rugbtt wrote:
Do any of those exif data tools work on apple?
exiftool and GraphicConverter work on the Mac.
WhatsApp stores the date when the image or movie was sent or received (not when it was shot) in its database and you can check that date from there, if possible. I recently had to do this when my son sent me old WhatsApp images. That was clumsy although there were just two dozen images (sadly the filenames provided no clue about those dates).
What kind of filenames do your old WhatsApp images and movies have?
WhatsApp often stores that date also in the filename which depending on its version can vary. As long as the filename contains 14 numbers representing the year month day hour minute second in that order (YYYY-MMDD-hhmm-ss, for example), you can quite easy copy the filename to the internal metadata date (and also the less important file creation and modification dates) en masse with exiftool.
You can do the same also with GraphicConverter although it is more strict about the number and letter pattern so you might have to edit the pattern or use GC "Change filename" dialog.
Filenames like these work with a simple exiftool command:
WhatsApp Image 2001-06-01 at 12.00.00.jpeg
PHOTO-2001-06-01-12-00-00.jpg
WhatsApp Video 2001-06-01 at 12.00.00.mp4
VIDEO-2001-06-01-12-00-00.mp4
VID_20010601_120000.mp4
Copy WhatsApp filename to image metadata:
exiftool -m -overwrite_original -ext jpg -ext jpeg -ext heic -ext png -ext webp '-AllDates<FileName' '-FileCreateDate<FileName' '-FileModifyDate<FileName' .
Copy WhatsApp filename to movie metadata:
exiftool -m -overwrite_original -ext mp4 -ext m4v -ext mov -wm w -api LargeFileSupport=1 -api QuickTimeUTC=1 '-AllDates<FileName' '-Track*Date<FileName' '-Media*Date<FileName' '-Keys:CreationDate<FileName' '-FileCreateDate<FileName' '-FileModifyDate<FileName' .
This assumes that you are in the same time zone as where the movie was shot. If the time zone is different, then set +00:00 to the proper time zone, i.e -04:00, +03:00, etc (for example daylight saving time New York EDT -04:00):
exiftool -m -overwrite_original -ext mp4 -ext m4v -ext mov -wm w -api LargeFileSupport=1 -api QuickTimeUTC=1 -api TimeZone=America/New_York '-AllDates<FileName' '-Track*Date<FileName' '-Media*Date<FileName' '-Keys:CreationDate<FileName' '-FileCreateDate<FileName' '-FileModifyDate<FileName' .
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_tz_database_time_zones
Or more clumsily in Windows which does not support TZ names:
exiftool -m -overwrite_original -ext mp4 -ext m4v -ext mov -wm w -api LargeFileSupport=1 -api QuickTimeUTC=1 '-AllDates<${FileName}-04:00' '-Track*Date<${FileName}-04:00' '-Media*Date<${FileName}-04:00' '-Keys:CreationDate<${FileName}-04:00' '-FileCreateDate<${FileName}-04:00' '-FileModifyDate<${FileName}-04:00' .
Some other name variations that need fine-tuned commands (these commands edit only internal metadata dates, not file dates):
IMG_20010601-WA0074.JPG:
exiftool -m -P -overwrite_original '-AllDates<${FileName;/(\d{8})/ and $_=$1} 00:00:00' .
2001-6-1 MVI_0099 2.jpg:
exiftool -m -P -overwrite_original '-AllDates<${FileName;s/MVI.*$//i} 00:00:00' .
2001-06-01-999.jpg:
exiftool -m -P -overwrite_original '-AllDates<${Filename;m/(\d{4}-\d\d-\d\d)/;$_=$1} 00:00:00' .
