why arent my photos keeping their date stamp when copied to an external drive?

iPhoto does a good job of showing the date the picture was taken but I am moving my photos to an external drive & was hoping there was an easier way to look at dates instead of such a time consuming process. I am also looking at d/cing using the iphoto program due to issues, are you aware if the Image Capture program will show the dates the photos were taken easier? Or perhaps can recommend another program?

Basically, you're moving the files to the Finder. The Finder id the file manager. Here's the limit with that: it treats all files the same, novels, songs, presentations, photos, movies. They're just files. It's like a warehouse full of showboxes. No idea the colour of the shoes inside, just stacks of boxes.

iPhoto manages the Photos. And so is designed to leverage the metadata attached to the Photos not the files. Similarly, iTunes manages the music and so can show you all the songs of an Album together, the Finder can't.

So you're moving from a manager designed for the data you're using and going to one that isn't. That's why it's not easy to see the Exif date.

As for alternatives to iPhoto: what are you looking for? What's the limitations of iPhoto you want to ever come? If you can tell us this we might be better able to point you in a direction.

Why did Apple screw this up?

Who thinks it's a good idea to lose the original date stamp on the image file?

Apple Photos *****.

How do I get my images off of my iPhone without using the crappy Apple Photos?

Unfortunately this doesn't work for me -- the "date created" always gets adjusted according to which time zone my laptop is in...... so it's actually wrong most of the time, since I don't live in the time zone of where I took my videos.

Only just found this thread trying to fix the same issue. Keep dates and time on .mov files by holding alt key whilst dragging files to your external drive, no problem.

Sheesh! Some very angry individuals on here 😉

richardfromcarshalton wrote:

Keep dates and time on .mov files by holding alt key whilst dragging files to your external drive, no problem.

That is a dangerous method because in moving a file to another volume if there's any interruption in the process you stand to lose the file entirely as it deletes the file from the source volume after the copying is completed. If that copying is interrupted the deleting can still be performed as others have noted in other forums. So just be forewarned about the potential for complete loss of the file being moved.

Not sure what I'm doing 'right' then, but when I alt drag from my MacBook Pro to an external drive, my original file remains on the Mac. I then have to manually delete the original file. Works for me.

Holding down the Option/Alt key and dragging a file from one volume to another is a "move". It automatically deleted the original file after the move is completed. That's when a problem can occur if there's an interruption.

Just dragging from one volume to another is a copy which is what you're doing. Much safer.

This thread is about iPhoto and flaws in the software changing the original dates of files.

Use Image Capture.

Then you need to figure out a system that will overcome the limitation of movie formats - things like including the date and time in the filename, for instance.