Dates

What this does to your files

Nothing, until you press Write dates into N files. Looking for dates only reads. The write then sets the capture date: inside the file for JPEG, HEIC, TIFF, PNG, WebP and DNG, in a .xmp sidecar for camera RAW files, which are not touched, and in the QuickTime date tags for videos.

The file's own modified date is kept unless you tick Also set each file's modified date to its capture date. Undo puts back exactly what each file held, including removing a date that was not there before. Dates uses no connection.

Start from Choose folders…, or from the Library, whose Without a date row opens Dates with those photos. The summary line reads N files · N with no date (N found in the name, N approximate, N unknown) · N suspicious, and the three actions are beside it.

Files:

All files · No date · Suspicious dates · by cameraFree

Which files you are looking at. Suspicious dates are the ones a camera writes when its clock was never set or was reset: 1 January 1970 or 1980, midnight on 1 January 2000, or a date more than a day in the future.

Fill missing dates

The three groupsFree · 100 per run

Only files with no capture date are looked at; a date that exists is never overwritten. What FolioSort found is shown in three groups, each with its files and the date proposed:

From the file name — a stamp such as 20190804_153012 or 2019-08-04 15.30.12 gives the exact time; a WhatsApp file name gives the day. Years from 1980 to next year are accepted.
From the folder name — 2003-07-15 trip gives a day, 2003-07 Algarve a month, 1994 or Verão 98 a year. FolioSort looks up to two folders up.
From the photos around it in the same folder — used when at least four other photos in the folder have dates and at least 70 % of them fall within 92 days of each other. The file gets the middle of that period.

A date known only to the month or the year is approximate and starts unticked. Files with nothing to go on are listed with FolioSort could not work out a date for these files. Use “Set a date” if you know it.

Shift dates

Years · Days · Hours · MinutesFree · 100 per run

Moves the capture date of the files shown by a fixed amount — for a camera left on the wrong time zone, or one whose year was never set. Filter to one camera first so only its files move.

Use as reference… · When was this photo really taken?

On the Mac. If you know the real time of one photo, right-click it and choose Use as reference…, enter the real time and press Use this time. FolioSort fills in the shift from the difference.

The same shift arrives already filled in when you come from Places with Also fix these dates.

Set a date

Real date · Known to theFree · 100 per run

For scans and old prints, where you know when the photo was taken and the file does not. Enter the date and say how much of it you know — the exact time, the day, the month or only the year:

Month — Approximate: written as the 15th at noon, marked as month-only.
Year — Approximate: written as 1 July at noon, marked as year-only.

The XMP date keeps only what is known — a year-only date is stored there as 1994 — so an app that reads it can tell an approximate date from an exact one.

Writing

Also set each file's modified date to its capture date

Off by default, and remembered. Leave it off to keep each file's modified date as it is; turn it on if another app or a backup tool of yours sorts by the file date.

Write dates into N files

Photos get the EXIF capture date and its XMP twins; videos get the QuickTime creation dates. Camera RAW files get a .xmp sidecar. On the free plan the screen says Free writes 100 per run — Pro does all, and Fix the other N — Pro offers the rest.

Undo · Re-organize by the new dates… · See them in the Library

Undo puts every file back as it was. It is also listed in Activity under Changes written into files; a file changed by something else since is skipped. Re-organize by the new dates… opens Organize for these files, now that their dates are right.

Which plan

Free writes 100 files per run; Pro does all. Looking, grouping and reviewing are free. If your photos lost their dates in a Google Takeout export, the Google Photos import restores them from the export's own files, and that is always free. See the plans.

All help pages Places Organize Google Photos What Dates is for Ask a question

FAQ

Questions people ask

Can Dates overwrite a date that is already correct?

Fill missing dates cannot: it only looks at files with no capture date and never overwrites one that exists. Shift dates and Set a date change the dates of the files you choose, on purpose, and show you each one first. All three are undone with one Undo.

Where does a missing date come from?

From three places, shown as three groups: the file name, the folder name, and the photos around it in the same folder. A date taken from a name like 20190804_153012 is exact. A date that is only a month or a year — from a folder called 1994, say — is approximate, and those start unticked so you decide.

My camera's clock was an hour off. How do I fix a whole trip?

Use Shift dates. Filter to that camera and enter the difference in years, days, hours and minutes. If you know the real time of one photo, on the Mac right-click it and choose Use as reference…, answer When was this photo really taken?, and FolioSort works out the shift for you.

What is free in Dates?

Free writes 100 files per run, as many runs as you like. Pro does all of them in one run. See the pricing page for the plans.