transfer iphoto without losing create date

I want to sort my photos in Finder by the date they were created, but that date was changed to the date I moved the file. I don't really want to open them in an app unless I have to.

Sent from my iPhone

What that person needs is simple steps.

I have the same problem, I want to transfer photos taken by iphone to my AirMac and next to an external drive. I don't care what EXIF data is, I just want to know the steps like : open that app, select this, click here etc.

Can anyone help by providing steps for Dummies.

I'm working with Photos. Using Photos Export the Exif tag "CreationDate" (as opposed to the file modification date) showed today's date as described many times above.

I made a directory in desktop and dragged the image from Photos to it. Exiftool now shows the CreationDate to be the date the photo was taken even though I had previously edited the photo using Photos.

I know your post was old, but I had one question. I really don't want to use IPhoto anymore. What other photo application can I use where I won't lose the created date? I'm bummed with your answer, because I prefer to keep track of the photos my own way.

If you want to organise your photographs like files, then use the Finder. That's what the Finder is for. The weakness is that the Finder makes no distinction between what the files contain - music, photos, text, whatever. Plus, there's that whole non-destructive editing thing.

Every photo application of any value at all ignores the file data and works with the exif, because it's more useful and more accurate.

So, why do you want to maintain trivial data? Surely the important stuff is the Photo's date not the file's date.

I want to sort my photos in Finder by the date they were created

There is a contradiction there.

You want to sort your Photos by the date they were created. That's recorded in the Exif metadata

You want to sort them in the Finder, but that works with file metadata, not the same thing.

So, pick one: Photo date or File Date. They're not the same thing.

SO this is what I have found:

1. Open iTunes - (I'm not sure for what, but this is what they said on Apple page)

2. Plug in your iPhone

3. Open Photos App - (the one with a colorful flower as an icon)

4. Make sure you have a full screen, if not then in the middle of the screen on the top you should see Albums / Import / Photos / Projects etc.

5. Choose Import

6. Wait until all photos from your iPhone will load into this app. It might take a while.

7. Choose which photos do you want to transfer and click Import Selected at the top of the screen - if you don't have much space on your Mac - like me - you will have to keep selecting bunch of photos and transfer them, then delete them when they are safe on your external hard drive and keep on doing that until you have all that you need. You can click on delete photos - so when they will import, it will automatically be deleted from your iPhone and Photo App.

8. Change on the top of the screen from Import to Album - there are your imported photos. Select them all.

9. Go to the very top of the screen (black menu) - choose FILE - Export - Export unmodified originals - click to tag Export IPTC as XMP - File name: use file name - subcathalog : Moments / Memory name. Click Export.

10. Choose your externadl harddrive - and file where you want to save it. Click on Export oryginals.

11. Go back to Photo App. Select all photos that you have just exported to your External hard drive. Select them and delete them.

12. Choose Delete at the top menu instead of Album and Import - and also delete them from there or empty your trash bin in Photo App (not on your Mac).

I had to reformat my MacBook Pro as on Sierra it was so slow it was practically asleep. Guy at help centre said this 'vintage' model (2012 huh!!) not suited to Sierra and re-installed El Capitein. Re-install from my external harddrive containing backups did not work. Had to manually re-install. So in Photos now all photos taken in say 2014 are no longer organised month by month but bundled together, even tho they are stored month by month on the External hard drive on which I saved them. Soooo when I want to manually back up Photos from Mac to an external harddrive after say I have deleted photos, I cannot do it month by month. Is it possible to import the Photos I saved to my external harddrive back into MacBook Pro in EXACTLY the same file numbering system as when I copied them out of my MacBook Pro?

The Photos for Mac forum is here:

https://discussions.apple.com/community/mac_os/photos_osx/content

They do not lose their date - you are simply confusing the photo date embedded in the photo EXIF data (which is easily viewed by photo software like Preview or iPhoto) and the file date which has nothing to do with the photo and is easily viewed by file software like the finder

Every time you create a new file the file date is new - the photo date remains constant

LN

There are two kinds of metadata involved when you consider jpeg or other image file.

One is the file data. This is what the Finder shows. This tells you nothing about the contents of the file, just the File itself.

The problem with File metadata is that it can easily change as the file is moved from place to place or exported, e-mailed, uploaded etc.

Photographs have also got both Exif and IPTC metadata. The date and time that your camera snapped the Photograph is recorded in the Exif metadata. Regardless if what the file date says, this is the actual time recorded by the camera.

Photo applications like iPhoto, Aperture, Lightroom, Picasa, Photoshop etc get their date and time from the Exif metadata.

When you export from iPhoto to the Finder new file is created containing your Photo (and its Exif). The File date is - quite accurately - reported as the date of Export.

However, the Photo Date doesn't change.

The problem is that the Finder doesn't work with Exif.

So, your photo has the correct date, and so does the file, but they are different things. To sort on the Photo date you'll need to use a photo app.

I've tried cutting and pasting, dragging and dropping, one picture and multiple pictures at a time. Sometimes create date stays, sometimes it changes to today's date. Please help.

thank you!

If the creation date will stay, will depend on whether you edited the photo or not. Dragging, cutting and pasting will export edited versions, and they will have to be rendered a new image files from your original files.

Only "File > Export > Original" with "Kind: Original" will export the original untouched image file without any changed file creation dates. But as TD and LarryHN explained, the file creation date will tell you, when the file for the edited version of a photo has been created, not the EXIF capture date. The dates on the files are there to compare which version of the same photo is the newer one, not when the photo has been taken.

I believe Shutterfly have a plug-in for iPhoto that allows you to upload directly from the app. Search their website.

Other than that:

For help accessing your photos in iPhoto see this user tip:

https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-4491