Photos organizing by the wrong metadata?

I've noticed this issue over a year ago and assumed it was PS Light Room. The issue seems to be caused when I "view" a photo on my phone. Simply viewing pictures seems to reset the "taken" date...for WHATEVER reason. So, spending 30min. to relive some memories from the past few months, can singlehandedly put 3-months of pics in the same date. 'Can't believe more people aren't complaining about this. I assume most are like you and do mass uploads to the cloud or something fast and easy...and automatic. I still upload small groups of images manually, well...at least I did until I gave up and haven't uploaded in all of 2018. Hoping to find an answer for all of us.

I started uploading my older photos to iCloud photos, and I realized that most of the pictures in Photos organized by the "file's date created" or "file's date modified", not by the "photo's date taken" metadata.

What do you mean by "iCloud Photos"? The shared albums of iCloud Photo Sharing? Or are you importing the photos to your Photos Library and syncing them with iCloud Photo Library?

Shared albums are stripping most of the metadata, but importing to Photos and uploading to iCloud Photo Library should preserve the embedded capture date.

You may be correct. Also, I may need to clarify as well. After much discussion with Apple support, it seems like the metadata isn't actually changing, it's actually just misrepresented...and it's that way in ALL applications (PS Lightroom, Nikon's proprietary software, and Microsoft's generic photo importer). For whatever reason, pictures are sorting by the date they were last viewed, even though the date created remains intact and the "date created" setting is selected. Apple thinks it's a Microsoft thing (maybe Windows 10), not an iPhone or photo software thing at all. Ultimately, it just might mean I have to live with it. 😟 Thanks anyway, all!

You probably caused this - Photos only uses the file metadata is the photo data is unavailable - what is the source of these photos?

LN

kissleizertamas wrote:

I know that "All Photos" is not chronological.

No everyone does, so I had to ask.

Some questions about how you transferred the files to and from this HDD:

What format is the HDD?

How did you save the photos to the HDD?

How are you viewing the details on the HDD?

How did you get the files from the HDD into Photos?

Where are you seeing this effect -- "All Photos", Moments/Collections/Years, or some other view?

Ryan,

I don't think your issue quite matches what kissleizertamas described. I suggest that you start your own thread, including a lot more detail. (For example, just how is PS Light Room involved in your workflow, how did you "view" your photos, how are you uploading them, and how are you determining that the "taken" date is being changed?)