Why can't Finder sort by date photo was taken?!

Yes, IMHO Apple should add EXIF DateTimeOriginal (...and also the related messy QuickTime movie date tags like CreateDate, CreationDate and DateTimeOriginal...) to the Finder's list options because this is a cause of much confusion.

A workaround is to copy EXIF date to file creation & modification dates or/and to the filename with 3rd party tools like GraphicConverter, A Better Finder Rename, exiftool etc. I do that, see above.

p.s. Those file dates are quite fragile and are easily reset when moving files around. And many backup utilities use the file modification date (and file size) to check whether a file needs to be backupped, so the user should be wary about this when using a fixed file modification date and doing only very minor edits to the metadata so file size remains exactly the same (Carbon Copy Cloner can additionally use hashes to determine the need for backup but it is quite slow).

There's a free app called XnViewMP that you can use to view your photos in the order they were taken.

Although it's not using Finder, it still provides what you're after.

Apple makes a photo manager for that purpose.

They make other media managers, too.

All of which have additional sort capability tied to metadata.

SwiftParrot wrote:

I love my Mac for photo editing but Finder is painful to say the least.

The reason you find it painful is that the Finder was not designed for the purpose you seek. Using a screwdriver to drive nails would be painful too. Use tools appropriate for the task.

Feel free to rant at Apple.

Feedback - macOS - Apple