Thanks so much for these 10 minutes and 16 seconds of pure gold: I've (well, you have...) solved a problem, I've learned about Exif, how to retrieve it on a Mac, how to manipulate dates, how to use many Mac OS tools, etc etc Awesome content man, this deserves not just a like, but also a subscription
This was helpful for the first few minutes then became beyond the scope of probably most Mac users. It would be nice if you could show several different apps (photo editing apps, metadata editing apps, etc.) that you can use to get the same results, especially when we want to batch process hundreds of photos.
Excellent example of an explainer video using an approach that shows the viewer what you could do, but then why not to do that, using the element of surprise and dissonance to enable learning effectively. Well done.
Incredible video (disregard ANY of the negative comments). Image Capture on MBP will change the created date when you copy files onto a flash drive (Apple does this by default). Using the Automator script got me my dates back. Fantastically helpful. Thank you!
Gary saves the day - again! I had to watch this a second time to realize exactly how easy it is. Open automator and follow Gary's step-by-step instructions. Thanks for the code too! Now, I only wonder how to make this work for the videos that have the same issue 🤔
1:58 It wasn't like that in the era where you could simply mount your phone/camera SD as a Storage device. If you copy a file from a flash drive the creation data is preserved. The entire problem is created by that horrible MTP in the newer phones. So this is not cheating, this is only fixing a problem.
Thank you very much for this great video! I searched for days to find a way to keep the original date of photo's in Finder. You saved me! If you ever make a code to do the same with mp4- and/or MOV-files, I would really like to have it.
I've tried commenting at the top level for .MOV files but youtube is not allowing me to paste it in as a comment :(. You need to use ffprobe instead to get access to the metadata. Use the -hide_banner and -loglevel error flags and -show_entries flag. Sadly I can't paste the answer in!
Good info. I do have a question. I do a lot of video clips and I don't always keep my video camera date set to the correct date and time. Of course then when I shoot video clips, it puts which ever date the camera is set to as the creation date of the clip/file. I know I can go into Info and put the correct date in one of the open boxes. So, does this as you describe work on mp4 clips/files? Thanks. OAG
An excellent tutorial, as always. But I found that this process is no longer necessary under Photos 6.0 on Big Sur 11.3.1. I just copied several photos out of the Photos app and the file Creation Date and Modified Date match the exif data as seen in Photos. Maybe this is a recent change. Thanks, Rob.
Absolutely amazing! When I pulled my photos from iCloud, I was unable to effectively rename my files in Lightroom because the creation date was the download date. Now I can run this on all of my photos + videos before renaming and sorting. Thanks!
I actually just ran into an issue where I have a couple thousand photos that the automator is not modifying creating dates for. Ie EXIF "Date Time Digitized" states June 22, 2020, as well as TIFF "Date/Time" - thoughts on why automator isn't working?
Thank you very much for the vide! I've been looking for something like that. But the apps are being downloaded in german! and of course I don't sepak it. Do you think ih has to do that my app store is in Switzerland? Do you think I can change the language? Thank you!
Wow, this is such a helpful, useful, and well-done video! As a digital forensic practitioner, I was looking for a program that I could use for this exact application. Thanks!
Hey, thank you!! However this script seems not to work with videos shot on iphone and exported from Photos. Do you have any additional clue for that matter?
@@juliomatoslima Oh, videos. No, it wouldn't work with videos. It is for photos. Videos have different metadata items and you'd have to adjust accordingly. Or maybe just name the files like you want and don't worry about the file dates.
Hey Gary. So what do you think about pictures? There's a certain day it was added to your Photos but the time when it was shot is sometimes way in the past. Do you keep the original file date and give a caption or description "circa 1977"? Or would you just change the date on the file?
This will depend on which filesystem you run, if you use o3x, you will have 4 fully operational dates for each file, with HFS, there is basically creation and modification timestamps that works somewhat like expected, with APFS this should be more like o3x/ZFS, however unable to confirm at the moment. o3x aka ZFS ``` # stat workspace/ File: workspace/ Size: 2 Blocks: 1 IO Block: 512 directory Device: 5a00010009h/386547122185d Inode: 32860 Links: 2 Access: (0700/drwx------) Uid: ( 0/ root) Gid: ( 0/ root) Access: 2020-08-04 20:52:10.133569703 +0000 Modify: 2020-08-04 20:52:10.133569703 +0000 Change: 2020-08-04 20:52:10.133569703 +0000 Birth: 2020-08-04 20:52:10.133569703 +0000 ``` APFS ``` # stat /tmp/com.apple.launchd.fGb5uK7URS 16777220 12915598163 drwx------ 3 root root 0 96 "Jun 8 20:44:32 2021" "Jun 8 08:35:57 2021" "Jun 8 08:35:57 2021" "Jun 8 08:35:57 2021" 4096 0 0 /tmp/com.apple.launchd.fGb5uK7URS ```
Great to know however it is to complicated. Is there an app that I can drag a folder of photos and it will do it for me regardless where the folder is located. So for example I can drag a master folder with lots of sub folders all of them are photos and it will do it to all of them
This video is purely GEM, trust me you explained this is so easy way that any layman can also perform this. I always look for Application to do all work, first time I enjoyed doing this type of coding and all. Awesome content. Can't stop my self to subscribe this channel for more informative videos.
Hi Great tutorial with a finalization with the Automator app. Da*n hard to find though :) all other guides were only addressing renaming one file at a time. But i am confused with the kmdItemContentCreationDate. For videos it is the same as the file creation date as I can see in Finder, but for images it is ok just like what it shows in your guide. Is the kMDItemFSContentChangeDate the same as modified date? The photos and videos are taken by iPhone 12
literally you saved my life, I'm migrating from google photos to photos (icloud) and I was just thinking about coming back to google photos, but I have problem I’m having an error when I run the app on Automator, I basically follow the tutorial several times, even I copy and paste your code and nothing, anyway THANK YOU, I’ll be keep trying
Now i remember why i started to use lightroom many years ago, but recently have gone back to photos as don't use photoshop that much. Is this still the same in 2024 with sonorma as i imported loads from my iphone and it put them in the correct date order or is it only if you use a camara other then an iphone. Thanks
Gary, is this type of meta-data also preserved in Apple Pages files? Can I see all modified dates for a single document in chronological order? I have files I’m afraid to open in Pages bc it’ll automatically have a new Modified date if I change ever one punctuation…I prefer that the dates stay in order of creation (even though I may work on them out of order, if that makes sense). Thank you
Metadata is for things like media: photos mostly. A Pages file is a regular file with a creation time, modification time and last opened time. Sounds like you want to just view these files by creation time. So why not do that?
