Help with photo dates being wrong.

[zowenso]

Hello. Can someone tell me why when I move photos from my iPhone to my iMac that the date in the photo info is almost always wrong? For instance, I have a photo with the date of the photo in the photo, but when I look at the info of the photo on my iMac where it’s stored the “created” date is totally wrong. There is also “modified” info, which is also wrong for a lot of my photos but some seem right. Why isn’t there an actual date the photo was taken in the photo info on my iMac?

I’m looking at some other photos of us decorating our Christmas tree before Christmas and all the info on my iMac is saying Jan 18th. Is there a way to have the actual date the photos were created to be available in the info? Thanks.

 

[Red Menace]

The info shown by the Finder is from the file system, which refers to the file itself. The date the photo was actually taken its usually in the Exif metadata embedded in the file, so you would need to use something else to view it, such as the Inspector tool in Preview.app, or the ExifTool command line utility.

 

[zowenso]

The info shown by the Finder is from the file system, which refers to the file itself. The date the photo was actually taken its usually in the Exif metadata embedded in the file, so you would need to use something else to view it, such as the Inspector tool in Preview.app, or the ExifTool command line utility.

Oh ok. Thanks a lot. Is there somewhere I can read how to find the date in the preview app? Is that the preview app that comes with the iMac? I have a 2020 iMac. I’m all up to date. Thanks.

 

[Red Menace]

To use Preview, open the photo in it, then from the Tools menu select Show Inspector. In the toolbar of the Inspector window select the More Info Inspector (the one with the "i" icon), and if there is an Exif tab the Date Time Original item would be when the photo was taken. Note that the Exif information varies according to the source and can be removed (for example, if it was scrubbed for posting on the web somewhere).

 

[zowenso]

To use Preview, open the photo in it, then from the Tools menu select Show Inspector. In the toolbar of the Inspector window select the More Info Inspector (the one with the "i" icon), and if there is an Exif tab the Date Time Original item would be when the photo was taken. Note that the Exif information varies according to the source and can be removed (for example, if it was scrubbed for posting on the web somewhere).

Thanks for your help. I’ll check it out.

 

[SpeQ]

You can also view the correct date using Finder in Big Sur, I don't know about earlier OS.

Open the folder with your photos, then from menu bar choose View > As Gallery, then from menu bar choose View > Show Preview

The photos will also show the correct date if imported to Photos app.

 

[zowenso]

You can also view the correct date using Finder in Big Sur, I don't know about earlier OS.

Open the folder with your photos, then from menu bar choose View > As Gallery, then from menu bar choose View > Show Preview

The photos will also show the correct date if imported to Photos app.

Oh great, I’ll also try this out. I’m fully up to date with Big Sur so I should be good. Thanks. Am I the only one who cares about the actual date? lol

 

[Red Menace]

Normally when a photo is copied, the creation date stays the same. Depending on how it is copied though, the date can be changed to when the copy is created, in which case you can try looking at the Exif data (if it exists). Worst case is if the Exif metadata and extended attributes are cleared, which can happen when uploading photos to a sharing site, for example, to remove personally identifiable information (such as GPS, date, camera, etc).