The timestamp of some externally downloaded photos states 2024 BC. I can't change it any further than the year 1 BC. On the iPhone the photo app simply crashes as soon as I want to edit date and time.
[Re-Titled by Moderator]
MacBook Air, macOS 15.0
With brute force I can move the dates from BC to AD by running an Apple script, that will copy the date from one photo with an AD date to the problematic photo.
I created an album with and added a copy of a photo with a legal date to the album as the first photo. Then the problematic photo as the second photo and selected both photos together.
Now I ran my script from the script editor to copy the date from one photo to all other selected photos:
--------
(* Batch change the time of selected photos all at once
How to use this script:
- Collect all photos you want to set to the same time in an album
- and sort them manually
- Adjust the time of the first of your batch of photos with
"Adjust Date and time" in Photos from the "Image" menu,
even if the time is correct
- Select first the photo with the adjusted date,
- the hold down the Shift key and select all photos you want
to set to the same date and time at once.
- You need to select at least two photos.
- Open this script and run it by pressing the "Run" button.
- The script will copy the date from the first image
and set all photos to the same date,
and step the date by adding the increment
given by the variable timeIncrement.
- The script will return the last date it changed
- if you save this script as an Application
you can add it to the Dock and run it from there
Note - for some photos it may not be possible to change the time,
then running "Adjust date and time" for all photos once may help.
Photos has a bug that displays timezones incorrectly,
so the results may look wrong,
if the photos have been taken in different timezones.
This script has been tested in Photos version 1.0 to 4.0,
with MacOS X 10.10.3 - macOS 10.14.2
© Léonie
*)
set timeIncrement to 1 -- the time increment in minutes
(* select at least 2 images in Photos *)
tell application "Photos"
activate
set imageSel to (get selection)
if (imageSel is {}) or (the length of imageSel < 2) then
error "Please select at least two images."
else
set first_image to item 1 of imageSel
set first_date to (the date of first_image) as date
repeat with i from 2 to count of imageSel
set next_image to item i of imageSel
set next_date to (the date of next_image) as date
set time_difference to (first_date - next_date) ¬
+ ((i - 1) * timeIncrement * minutes)
-- return time_difference -- testing
tell next_image
set the date of next_image to (next_date + time_difference) as date
end tell
end repeat
end if
return "Adjusted the date and time of " & (the length of imageSel) ¬
& " photos. The last date is " & ((the date of next_image) as date)
end tell
With brute force I can move the dates from BC to AD by running an Apple script, that will copy the date from one photo with an AD date to the problematic photo.
I created an album with and added a copy of a photo with a legal date to the album as the first photo. Then the problematic photo as the second photo and selected both photos together.
Now I ran my script from the script editor to copy the date from one photo to all other selected photos:
--------
(* Batch change the time of selected photos all at once
How to use this script:
- Collect all photos you want to set to the same time in an album
- and sort them manually
- Adjust the time of the first of your batch of photos with
"Adjust Date and time" in Photos from the "Image" menu,
even if the time is correct
- Select first the photo with the adjusted date,
- the hold down the Shift key and select all photos you want
to set to the same date and time at once.
- You need to select at least two photos.
- Open this script and run it by pressing the "Run" button.
- The script will copy the date from the first image
and set all photos to the same date,
and step the date by adding the increment
given by the variable timeIncrement.
- The script will return the last date it changed
- if you save this script as an Application
you can add it to the Dock and run it from there
Note - for some photos it may not be possible to change the time,
then running "Adjust date and time" for all photos once may help.
Photos has a bug that displays timezones incorrectly,
so the results may look wrong,
if the photos have been taken in different timezones.
This script has been tested in Photos version 1.0 to 4.0,
with MacOS X 10.10.3 - macOS 10.14.2
© Léonie
*)
set timeIncrement to 1 -- the time increment in minutes
(* select at least 2 images in Photos *)
tell application "Photos"
activate
set imageSel to (get selection)
if (imageSel is {}) or (the length of imageSel < 2) then
error "Please select at least two images."
else
set first_image to item 1 of imageSel
set first_date to (the date of first_image) as date
repeat with i from 2 to count of imageSel
set next_image to item i of imageSel
set next_date to (the date of next_image) as date
set time_difference to (first_date - next_date) ¬
+ ((i - 1) * timeIncrement * minutes)
-- return time_difference -- testing
tell next_image
set the date of next_image to (next_date + time_difference) as date
end tell
end repeat
end if
return "Adjusted the date and time of " & (the length of imageSel) ¬
& " photos. The last date is " & ((the date of next_image) as date)
end tell
What was the "externally downloaded" site? Maybe some social media site that deleted metadata dates so Photos might have grabbed some weird file date instead? Can you put a sample image to some cloud service (the link might be deleted by the moderators but subscribed users can get it via mail)?