@@macmost yes, That sounds right. Okay, good idea, I will try to view them by creation date. I have such a mess with a book I’m writing, chapters worked on and modified out of order, etc. Ugh! If I hire you for private consultation to work through this live, can you screen share on my 2019 MacBook Pro so I can show you and you can click and help me? (It’s all pages files). Thx
@@Burps___ if you’re writing a book I highly recommend you take a look at Scrivener (www.literatureandlatte.com/scrivener/overview) it makes working with chapters child’s play. I use it by exporting text to and from pages in a plain text format. The idea being to write in Scrivener and export to Pages for final editing and formatting.
Is there any way to fix photos inside Apple Photos? Something like the reverse thing? I have a massive photo collection that I've imported in Photos and now it messed up with the creation date (due to moving files around and copying). Now I have to fix each photo to it's exif information. I can create a nodejs or automator script to fix that but it would be better if Apple Photos could be fixed in batch. :(
Hi! Great video as always. But do you know why Photos seems to not recognize correctly the date of creation with de videos imported from a GoPro. What's happening is that for all photos imported from a GoPro that's not a problem but for videos the displayed date is wrong. Ex. I'm in UTC+11 dans I have : shown as 27 juin 2021 13:13:24 in Photos
If I change the date, and then reupload this image into my icloud photos, will it still appear at the front in the Recents album? I'm trying to upload like 10K old photos to my iphone from a previous phone (I have the jpgs) and don't want all of them to be infront of my latest photos in the recents folder...
Amazing video! However, my problem was that I had pics with generic Creation date (1/1/1970), but with a Modification date which seems to reflect the time the pic was actually taken. After going down the rabbit hole, I created myself an Automator app which runs a script that does exactly that. Thanks anyway, Gary!
Simply - thank you, thank you, thank you. I need to do this for the exact reason you mention (giving copies to a grandparent to view on their PC). Extremely helpful! Now to prepare them for copying! :)
Thank you, for the very informative video tutorial. It’s something that I wouldn’t do, changing dates of pictures, but it’s nice to know just in case. Thanks, Gary! 👍🏻❤️
I've tried commenting at the top level for .MOV files but youtube is not allowing me to paste it in as a comment :(. You need to use ffprobe instead to get access to the metadata. Use the -hide_banner and -loglevel error flags and -show_entries flag. Sadly I can't paste the answer in!
Thanks for this video! If I could just copy the file out of Photos app - like copying from an SD card, the creation date would be copied, not the file copy date. This is one of the most frustrating things about Photos - when I export originals, the file creation date should be the date taken - just like every other camera device that I'm using.
I left a comment on the exporting photos video a few minutes ago. This answers the why and how I can change the creation date if wanted. I was mostly worried about being able to see when a photo or video was taken and you demo'd how I could find this. Is there a way to search out photos taken in a specific time frame - like all photos in a drive taken in July 2019? Searching on metadata. I'll keep searching your channel.
Thank you very much for this tutorial, it saved me :-) but I have a question about video files mp4 - is there an option to see original created date also? I tried in many ways, but it doesn't work :-( Thank you!!
@@macmost Also I found "show movie inspector" under Window & there is no information about videos date & time also. Can't understand what I did wrong :-)
Hi Macmost, i've been using mac for a year, my mac friend are really impressed on my speed on doing anything on mac. I learn a lot from you ! I've been learning a lot since lockdown and wanted to optimize most of my workflow. I'm a event videographer. I always have to open new folder and name it the same every single time.I have 4 folder named (Footage)(Photos)(Audio)(Stockfootage) is there a way to open this 4 folder with less typing? Hope to learn more from you ✌🏻
Just leave those four folders open all the time. No need to close them. That's how I do it with similar folders. I have each one as a tab in a single Finder window and it is always open.
Awesome tutorial! Mac's Automator application is for sure extremely useful. However, is there a similar code to change the creation date for video files?
Mine works on some photos? Error Message: The action “Run Shell Script” encountered an error: “usage: date [-jnRu] [-r seconds|file] [-v[+|-]val[ymwdHMS]] [-I[date | hours | minutes | seconds]] [-f fmt date | [[[mm]dd]HH]MM[[cc]yy][.ss]] [+format] touch: out of range or illegal time specification: [[CC]YY]MMDDhhmm[.SS]”
It appears the error could be due to attempting to process files that the script can not handle, such as .MOV and .PNG and animated .GIF. The script does appear to work on the files such as .HEIC and .JPG.
Can you use something similar to change the date taken? Went on a trip and the kids have really old iPod touches and the battery sucks and it resets the date to 1970. I know what date they were really taken so I’d like to edit the exif data.
If you use the PHOTOS app to view and organize all your pictures then you can easily adjust the date/time taken IN the PHOTOS program and that affects the EXIF data. But if you organize by files/folders "Finder style" then Gary's method is the way to go. There's also older programs like A BETTER FINDER ATTRIBUTE that can do it as well. I think it's a paid program though.
@@CesarGamino thanks fir the reply. I don’t use the photos app or any app yet to organize. Right now just folders. However, for this particular problem I am also trying to move data from a super old iPod touch to an iPhone. For some reason some of the old pictures taken on the iPod are in png format and won’t upload to iCloud correctly. I can use preview to export to jpeg or heic, but then all the exif data is wrong. The same thing for a few of the movie files, they are .mov and iCloud doesn’t like those either.
Great tutorial, but I would like to sort my photo files by Date Digitalized, you see, I export work photos to my corporate OneDrive, and I have an assigned Windows laptop; I can sort by "Capture Date" there, but when I'm on my personal computer (my Mac), I don't have that.
so how does one do this for a PC (not a Mac) on over 600 photos ? Can someone make a 'thing' available to obtain free or for money to drag drop them onto to do this for PC please.
I'm looking for a mistake that I could have committed but it seems that the code is ok, In Monterey 12.0.1 I receive the following error: The Action "Run Shell Script" Encountered An error: "ZSH: 4: unmatched" ZSH: 4: PARSE ERROR NEAR `$ (DATE -J -F"% Y% M% d ... '"
@@macmost With another software I can see now that the dates that I need to copy (that are PDF files and not simple images), there are in __QuickTime/TIFF create date__ field or in __Composite Create Date__ field, so the problem is that your code, in the case of these PDFs, copy the dates from an empty field.
You may have to look for an app (not sure if there are any). Or, look for a way to do it on Windows. Or, maybe you don't really need this -- will adjusting the date in the Photos app do what you need? Easy to do that on the iPhone and the result should be more or less the same for practical purposes.
