Why is "date created" gone when copying photos from Mac to External Drive (ex Fat)

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Level 1

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Why is "date created" gone when copying photos from Mac to External Drive (ex Fat)

I have been trying to copy photos (over 4MB each) from my MacOS Sierra to an External Hard Drive (ADATA 720 formatted in ex Fat).

When I copied a few over, some of the "date created" were changed to "today" and some stayed for the original date created. When I copied over a large file of pictures, all "date created" turned today. I have my photos open and my external drive open and I simply drag and drop a batch to the external drive.

How can I keep the date created so that I can keep the files from 1958 onwards.

Help and thanks!

Operating system version 10.12.6

Posted on Mar 18, 2018 10:27 AM

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Answer 1

Lexiepex

Level 6

14,108 points

Mar 18, 2018 11:39 AM in response to Viegehts

The "date created" field in the metadata of the image will not change when you transfer with Finder.

if you look with Finder to the transferred image you should choose the datecreated column to see it in Finder.

(what you seem to see now is a date modified probably).

If you look at the transferred image with the same Photo app as you always use you will also see that the creation date field is not changed.

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Answer 2

Viegehts Author

Level 1

9 points

Mar 18, 2018 11:39 AM in response to Lexiepex

Hello Lexipex, I appreciate your expedient help. Tried to use Finder to transfer 10 photos and only 5 stayed with the specific date created, the other 5 turned "today". I might be doing things wrong, One way I tried - I had my photos file open (it shows the various dates created from 1958 onwards) and I had my external drive open - side to side on my screen. I see "Finder", but when I clicked on my photos, "Finder" turns to "Photos" so when I drag and drop, it didn't keep the date created. Another way I tried - I created a file on my computer and dragged and dropped the pictures there. From there (with Finder), I dragged and dropped to the external hard drive but only 5 out of the 10 photos kept their date created. If you can help me some more, that would be great! (I have probably 10,000 pictures that I want to put on a external drive but am trying to figure out how to do it to keep the date created so that they are organized on the external drive). THANKS!!!!

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Answer 3

Viegehts Author

Level 1

9 points

Mar 18, 2018 12:28 PM in response to Lexiepex

I know the difference between date created, date added, date modified, date last opened. My photos are not just coming from a camera, they also come from FastFoto FF-640 scans. So within Mac "Photos", I click on "Image" to "Adjust Time and Date" to put them in the right place. When I click to find the photo information, it shows the "adjust time and date" on the "date created". Help again please, using just one scanned photo.. in "Photos", when I look for the photo info, I see "add a title" ... date created - March 14, 1958 5:44:09 PM ... no camera information ... no lens information). HOW DO I GET THAT PHOTO THROUGH FINDER? When I click on Finder, I cannot find the photo through that. If I drag the file onto my desktop so that Finder can find that, it looses the date created right away. So the date created only stays there within "Photos". Sorry to be a pain in the butt but I appreciate all of your help.

UPDATE - I dragged and dropped one photo to the external drive - it kept the date created. I dragged and dropped a batch of 9 photos and it changed some of the data created photos to today. I wonder if it's another problem, cannot handing groups of photos at a time.

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Answer 4

Viegehts Author

Level 1

9 points

Mar 18, 2018 2:05 PM in response to Lexiepex

I believe it's an Apple software problem through Apple Photos. I opened the "Photos", I opened the External Hard Drive. I dragged and dropped one photo at a time - that were from my camera from one day. Some pictures came with the data created on July 18, 1999, some pictures came with data created today's date. The photos are inside the Apple Photos so don't know how to use ExitChanger within Apple Photo. I will try to continue to learn about Apple computers and thank you so much for trying to help me.

Opps, I meant to say your answer was Helpful but clicked on mine and don't know how to delete that.

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Answer 5

Yer_Man

Level 10

165,768 points

Mar 20, 2018 4:55 PM in response to Viegehts

If I take off a photo/picture and place it on my desktop, then the data created goes away so it only stays in there through "PHOTOS".

You're confusing the Photograph with the file that contains it.

Think of it this way: you write a novel, and Word is the app you use for that. So on your desktop is a file called 'My Novel.doc'. But that file isn't your novel, it's the stuff contained in the file that is your work. It's the difference between the shoes and the shoebox. In the warehouse all you see are boxes. In the store window you see the shoes. The Finder is a warehouse. Photos.app is the store window.

So, with the jpeg - that's not your photograph, it's a box for your photograph. Your photograph is inside the box. The box and the photo are not the same thing. It's perfectly possible to have a photograph from 2001 in a box from 2018. Because of this separation, we have two dates to think about. One is the date of the photograph. The other is the date of the box. The Finder know nothing about what is inside the box, just the date of the box.

So when you take a photo from Photos and put it on the desktop, you're exporting the photograph into a file in the Finder. The Finder knows nothing about the contents of the file, it's just showing you the date of the file itself. Put another way: the Finder knows nothing about the date of the photograph, only the date of the box it is in.

If you want to see the date of the photograph, you need to use an app that's aware of the photo metadata.

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Answer 6

Lexiepex

Level 6

14,108 points

Mar 18, 2018 12:29 PM in response to Viegehts

The photos are created probably with different cameras: the DateCreated metadata field is probably not in the same place. Are you sure that the photo with the issue is really from a camera or may a copy from something else?

Moving images open or not open should not change the specific date created field.

To test look at the ones that you found wrong with an exif app: I use ExifChanger to add/edit exif fields on photos that do not have metadata at all (or too little). This is the best app I could find.

Use a real photo app to look at metadata, not Preview or the like.

ExitChanger: http://basepath.com/new/

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Answer 7

Yer_Man

Level 10

165,768 points

Mar 18, 2018 12:49 PM in response to Viegehts

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.

