename. Then you can delete the version with the strange filename.




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iPhone photo metadata, what does this mean?

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