@@macmost would love to change created date and modified date, but that seems to be only changable on a macbook? If i get the picture off my iphone to my windows computer can i change the created and modified date and transfer it back to my iphone?
@@osmangazi-313 It really depends on the details. Are you trying to change the FILE date, or the photo metadata? Is the photo a file, or is it in the Photos App Library? What is your real goal here?
@@macmost trying to change photo metadata :), the photo is on my apple iphone device, i know how to change the dates by adusting them but when u check deeper it still shows the created and modified date. So basically the picture is on my iphone and i wwnt to change the metadata specifically picture “created date”
@@osmangazi-313 So unless you can find an app that does this (probably requiring an export from your Photo library first) you'll need to get the image on your computer and find a way to do it there.
in the olden days you could right click on the photo and show the original file in Finder, then drag a copy to where you liked to have it and you conserved the original creation date
You'd need to use a technique like this but scripted to do what you want. Not sure how easy that would be for you without knowing your coding skill level.
@@billcipher3479 Then I'm not sure what to suggest, sorry. What makes this task critical for you? Can you just put these photos in your Photos library where they are arranged by metadata date instead?
@@macmost I'm trying to move some files to my phone the downloading process shows it's downloading in order of name but when I checked the files on my phone it's all mess up the problem is the creation date
@@billcipher3479 Once you put the in the Photos app then the file date shouldn't matter. Not sure what the situation is with these files then. Sorry I can't be of more help but it seems it may require a firsthand look.
Hi Gary, I know this isn’t a recent video but I’m hoping you have made (or can make?) a similar video where instead of changing the file created date in the exif data, that the app/program you made actually bulk changes the file names of a group of files to include the file created date? Eg 202001011345_IMG_1234. Or even add suffix text such as Christmas. Thanks Gary, your videos are always so informative! 😊
Why would you need the FILE created date in the name? What's your goal? You can already view and sort by the created date in the Finder in List View. No need to include it in the name of the file too. As for a suffix, you can just do that with a Finder Rename. th-cam.com/video/rRIZAjylKDw/w-d-xo.html
@@macmost hi there, thanks for your reply! I share files across apple and windows, and to other family members, and often the file creation/date taken does not easily flow through to be visible in Windows File Explorer. Therefore if the file name included the date the photo was taken it would make it easier to see and organise photos from multiple people and devices/operating systems without having to use a Mac/Lightroom etc.
@@JayJayBowie Right, if you COPY a file from one drive (or computer) to another it will be a new file that is a copy of the original. So it has a new file creation date as it should. So it isn't really the FILE date you want, it is the metadata date inside the file that is part of the photo. That's what I'm talking about here. You can use a similar technique to change the filename. But it will take some work and know-how to build it.
I just uploaded 65 video clips in premiere pro just to blindly guess the chronological order of which they happened..... so hopefully I can fix it😅 Thank you!!
Thank you for the great tutorial! I have a similar but reverse issue. I have a loooooooot of images that have no Exif data, but the date the photos were taken is in the file name. They are named something like #locationxyz-DD-MM-YYYY-Image# '. Is it possible to make an automator script to grab the date from the file name and write it into the exif? Also the location name changes so the date is not always in the same place in the file name. If anyone can help I would be over the moon!!
I don't want to change the creation date, I just want to add the creation date to the tags or comments or otherwise, how do I sort my image files in my finder by creation date?
You could use a modification of this to change the filename. Not sure if you can add to the comments. If you have your files in Photos, you can export with the dates as the name of the files.
This is GLORIOUS - I've been slamming my head against the monolithic wall that is Apple's attempt to make things "easier" giving us less control. I want to learn all about automator and scripts, but as you mention in the beginning, you say messing with the "creation" date is a little sacrilegious, and all the actual date is *still there* - just gotta use a photo editor, WHAT photo manager do you use? I tried to go all in on Photos App from Apple and now it's bloated and ridiculous and I hate it. Will you share your best practices photo/video manage flow? thanks! Happy new subscriber here, and sign me up for the shell/automator class!
@@macmost I guess I'm just old old old school and I'm comparing it to Image Capture and using the finder to organize my photos like I did 10+ years ago. I also thought going all in with Photos App would mean I could import as originals into Photoshop or videos into Premiere, but that is not smooth either...
This is brilliant. But what if there are hundreds of photos in folders and sub-folders, and you want to apply this fix to all of them? What changes would the script require?
SPACES IN FILE NAME: One small suggestion if you have spaces in file names is to ensure your Automator script encloses the file parameter in double quotes. Use: "$f"
In my photos show the date as 2021-07-20 7:19:06 p.m. When i try to change the hour to -6 Hours it show me and error Failed conversion of ``2019010381112'' using format ``%Y%m%d%H%M%S'' date: illegal time format Why this happened ?? Any solution?
@@macmost Thank u very much! But the problem is in my image file show the date as 2021-07-20 7:19:06 p.m. Instead of 19:19:06 (NONE p.m. or a.m.) So it took just one digit instead of 2 digits. That’s the problem :(
It's beyond reasonable understanding why a simple operation should result in this brain teaser complicated solution. In Windows no matter how many times you transfer, copy, paste a file from one device to another, you will still get the Exif data in its original format/date. Why the hell on a Mac you have to be an engineer or IT expert to be able to do the same thing?? How can you organise your thousands of photos you have into your Photos App and exporting them into (let's say) an external HD and sort them by year taken and so on? If the same files are chronologically set and organised within your Photos App, why can't you export them in the same order??
I don't see the script written out... Could someone (who's done this) please copy the (command) script for me (us all?). Thanking you in advance. Btw, really good video. Wish I understood terminal commands more!
This not working for me at all. I don’t even have the tool option at all. Any help would be much appreciated. I am working on a large project with basically a file dump going back 10 years and need the files in chronological order to even begin the edit. Help lol
If the metadata is correct in the files, then why not bring them into Photos (or Lightroom if you prefer) and deal with them there? Then you have all sorts of tools to help (editing, cropping, tagging, albums, searches, etc).
FYI -- you can create a separate library in Photos to handle the project (assuming this is a work project and you don't want the files to mingle with your personal photos or iCloud).
It can do images and videos... Only one problem, if someone sent you an image in a message or you downloaded it from the web, The EXIF could have been stripped, so excluding those kinds of images, it works great!
Why would you say it's not kosher. It's a horrible issue for people who want their photos that are dowloard from the cloud from many years and different devices.
Do you mean having creation dates that are different from the date the file was actually created? Just that it is not reality: If I create a file on Jan 1 2024 and change the file creation date to March 6 2022, then that is wrong. The file wasn't created then.