Now things get more complicated:

My photos are not just coming from a camera, they also come from FastFoto FF-640 scans.

Most scanners do not create images with Exif metadata. And while in Photos you can edit the date that is only in the database, when you export there is no place the file for the app to write the Exif metadata.

Multiple photos makes no difference. There's no way to do what you want. The workaround most people use is to put the date in the title like March 18 18, John's Wedding... or something similar.

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Answer 8

Viegehts Author

Level 1

9 points

Mar 18, 2018 2:03 PM in response to Yer_Man

Hi Terence, thank you so much for explaining everything - now I understand why the dates are lost when I try to move something to another place. Regarding the scans, I have gone to each and every file to add information including the date created (and sometimes also additional information like John's wedding etc). So what I tried to do now was transfer a picture, one by one, that was from the same camera on the same date - sequential pictures. Sometimes the date created stayed the same (the pictures are from 1999) and sometimes the date created is today! So I think it's an Apple software problem. THANK YOU for writing to help me! Much appreciated.

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Answer 9

Viegehts Author

Level 1

9 points

Mar 18, 2018 4:59 PM in response to Yer_Man

? I'm wrong, but free ? If I could videotape doing that, you would see that when the first photo goes to the external drive, the date created says "TODAY" and quickly changes to "July 19, 1999.. The next photo says "TODAY" and stays that way. The next photo says "TODAY" and quickly changes to "July 19, 1999", the next few photos do the same and then another photo stays on "TODAY for the date create. All from the same camera, same day, same people, same room, sequential numbers on my camera... and yet... different things happen when I drag and drop each file.

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Answer 10

Viegehts Author

Level 1

9 points

Mar 19, 2018 1:45 PM in response to Yer_Man

Hi Terrence, I formatted the external drive (using the support.apple.com) under disk utility to ExFAT and Master Boot Record (sorry that i don't understand the terms - I wanted to use the external drive for both a MAC and WINDOWS computers as I have pictures on both). I have since started to set up files in the hard drive so that when I drag and drop, at least it shows up in the same year. Again, thank you for helping me!

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Answer 11

VikingOSX

Level 10

122,898 points

Mar 20, 2018 7:14 AM in response to Viegehts

Copy and paste the following into a programmer's editor (to preserve the formatting), and save as lsd.sh. In the Terminal you want to make it executable, so...

#!/bin/bash # # See: man stat(1), strftime(3) for file in "$@" do stat -t '%Y-%m-%d %X' -f '%n%Sp%T %z %Su %Sg %N %SY %n Last Access: %Sa %n Last Modify: %Sm %n Last inode change: %Sc %n Birth of inode: %SB%n' ${file} done printf "\n" exit 0

chmod +x ./lsd.sh

lsd.sh /Volumes/exFAT/photo.jpg

-rw-r--r-- 2624 viking wheel /Volumes/exFAT/photo.jpg

Last Access: 2018-02-05 07:04:57

Last Modify: 2016-10-10 07:37:03

Last inode change: 2016-11-11 12:00:16

Birth of inode: 2016-10-10 07:36:54

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Answer 12

Viegehts Author

Level 1

9 points

Mar 20, 2018 12:30 PM in response to Lexiepex

Because I don't know how to do that. I look at my large Mac screen, there is a bottom row there... I click on "PHOTOS"... I don't know what "app" that is through or how to change that "app". If I take off a photo/picture and place it on my desktop, then the data created goes away so it only stays in there through "PHOTOS". I don't know how else to find my photos (I can only find my desktop, documents, downloads, movies, music, pictures (but they are not the pictures that are in the "PHOTOS") and public.

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Answer 13

Lexiepex

Level 6

14,108 points

Mar 20, 2018 1:18 PM in response to Viegehts

Photos is an (Apple) apps, to manage the library of photos and change some aspects of the photos.

A photo is a file that is an image. When you copy a file with a scanner or cut it out of a paper, there s just an image, nothing else. When you use a digital camera, there is a picture and included in the picture there are data (metadata), like when the picture was taken, where the picture was taken, with what camera, what lens, and a lot of more data. If you do not have metadata in an image/photo/picture you can not sort them but on filename only. So I don't understand what you did call "setting a creation date" for example in an image that comes from your scanner. You have to add metadata to an image, you do that with an app with what you can add or change data in the picture, or with what you can add metadata into a photo that does have no metadata at all.

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Answer 14

Viegehts Author

Level 1

9 points

Mar 20, 2018 1:37 PM in response to Lexiepex

OK, so I am using the PHOTOs app through Apple. Within the PHOTOs app, I can 'File', 'Edit', 'Image', 'View', 'Window', 'Help'. When I click on 'Image', I can 'adjust date and time' and it says "Adjust date and time of selected photos... the original date and time of your first photo is shown below, adjust it to the correct time, and all (insert number) will be time-shifted accordingly. It allows me to put in the "ADJUSTED DATE" and the TIME ZONE. The "adjusted date" becomes the new created date. So for scans, I put in the date. For pictures, I sometimes change the date so that all dates are correct.

Sorry that I am a pain in the bottom. I have been using Windows for a long time and am fairly new to Apple. I appreciate your help though and sorry if I made mistakes for my comments.

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Answer 15

Viegehts Author

Level 1

9 points

Mar 20, 2018 6:16 PM in response to Yer_Man

Oh wow, thank you so much for your explanation. I am learning more again about Mac. Because everything is automatic (when I put a photo / jpg on my desktop, and click on it, Finder comes up), now I understand why Finder doesn't know about the contents of the file. THANK YOU!

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Why is "date created" gone when copying photos from Mac to External Drive (ex Fat)

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