Setting the shooting date of photos and videos

The shooting date is the moment a photo or video was captured. It is stored inside the file, in its metadata, and is the date Apple Photos, Lightroom and the Finder’s Get Info window show as the date taken. The Set EXIF content creation timestamp action writes a new one.

The fields involved are explained in EXIF, IPTC and video timestamps explained. If you only need to shift existing dates by a fixed amount, use the Adjust actions instead.

The controls

• Change date with a date field and Today; Change time with a time field and Now. Untick one of them to keep that part of each file’s existing timestamp.
• For Images: chooses what is written to photos:
  • Set DateTimeOriginal (default) writes the shooting date. Where the file also carries the IPTC Date Created or the XMP photoshop:DateCreated copy of the date, those are updated too so that every application agrees, and the EXIF time zone offset field is written for your Mac’s zone.
  • Set DateTimeDigitized (for scanners) writes the digitisation date instead.
  • Set DateTimeOriginal & DateTimeDigitized writes both.
  • Set TIFF Create Date writes the TIFF-era date some applications show as the digitisation date.
• For Movies: chooses what is written to videos:
  • Set Content Creation & Media Create Date (default) writes the format’s content creation field, including Apple’s creation-date key that Photos and Final Cut Pro read, and the media create date.
  • Set Content Creation Date, Set Media Create Date, Set QuickTime Create Date and Set QuickTime Creation Date write a single field.
  • Set DateTimeOriginal, Set DateTimeDigitized and Set Content Creation Date & DateTimeOriginal are for movie formats that carry the EXIF-style timestamps.
  • Use Apple Photos Brute Force Mode rewrites every date atom of a QuickTime or MP4 movie. Use it only when Photos still ignores a date set with the default; since version 7.50 the default writes the key Photos reads, so this is rarely needed.
  • Do not change leaves videos alone in a mixed batch.

The file list shows each file’s current DT Original and Content values; they are updated as the batch is processed. For a preview of the result before anything is written, use the Advanced date manipulation action with Specific date as the source.

Supported formats

Shooting dates can be written to JPEG, HEIC/HEIF, PNG, TIFF, Photoshop files, most RAW formats and QuickTime-based movies (.mov, .mp4, .m4v, .3gp). The icon in the supported column and its tooltip tell you per file whether writing is possible; see what the icons mean. Files are rewritten in place, so keep a backup of originals you cannot replace.

After the change

Apple Photos and Final Cut Pro read the embedded date when a file is imported. Files already in a library have to be re-imported, or their date adjusted inside the application, before the change shows. For the Finder, copy the new date into the file creation date with Copy EXIF content creation timestamp to file creation date so that sorting follows it.

• Video: Changing Photo Shooting Dates (6m 1s)