I don't see a need to do complicated substitution using awk when you can set the expected input format as below: for f in "$@" do touch -t $(mdls -name kMDItemContentCreationDate $f -raw | { read gmt ; date -j -f "%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S %p" "$gmt" +%Y%m%d%H%M ; }) $f done
Also watch out for daylight saving. For example England observes BST British Summer Time which is GMT +1 not just GMT. Your camera may or may not be set to to care about daylight saving so you might need to make an adjustment. It might be better to leave the original time format as it was taken on the camera and then in the Photos.app you can go to imports, select all the re-imported pictures and adjust the time zone in the app it's self. Do add one hour to your time use: -v +1H
HELLO GARY, CAN YOU PLEASE MAKE A VIDEO OR GIVE AN ADVICE ABOUT THE FOLLOWING? I would like to rename files automatically, so the reverse date and the time of the day are at the beginning. A file called "birthday speech.eml" would then be renamed to "2024.09.15 15.34.20 birthday speech.eml", according to the time the email was sent respectively received. This is useful for several types of files, but especially for emails. When emails are dragged and dropped from the Mail app in macOS in a folder and when they have the same name, a number is added at the end of the file name automatically, for instance "birthday speech 2.eml". But this is not precise, because macOS cannot sort files according to the date an email was sent or received. That is why the reverse date and the time of the day at the beginning are important. If this is used for other file types like .PDF or .pages, the files including emails are sorted exactly according to the time they have been sent, received or created, as long as sorted by name is activated in Finder. I use this type of naming scheme a lot, so an automated solution would be great. I am sure other Apple users would benefit from this as well. Maybe this works with Automator. Thank you for your help!
I don't think that would be easily possible. Trying to figure out the time sent of an eml file would involve digging into that file. Then a different process would be needed for a PDF, if the information is even in the file at all. Then other ways for other types of files, but I don't think it would be possible for many. What you need is not a tutorial, but to hire a programmer to try to build this for you. The alternative is just to use what you already have. Keep these on your email server where you can easily find them by date already. Otherwise, manually name any saved messages or downloaded attachments as you have been doing.
@@macmost Please know that only for the email files the date and time of the day of sending or receiving that email is necessary. For all other file types, for instance .pdf and .pages, the date and daytime of the creation is enough. Maybe you know how to do this automatically for .pdf and .pages files? But I understand that for the email files, a programmer would need to be hired. Thank you for your quick and helpful answer. What a great channel and medium that is!
@@macmost I just saw it and it's very good and informative. But while I saw it, I remembered that the date of my .pages files has to be the date when the document has been finished, which is the same date that is shown on the first page of the document for the person who reads it. For .pdf documents, it's the same. So, it's not about the creation date. Do you know any method to do this automatically? Sorry for being imprecise before.
You can do .MOV files with ffprobe instead of mdls. I can't paste the answer into comments sadly... the comment gets removed. Use -hide_banner -loglevel error -show_entries format_tags=com.apple.quicktime.creationdate -i filename then grep for the middle line.
Hi Daniel! Thank you so much for this comment. I'm trying to change the date on lots of .mov and .mp4 videos, but the script in the tutorial works just for images. I'm trying to do as you say but I'm not an expert at all and can't manage to make the script work. Could it be so helpful to copy and paste the right script for videos in an email or DM? Many thanks if you read this.
Hi @danielrobinson5654 - Im facing a similar issue, photos are updated but .MOV files are not, any more inifo to resolve this would be greatly appreciated
Thanks so much for these 10 minutes and 16 seconds of pure gold: I've (well, you have...) solved a problem, I've learned about Exif, how to retrieve it on a Mac, how to manipulate dates, how to use many Mac OS tools, etc etc Awesome content man, this deserves not just a like, but also a subscription
This was helpful for the first few minutes then became beyond the scope of probably most Mac users. It would be nice if you could show several different apps (photo editing apps, metadata editing apps, etc.) that you can use to get the same results, especially when we want to batch process hundreds of photos.
Did you figure out a method for this? I am assuming it's for posting curated content purposes...
HERO! Couldn't find how to do this anywhere else. You just saved me from manually adjusting 5,000 photo dates. Thank you Gary!!
Excellent example of an explainer video using an approach that shows the viewer what you could do, but then why not to do that, using the element of surprise and dissonance to enable learning effectively. Well done.
Incredible video (disregard ANY of the negative comments). Image Capture on MBP will change the created date when you copy files onto a flash drive (Apple does this by default). Using the Automator script got me my dates back. Fantastically helpful. Thank you!
Thanks so much for this, I'm finally getting down to organizing nearly 20 years of personal photos and this is incredibly helpful.
Thanks for the inspector tip Gary. This little quirk has been driving me crazy for years! )))
Gary saves the day - again! I had to watch this a second time to realize exactly how easy it is. Open automator and follow Gary's step-by-step instructions. Thanks for the code too! Now, I only wonder how to make this work for the videos that have the same issue 🤔
1:58 It wasn't like that in the era where you could simply mount your phone/camera SD as a Storage device.
If you copy a file from a flash drive the creation data is preserved.
The entire problem is created by that horrible MTP in the newer phones.
So this is not cheating, this is only fixing a problem.
Thank you very much for this great video! I searched for days to find a way to keep the original date of photo's in Finder. You saved me! If you ever make a code to do the same with mp4- and/or MOV-files, I would really like to have it.
I've tried commenting at the top level for .MOV files but youtube is not allowing me to paste it in as a comment :(. You need to use ffprobe instead to get access to the metadata. Use the -hide_banner and -loglevel error flags and -show_entries flag. Sadly I can't paste the answer in!
Yes please how do u do it with videos?
yes please, i desperately need one for .mov files. Thanks in advance
Where can someone get a copy of the automator app or the script text?
Good info. I do have a question. I do a lot of video clips and I don't always keep my video camera date set to the correct date and time. Of course then when I shoot video clips, it puts which ever date the camera is set to as the creation date of the clip/file. I know I can go into Info and put the correct date in one of the open boxes. So, does this as you describe work on mp4 clips/files? Thanks.
OAG
Do you mean in the Photos app? Yes. Try it and see.
what a masterful explanation and solution! Ain't UNIX great ;-) and the integration with Automator is superb!
An excellent tutorial, as always. But I found that this process is no longer necessary under Photos 6.0 on Big Sur 11.3.1. I just copied several photos out of the Photos app and the file Creation Date and Modified Date match the exif data as seen in Photos. Maybe this is a recent change. Thanks, Rob.
Not so under Photos 7.0 on Monterey. Exporting files from Photos to desktop changes the file Creation Date and Modified Date to current date.