Paul, I tried to download the shared photo and check it in Photos for Mac:
When I try to save it directly to Photos, the import never finishes. And the date is 2. April 1.
But when I save the JPEG to a folder and open it in Preview, the dates seem to be reasonable.
In Photos for Mac:
In Preview:
When I run exiftool on the saved file in the Terminal, it will show this:
exiftool ~/Downloads/IMG_5942.JPEG | grep Date
File Modification Date/Time : 2024:11:04 11:36:28+01:00
File Access Date/Time : 2024:11:04 11:48:50+01:00
File Inode Change Date/Time : 2024:11:04 11:49:36+01:00
Modify Date : 2024:04:25 09:39:44
Date/Time Original : 0000:01:01 00:00:00
Create Date : 2024:04:25 09:39:44
Metadata Date : 2024:04:25 11:03:41+02:00
Digital Creation Date : 2024:04:25
Date Created : 0000:01:01
Digital Creation Date/Time : 2024:04:25 09:39:44
The "Date Created" and "Date/Time Original" are strange.
Edit: oh you are right. It does seem go to 2001 BC. I did not initially notice it when fiddling with a dummy library. But now when I imported images from 1994 and 2007, the "2001" image is displayed before them.
That could be fixed by adjusting the date outside Photos with GraphicConverter or exiftool and then importing the image.
AFAIK EXIF dates can not go BC but Photos database seems to...
(...never mind that +1:39:49 time zone -- in the late 1800's many countries switched to local time zones and in my location that happened May 1st 1921 with +20 min 10.9 sec adjustment which in some apps display that weird time zone in images before that date when the computer is set in my location):
When I import the file you shared from a folder in my Pictures folder into Photos (and do not try to access it from the iCloud link) I can adjust the date of the file in Photos.
Perhaps you should export the versions with the 1BC date to your Pictures folder, then reimport them and try to adjust the date again.
The image has following dates:
exiftool -a -G1 -s -FileCreateDate -Time:All IMG_5942.JPEG
[MacOS] FileCreateDate : 2024:11:04 13:37:14+02:00
[System] FileModifyDate : 2024:11:04 13:37:14+02:00
[System] FileAccessDate : 2024:11:04 13:39:00+02:00
[System] FileInodeChangeDate : 2024:11:04 13:37:24+02:00
[MacOS] FileCreateDate : 2024:11:04 13:37:14+02:00
[IFD0] ModifyDate : 2024:04:25 09:39:44
[ExifIFD] DateTimeOriginal : 0000:01:01 00:00:00
[ExifIFD] CreateDate : 2024:04:25 09:39:44
[XMP-photoshop] DateCreated : 0000:01:01
[XMP-xmp] ModifyDate : 2024:04:25 09:39:44
[XMP-xmp] CreateDate : 2024:04:25 09:39:44
[XMP-xmp] ModifyDate : 2024:04:25 09:39:44
[XMP-xmp] CreateDate : 2024:04:25 09:39:44
[XMP-xmp] MetadataDate : 2024:04:25 11:03:41+02:00
[XMP-photoshop] DateCreated : 0000
[XMP-xmpMM] HistoryWhen : 2024:04:25 11:03:41+02:00
[IPTC] DigitalCreationDate : 2024:04:25
[IPTC] DigitalCreationTime : 09:39:44
[IPTC] DateCreated : 0000:01:01
[IPTC2] DateCreated : 0000:00:00
Photos grabs the date from DateTimeOriginal year 0 (Photos displays the year as 1) but I can import it to Photos and adjust it to my liking:
Photos gets confused about year 0 so it slips such images to BC. It handles year 1 OK.
It seems the photo lab's scanner or software fails to set a proper date to the images.
That does still seem not to be right, Matti.
The notification should be showing "The original photo will be adjusted by 2000 years",
not by - 2000 years. The date seems to be staying B.C, not AD.
When I download the file again and set the year to2024 in Photos, I am now also seeing "The original photo will be adjusted by -2000 years" and it will be sorted before all my photos, as BC.
I got film digitalised from a photo lab and they sent them to me via WeTransfer. And I want to change the date to when I actually shot the photo so it is in order of my photos app and stuff.
Some Photos show Timestamp of 2024 BC on my iPhone