Import photo using GPS timestamp as date taken

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Level 1

10 points

Import photo using GPS timestamp as date taken

I used Dropbox and Google Photos as my previous photos storage services. Now I'm migrating to iCloud Photo Library, but I'm going through an issue I can't find out how to solve.

Some photos are being imported with the wrong date taken.

I don't know what else to do. Does anyone have any idea on this?

The filename is a very approximate date and timestamp of the date and time the photo was taken, so it could be used as a last resort.

In Preview Info I can see the timestamp is not lost:

After importing to Photos, this is the Info Photos.app shows:

As you can see, the date used as "date taken" is Feb 21 2017.

This is what A Better Finder Attributes shows as info for the file (where's the GPS date and timestamp?):

This is only one example. I have thousands of photos, so the 'Adjust Date and Time' tool is useless in this case.

Any ideas?

Mac mini, OS X Yosemite (10.10.4), null

Posted on May 12, 2017 7:54 AM

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Answer 1

Best reply

LarryHN

Level 10

106,110 points

May 12, 2017 10:57 AM in response to fmartinewski

Something does not comute

your screen show shows a 320KB 960x1280 JPEG image - the basic iPhone 5 image is a 2448x3264 JPEG image so somehow you are not using the original photos it appears

this is the info on a typical iPhone 5 photo

so again to help we need more details - what you are posting does not hold together

LN

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Answer 2

LarryHN

Level 10

106,110 points

May 12, 2017 8:06 AM in response to fmartinewski

If there is valid photo metadata (EXIF/IPTC) from the camera then Photos does always use it - if the photos data is not available (either the camera did not add it or some user action has removed it) then Photos will use the File metadata since that is all that is available - your issue is not with Photos in any way but with your previous vendors and workflow

Exactly how are you importing to Photos and what have you done with the photo between the Preview screen shot and importing to Photos?

LN

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Answer 3

fmartinewski Author

Level 1

10 points

May 12, 2017 10:48 AM in response to LarryHN

I understand this is how it should work, but take another look at the evidences I put in my post and you'll see it is not doing what you said. The file does contain timestamps and other information, so nothing was removed.

I'm importing using the 'File>Import' menu, and I also tested by dragging the files inside the Photos window. Both produced the same result. I didn't do anything to the file between operations, as I was just collecting information for this post. These are just simple files with correct information, being imported with incorrect information.

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Answer 4

léonie

Level 10

194,969 points

May 12, 2017 11:05 AM in response to fmartinewski

The file does contain timestamps and other information, so nothing was removed.

It contains the GPS time stamp, but the EXIF capture date tag used by most photo applications has been removed, or Photos would have shown this date.

You could try, if EXIF tool can copy the GPS dates from the GPS tags to the capture date exif tag.

http://www.sno.phy.queensu.ca/%7Ephil/exiftool/http://www.sno.phy.queensu.ca/%7Ephil/exiftool/

(http://www.sno.phy.queensu.ca/~phil/exiftool/exiftool_pod.html#Tag-operations)

exiftool is very versatile, but it will probably take a lot of experimenting to find the parameters to batch change the dates in your case.

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Answer 5

Drew Reece

Level 6

10,660 points

May 12, 2017 11:10 AM in response to fmartinewski

Do Google or Dropbox display the correct date, time & location for these images?

It seems like one of the services is exporting downsized & stripped files. Review each service & do some test exports to see if the data can be download via other settings (Google has the Google takeout for example that should get all data).

https://takeout.google.com/settings/takeout

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