Thanks for including the full terminal command lines at the linked page. Works great for me.
Absolutely amazing! When I pulled my photos from iCloud, I was unable to effectively rename my files in Lightroom because the creation date was the download date. Now I can run this on all of my photos + videos before renaming and sorting. Thanks!
I actually just ran into an issue where I have a couple thousand photos that the automator is not modifying creating dates for. Ie EXIF "Date Time Digitized" states June 22, 2020, as well as TIFF "Date/Time" - thoughts on why automator isn't working?
This video solved the issue I've been struggling for years!! Thank you! You're genius!!
Thank you very much for the vide! I've been looking for something like that. But the apps are being downloaded in german! and of course I don't sepak it. Do you think ih has to do that my app store is in Switzerland? Do you think I can change the language? Thank you!
Yes, you can change the language for your Mac in System Settings, General, Language & Region.
Wow, this is such a helpful, useful, and well-done video! As a digital forensic practitioner, I was looking for a program that I could use for this exact application. Thanks!
Hey, thank you!! However this script seems not to work with videos shot on iphone and exported from Photos. Do you have any additional clue for that matter?
They should work with those. Not sure where you could be going wrong.
@@macmost Humm, here it does not work. Did you test it there with videos also? Thank you!
@@juliomatoslima Oh, videos. No, it wouldn't work with videos. It is for photos. Videos have different metadata items and you'd have to adjust accordingly. Or maybe just name the files like you want and don't worry about the file dates.
@@macmost can you please post a separate Automator code for videos (iPhone video exports)? thank you
Hey Gary. So what do you think about pictures? There's a certain day it was added to your Photos but the time when it was shot is sometimes way in the past. Do you keep the original file date and give a caption or description "circa 1977"? Or would you just change the date on the file?
This will depend on which filesystem you run, if you use o3x, you will have 4 fully operational dates for each file, with HFS, there is basically creation and modification timestamps that works somewhat like expected, with APFS this should be more like o3x/ZFS, however unable to confirm at the moment.
o3x aka ZFS
```
# stat workspace/
File: workspace/
Size: 2 Blocks: 1 IO Block: 512 directory
Device: 5a00010009h/386547122185d Inode: 32860 Links: 2
Access: (0700/drwx------) Uid: ( 0/ root) Gid: ( 0/ root)
Access: 2020-08-04 20:52:10.133569703 +0000
Modify: 2020-08-04 20:52:10.133569703 +0000
Change: 2020-08-04 20:52:10.133569703 +0000
Birth: 2020-08-04 20:52:10.133569703 +0000
```
APFS
```
# stat /tmp/com.apple.launchd.fGb5uK7URS
16777220 12915598163 drwx------ 3 root root 0 96 "Jun 8 20:44:32 2021" "Jun 8 08:35:57 2021" "Jun 8 08:35:57 2021" "Jun 8 08:35:57 2021" 4096 0 0 /tmp/com.apple.launchd.fGb5uK7URS
```
Great to know however it is to complicated. Is there an app that I can drag a folder of photos and it will do it for me regardless where the folder is located. So for example I can drag a master folder with lots of sub folders all of them are photos and it will do it to all of them
what is it called??
Thank you... we are having to 'Produce" discovery against Landlord on Commercial Lease!!! This has saved us.
@macmost can you please post a separate Automator code for videos (iPhone video exports)? thank you
This video is purely GEM, trust me you explained this is so easy way that any layman can also perform this. I always look for Application to do all work, first time I enjoyed doing this type of coding and all. Awesome content. Can't stop my self to subscribe this channel for more informative videos.
Hi
Great tutorial with a finalization with the Automator app. Da*n hard to find though :) all other guides were only addressing renaming one file at a time.
But i am confused with the kmdItemContentCreationDate.
For videos it is the same as the file creation date as I can see in Finder, but for images it is ok just like what it shows in your guide.
Is the kMDItemFSContentChangeDate the same as modified date?
The photos and videos are taken by iPhone 12
Not sure. Metadata is not exactly the same between videos and photos. You'll have to keep experimenting to get what you want.
does this work with video files too?
literally you saved my life, I'm migrating from google photos to photos (icloud) and I was just thinking about coming back to google photos, but I have problem I’m having an error when I run the app on Automator, I basically follow the tutorial several times, even I copy and paste your code and nothing, anyway
THANK YOU, I’ll be keep trying
Now i remember why i started to use lightroom many years ago, but recently have gone back to photos as don't use photoshop that much. Is this still the same in 2024 with sonorma as i imported loads from my iphone and it put them in the correct date order or is it only if you use a camara other then an iphone.
Thanks
Not sure what you are asking. Is what "still the same?"
You are a savior! This is so cool. I was struggling with this for a while and you have just made my life easier! 10mis, worth it!
Gary, is this type of meta-data also preserved in Apple Pages files? Can I see all modified dates for a single document in chronological order? I have files I’m afraid to open in Pages bc it’ll automatically have a new Modified date if I change ever one punctuation…I prefer that the dates stay in order of creation (even though I may work on them out of order, if that makes sense). Thank you
Metadata is for things like media: photos mostly. A Pages file is a regular file with a creation time, modification time and last opened time. Sounds like you want to just view these files by creation time. So why not do that?
@@macmost yes, That sounds right. Okay, good idea, I will try to view them by creation date. I have such a mess with a book I’m writing, chapters worked on and modified out of order, etc. Ugh! If I hire you for private consultation to work through this live, can you screen share on my 2019 MacBook Pro so I can show you and you can click and help me? (It’s all pages files). Thx
@@Burps___ if you’re writing a book I highly recommend you take a look at Scrivener (www.literatureandlatte.com/scrivener/overview) it makes working with chapters child’s play. I use it by exporting text to and from pages in a plain text format. The idea being to write in Scrivener and export to Pages for final editing and formatting.
@@flookoco2008 Thanks, flookoco. I was a prior Scrivener user for a full year.
Is there any way to fix photos inside Apple Photos?
Something like the reverse thing?
I have a massive photo collection that I've imported in Photos and now it messed up with the creation date (due to moving files around and copying).
Now I have to fix each photo to it's exif information.
I can create a nodejs or automator script to fix that but it would be better if Apple Photos could be fixed in batch. :(
Hi!
Great video as always.
But do you know why Photos seems to not recognize correctly the date of creation with de videos imported from a GoPro.
What's happening is that for all photos imported from a GoPro that's not a problem but for videos the displayed date is wrong.
Ex. I'm in UTC+11 dans I have :
shown as 27 juin 2021 13:13:24 in Photos
You'd have to contact GoPro support about that. Sounds like they aren't setting the metadata right.
