File Creation and Modification Dates
Adjusting dates: camera clock and time zone corrections
The Adjust actions of File Multi Tool add or remove seconds, minutes, hours, days, months or years from file creation, modification and EXIF shooting dates, to correct a wrong camera clock or a forgotten time zone change.
The Adjust actions shift existing dates by a fixed amount instead of setting them to a new value.
They are the tool for the two classic photo problems: a camera whose clock was wrong, and a trip
during which the camera stayed on home time.
The actions
Adjust file creation dateAdjust file modification dateAdjust file creation and file modification datesAdjust EXIF content creation timestampshifts the shooting date inside the photo or videoAdjust file creation and EXIF content creation timestampshifts both together, so a collection that was already synchronised stays synchronised
The controls
Choose Add time or Remove time, then enter the amount in the Years, Months, Days, Hours,
Minutes and Seconds fields. The fields can be combined, for example 1 hour and 30 minutes. The
file list shows the current dates and updates them as the batch is processed; dates that would become
inconsistent are handled by Automatically correct inconsistent dates where the action touches a file
system date. To see the shifted dates before anything is written, use the
Advanced date manipulation action with Add time or Subtract time;
it is the one action with a live preview.
Typical corrections
- Camera clock was wrong. Compare one photo with a known reference, work out the difference, and
apply it to the whole batch with
Adjust EXIF content creation timestamp. - Time zone. A camera left on home time while travelling records every photo a fixed number of hours off. Remove or add that number of hours. Smartphones usually record the correct zone, so apply the correction only to the camera’s files.
- Two cameras out of step. Adjust the files of one camera by the difference so that both sets interleave correctly.
When a shooting date is written, the EXIF time zone offset fields (OffsetTimeOriginal and friends)
are updated for the zone your Mac was in on that date, so Apple Photos and Final Cut Pro place the
picture correctly; see the timestamps explainer.
For adjustments based on another date than the one being changed, the
Advanced date manipulation action offers Add time and Subtract
time on any of its sources.
- Video: Correcting Time Zone Errors in Apple Photos (6m 21s)