If I change the date, and then reupload this image into my icloud photos, will it still appear at the front in the Recents album? I'm trying to upload like 10K old photos to my iphone from a previous phone (I have the jpgs) and don't want all of them to be infront of my latest photos in the recents folder...
No, this just changes the date of the file to match the metadata. The date in Photos is from the metadata.
Amazing video! However, my problem was that I had pics with generic Creation date (1/1/1970), but with a Modification date which seems to reflect the time the pic was actually taken. After going down the rabbit hole, I created myself an Automator app which runs a script that does exactly that. Thanks anyway, Gary!
Simply - thank you, thank you, thank you. I need to do this for the exact reason you mention (giving copies to a grandparent to view on their PC). Extremely helpful! Now to prepare them for copying! :)
Thank you, for the very informative video tutorial. It’s something that I wouldn’t do, changing dates of pictures, but it’s nice to know just in case. Thanks, Gary! 👍🏻❤️
game changer! thank you so much for creating the script and the instruction video.
Will this work for .mov files as well. I take movies with my iPhone and export them. Have the same date issues.
Video files use metadata as well, but it is different. you’ll need to research the right things to set and use trial and error.
I've tried commenting at the top level for .MOV files but youtube is not allowing me to paste it in as a comment :(. You need to use ffprobe instead to get access to the metadata. Use the -hide_banner and -loglevel error flags and -show_entries flag. Sadly I can't paste the answer in!
Great video, thank you. It is the first time I come across your channel and I will certainly follow your updates. Ciao, Stefano
Thanks for this video! If I could just copy the file out of Photos app - like copying from an SD card, the creation date would be copied, not the file copy date. This is one of the most frustrating things about Photos - when I export originals, the file creation date should be the date taken - just like every other camera device that I'm using.
Hi Gary, could you please tell me how to export photos or videos from Photos to a Usb drive
If you want a slightly-compressed version with edits, just drag and drop. Otherwise, use File, Export and export the unmodified original.
I left a comment on the exporting photos video a few minutes ago. This answers the why and how I can change the creation date if wanted. I was mostly worried about being able to see when a photo or video was taken and you demo'd how I could find this. Is there a way to search out photos taken in a specific time frame - like all photos in a drive taken in July 2019? Searching on metadata. I'll keep searching your channel.
Thank you so much. You have saved me hours of work. What a useful thing to be able to do and you explain it perfectly. Brilliant.
macOS puts up quite a fight! This is why I rename my photo files with the date I shot it. Not as elegant but gets the job done quick
is there a way to do this automatically on the fly or on import ? I want to start doing that. Android style haah
Great Video Tutorial! You helped me so much !
thx mate :( how about the Video encoded date and th Tagged date ? how to change it
You may be able to do it in a similar way, but you'll need to do the research on what to change and how. I don't know offhand, sorry.
Thank you very much for this tutorial, it saved me :-) but I have a question about video files mp4 - is there an option to see original created date also? I tried in many ways, but it doesn't work :-( Thank you!!
Open in QuickTime Player and then Command+i to view the metadata, if it is there.
@@macmost Thank you very much for answer, I already did it, but there is no information about date & time, there is pixels parameters etc.
@@macmost Also I found "show movie inspector" under Window & there is no information about videos date & time also. Can't understand what I did wrong :-)
Hi Macmost, i've been using mac for a year, my mac friend are really impressed on my speed on doing anything on mac. I learn a lot from you ! I've been learning a lot since lockdown and wanted to optimize most of my workflow.
I'm a event videographer. I always have to open new folder and name it the same every single time.I have 4 folder named (Footage)(Photos)(Audio)(Stockfootage) is there a way to open this 4 folder with less typing? Hope to learn more from you ✌🏻
Just leave those four folders open all the time. No need to close them. That's how I do it with similar folders. I have each one as a tab in a single Finder window and it is always open.
Awesome tutorial! Mac's Automator application is for sure extremely useful. However, is there a similar code to change the creation date for video files?
Experiment and see, but I don't think it works the same way.
I have a Question 🙋♂️ if the photo is already in the library how do I restore the dates without copying it out and/or doubles in the app?
How do you make this script work for .movs and or .mp4s?
Is there an app to rename files using metadata? im not a coder, I cant get this working. Thanks
I don't know of any, sorry.
@@macmost thanks anyway. Great videos and channel.
Mine works on some photos?
Error Message:
The action “Run Shell Script” encountered an error: “usage: date [-jnRu] [-r seconds|file] [-v[+|-]val[ymwdHMS]]
[-I[date | hours | minutes | seconds]]
[-f fmt date | [[[mm]dd]HH]MM[[cc]yy][.ss]] [+format]
touch: out of range or illegal time specification: [[CC]YY]MMDDhhmm[.SS]”
It appears the error could be due to attempting to process files that the script can not handle, such as .MOV and .PNG and animated .GIF. The script does appear to work on the files such as .HEIC and .JPG.
I followed your instructions to the T, and the script is correct, but It isn't doing anything, I am running M1 OSX 12.1
Can you use something similar to change the date taken? Went on a trip and the kids have really old iPod touches and the battery sucks and it resets the date to 1970. I know what date they were really taken so I’d like to edit the exif data.
If you use the PHOTOS app to view and organize all your pictures then you can easily adjust the date/time taken IN the PHOTOS program and that affects the EXIF data. But if you organize by files/folders "Finder style" then Gary's method is the way to go. There's also older programs like A BETTER FINDER ATTRIBUTE that can do it as well. I think it's a paid program though.
@@CesarGamino thanks fir the reply. I don’t use the photos app or any app yet to organize. Right now just folders. However, for this particular problem I am also trying to move data from a super old iPod touch to an iPhone. For some reason some of the old pictures taken on the iPod are in png format and won’t upload to iCloud correctly. I can use preview to export to jpeg or heic, but then all the exif data is wrong. The same thing for a few of the movie files, they are .mov and iCloud doesn’t like those either.
Many thanks for that great hint! awesome
Great tutorial, but I would like to sort my photo files by Date Digitalized, you see, I export work photos to my corporate OneDrive, and I have an assigned Windows laptop; I can sort by "Capture Date" there, but when I'm on my personal computer (my Mac), I don't have that.
Do you mean in Photos, or in the Finder? Either way, sort by date should work.
so how does one do this for a PC (not a Mac) on over 600 photos ? Can someone make a 'thing' available to obtain free or for money to drag drop them onto to do this for PC please.
I'm looking for a mistake that I could have committed but it seems that the code is ok,
In Monterey 12.0.1 I receive the following error:
The Action "Run Shell Script" Encountered An error: "ZSH: 4: unmatched"
ZSH: 4: PARSE ERROR NEAR `$ (DATE -J -F"% Y% M% d ... '"
Hard to say what is wrong just based on that. Check your code carefully.
@@macmost With another software I can see now that the dates that I need to copy (that are PDF files and not simple images), there are in __QuickTime/TIFF create date__ field or in __Composite Create Date__ field, so the problem is that your code, in the case of these PDFs, copy the dates from an empty field.
@@FabioMonfasani Those are PDFs? Yes, then my code is about photos taken with a camera, it would be different for documents like PDFs.
how can i do this if i dont have a macbook? i have a photo on my iphone and want to change date created? I have a windows computer only
You may have to look for an app (not sure if there are any). Or, look for a way to do it on Windows. Or, maybe you don't really need this -- will adjusting the date in the Photos app do what you need? Easy to do that on the iPhone and the result should be more or less the same for practical purposes.
@@macmost would love to change created date and modified date, but that seems to be only changable on a macbook? If i get the picture off my iphone to my windows computer can i change the created and modified date and transfer it back to my iphone?
@@osmangazi-313 It really depends on the details. Are you trying to change the FILE date, or the photo metadata? Is the photo a file, or is it in the Photos App Library? What is your real goal here?
@@macmost trying to change photo metadata :), the photo is on my apple iphone device, i know how to change the dates by adusting them but when u check deeper it still shows the created and modified date. So basically the picture is on my iphone and i wwnt to change the metadata specifically picture “created date”
@@osmangazi-313 So unless you can find an app that does this (probably requiring an export from your Photo library first) you'll need to get the image on your computer and find a way to do it there.
Thank you so much for this!
in the olden days you could right click on the photo and show the original file in Finder, then drag a copy to where you liked to have it and you conserved the original creation date
You can still do that with File, Export, Unmodified Original.
hey question how do i change mass files creation date by name
You'd need to use a technique like this but scripted to do what you want. Not sure how easy that would be for you without knowing your coding skill level.
@@macmost i have non
@@billcipher3479 Then I'm not sure what to suggest, sorry. What makes this task critical for you? Can you just put these photos in your Photos library where they are arranged by metadata date instead?
@@macmost I'm trying to move some files to my phone the downloading process shows it's downloading in order of name but when I checked the files on my phone it's all mess up the problem is the creation date
@@billcipher3479 Once you put the in the Photos app then the file date shouldn't matter. Not sure what the situation is with these files then. Sorry I can't be of more help but it seems it may require a firsthand look.
Hi Gary, I know this isn’t a recent video but I’m hoping you have made (or can make?) a similar video where instead of changing the file created date in the exif data, that the app/program you made actually bulk changes the file names of a group of files to include the file created date? Eg 202001011345_IMG_1234. Or even add suffix text such as Christmas. Thanks Gary, your videos are always so informative! 😊
Why would you need the FILE created date in the name? What's your goal? You can already view and sort by the created date in the Finder in List View. No need to include it in the name of the file too. As for a suffix, you can just do that with a Finder Rename. th-cam.com/video/rRIZAjylKDw/w-d-xo.html
@@macmost hi there, thanks for your reply! I share files across apple and windows, and to other family members, and often the file creation/date taken does not easily flow through to be visible in Windows File Explorer. Therefore if the file name included the date the photo was taken it would make it easier to see and organise photos from multiple people and devices/operating systems without having to use a Mac/Lightroom etc.
@@JayJayBowie Right, if you COPY a file from one drive (or computer) to another it will be a new file that is a copy of the original. So it has a new file creation date as it should. So it isn't really the FILE date you want, it is the metadata date inside the file that is part of the photo. That's what I'm talking about here. You can use a similar technique to change the filename. But it will take some work and know-how to build it.
I just uploaded 65 video clips in premiere pro just to blindly guess the chronological order of which they happened..... so hopefully I can fix it😅 Thank you!!
Thank you for the great tutorial!
I have a similar but reverse issue. I have a loooooooot of images that have no Exif data, but the date the photos were taken is in the file name. They are named something like #locationxyz-DD-MM-YYYY-Image# '.
Is it possible to make an automator script to grab the date from the file name and write it into the exif?
Also the location name changes so the date is not always in the same place in the file name.
If anyone can help I would be over the moon!!
I don't want to change the creation date, I just want to add the creation date to the tags or comments or otherwise, how do I sort my image files in my finder by creation date?
You could use a modification of this to change the filename. Not sure if you can add to the comments. If you have your files in Photos, you can export with the dates as the name of the files.
cannot find it as of June 2023, Is it gone or somewhere else?
What is "it" exactly? This should still work.
Thank you sooo much!
saved my life
This guy is a genious!
This is GLORIOUS - I've been slamming my head against the monolithic wall that is Apple's attempt to make things "easier" giving us less control. I want to learn all about automator and scripts, but as you mention in the beginning, you say messing with the "creation" date is a little sacrilegious, and all the actual date is *still there* - just gotta use a photo editor, WHAT photo manager do you use? I tried to go all in on Photos App from Apple and now it's bloated and ridiculous and I hate it. Will you share your best practices photo/video manage flow? thanks! Happy new subscriber here, and sign me up for the shell/automator class!
Photos. Is it bloated? Compared to Lightroom or something it is so no bloated. How do you see it as bloated?
@@macmost I guess I'm just old old old school and I'm comparing it to Image Capture and using the finder to organize my photos like I did 10+ years ago. I also thought going all in with Photos App would mean I could import as originals into Photoshop or videos into Premiere, but that is not smooth either...
This is brilliant. But what if there are hundreds of photos in folders and sub-folders, and you want to apply this fix to all of them? What changes would the script require?
It would get much more complex.
thank you! you're the best
SPACES IN FILE NAME: One small suggestion if you have spaces in file names is to ensure your Automator script encloses the file parameter in double quotes.
Use: "$f"
Wow, this is a nice video. You are a king ;-)
Thank you!
In my photos show the date as 2021-07-20 7:19:06 p.m. When i try to change the hour to -6 Hours it show me and error
Failed conversion of ``2019010381112'' using format ``%Y%m%d%H%M%S''
date: illegal time format
Why this happened ?? Any solution?
2019010381112 would be 2019, January, 3rd, HOUR 81, minute 11, second 12. There is no such thing as hour "81."
@@macmost Thank u very much! But the problem is in my image file show the date as 2021-07-20 7:19:06 p.m. Instead of 19:19:06 (NONE p.m. or a.m.)
So it took just one digit instead of 2 digits. That’s the problem :(
@@macmost There is a command to do this conversion with seconds too???
Thank you so much !!!
@@arthurmoreno1778 I'm not sure. Experiment and try things. Research these command further.
It's beyond reasonable understanding why a simple operation should result in this brain teaser complicated solution. In Windows no matter how many times you transfer, copy, paste a file from one device to another, you will still get the Exif data in its original format/date. Why the hell on a Mac you have to be an engineer or IT expert to be able to do the same thing?? How can you organise your thousands of photos you have into your Photos App and exporting them into (let's say) an external HD and sort them by year taken and so on? If the same files are chronologically set and organised within your Photos App, why can't you export them in the same order??
What about in bulk???
It has been a while since I made this, but I believe it works in bulk. Have you tried it?
I don't see the script written out... Could someone (who's done this) please copy the (command) script for me (us all?). Thanking you in advance. Btw, really good video. Wish I understood terminal commands more!
Click on the link at the very beginning of the description to go to my site and the script is there.
This not working for me at all.
I don’t even have the tool option at all.
Any help would be much appreciated.
I am working on a large project with basically a file dump going back 10 years and need the files in chronological order to even begin the edit.
Help lol
If the metadata is correct in the files, then why not bring them into Photos (or Lightroom if you prefer) and deal with them there? Then you have all sorts of tools to help (editing, cropping, tagging, albums, searches, etc).
FYI -- you can create a separate library in Photos to handle the project (assuming this is a work project and you don't want the files to mingle with your personal photos or iCloud).
awesome...
While it isn't kosher my camera date on one camera on a holiday was set to 2012 not 2016 so they are all over the shop 😅
Hi Gary, what's happend with Daylight Saving Time, your script will work only within 6 month ... 😱
Just change the adjustment to what you need.
does this works with windows?
⚠There an app that can do this: *"A Better Finder Attributes"* ✅
It can do images and videos... Only one problem, if someone sent you an image in a message or you downloaded it from the web, The EXIF could have been stripped, so excluding those kinds of images, it works great!
@@honestview Nice!
Why would you say it's not kosher. It's a horrible issue for people who want their photos that are dowloard from the cloud from many years and different devices.
Do you mean having creation dates that are different from the date the file was actually created? Just that it is not reality: If I create a file on Jan 1 2024 and change the file creation date to March 6 2022, then that is wrong. The file wasn't created then.
Appreciate that but too complicated to me!
thanks Mac for charging me 4x as the competition and then making me have to code to achieve something that is very very very simple. genius. not.
I don't see a need to do complicated substitution using awk when you can set the expected input format as below:
for f in "$@"
do
touch -t $(mdls -name kMDItemContentCreationDate $f -raw | { read gmt ; date -j -f "%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S %p" "$gmt" +%Y%m%d%H%M ; }) $f
done
This particular snippet also accounts for the 12 hour time format which I presume was set by the Sony camera I used
'-name' can be used to get only the attribute kMDItemContentCreationDate instead of using head and
Also watch out for daylight saving. For example England observes BST British Summer Time which is GMT +1 not just GMT. Your camera may or may not be set to to care about daylight saving so you might need to make an adjustment. It might be better to leave the original time format as it was taken on the camera and then in the Photos.app you can go to imports, select all the re-imported pictures and adjust the time zone in the app it's self. Do add one hour to your time use: -v +1H
Apple is garbage. Can't even sort my photos by date taken
HELLO GARY, CAN YOU PLEASE MAKE A VIDEO OR GIVE AN ADVICE ABOUT THE FOLLOWING?
I would like to rename files automatically, so the reverse date and the time of the day are at the beginning. A file called "birthday speech.eml" would then be renamed to "2024.09.15 15.34.20 birthday speech.eml", according to the time the email was sent respectively received. This is useful for several types of files, but especially for emails. When emails are dragged and dropped from the Mail app in macOS in a folder and when they have the same name, a number is added at the end of the file name automatically, for instance "birthday speech 2.eml". But this is not precise, because macOS cannot sort files according to the date an email was sent or received. That is why the reverse date and the time of the day at the beginning are important. If this is used for other file types like .PDF or .pages, the files including emails are sorted exactly according to the time they have been sent, received or created, as long as sorted by name is activated in Finder. I use this type of naming scheme a lot, so an automated solution would be great. I am sure other Apple users would benefit from this as well. Maybe this works with Automator.
Thank you for your help!
I don't think that would be easily possible. Trying to figure out the time sent of an eml file would involve digging into that file. Then a different process would be needed for a PDF, if the information is even in the file at all. Then other ways for other types of files, but I don't think it would be possible for many. What you need is not a tutorial, but to hire a programmer to try to build this for you.
The alternative is just to use what you already have. Keep these on your email server where you can easily find them by date already. Otherwise, manually name any saved messages or downloaded attachments as you have been doing.
@@macmost Please know that only for the email files the date and time of the day of sending or receiving that email is necessary. For all other file types, for instance .pdf and .pages, the date and daytime of the creation is enough. Maybe you know how to do this automatically for .pdf and .pages files?
But I understand that for the email files, a programmer would need to be hired. Thank you for your quick and helpful answer. What a great channel and medium that is!
@@DKBoerner Have you seen this? th-cam.com/video/mpElZXDqlME/w-d-xo.html
@@macmost I just saw it and it's very good and informative. But while I saw it, I remembered that the date of my .pages files has to be the date when the document has been finished, which is the same date that is shown on the first page of the document for the person who reads it. For .pdf documents, it's the same. So, it's not about the creation date. Do you know any method to do this automatically? Sorry for being imprecise before.
@@DKBoerner If you are composing a script to do it, you would use the Modified Date instead of the Created Date.
You can do .MOV files with ffprobe instead of mdls. I can't paste the answer into comments sadly... the comment gets removed. Use -hide_banner -loglevel error -show_entries format_tags=com.apple.quicktime.creationdate -i filename then grep for the middle line.
You'll need to find ffprobe by searching for it on the web.
Hi Daniel! Thank you so much for this comment. I'm trying to change the date on lots of .mov and .mp4 videos, but the script in the tutorial works just for images. I'm trying to do as you say but I'm not an expert at all and can't manage to make the script work. Could it be so helpful to copy and paste the right script for videos in an email or DM? Many thanks if you read this.
Hi @danielrobinson5654 - Im facing a similar issue, photos are updated but .MOV files are not, any more inifo to resolve this would be greatly appreciated
I simplified the above code a little:
ans=$(mdls img.jpg | sed -n "/kMDItemContentCreationDate /p" | gawk -e '{print $3,$4}' | sed -n '
s/-//g
s/://g
s/ //g;p')
touch -t $ans img.jp