Photo Date Fixer

Install Photo Date Fixer

Photo Date Fixer runs on macOS 14 Sonoma or later, on Apple silicon and Intel Macs. After buying, download the app zip from your Polar receipt, unzip it, and drag Photo Date Fixer to your Applications folder.

The app is signed and notarized by Apple. Confirm Open at the normal first-launch prompt.

The app works without a license key. The key in your receipt turns on automatic updates: enter it in Photo Date Fixer → License…. Once a day, the app checks for a new version, shows what’s new, and installs it with Install and Relaunch. Photo Date Fixer → Check for Updates… checks right away. A key works on 3 Macs. To move it to another Mac, choose License… → Deactivate This Mac first. Your receipt always has the latest version, too.

Add your photos

The window says “Drop photos or a folder here”. Drop photos, videos or whole folders on it, or click Choose Photos…, or choose File → Add Photos… (⌘O). Folders inside folders are added too.

The app lists photos and videos: JPEG, HEIC, TIFF, PNG, GIF, RAW files from cameras, and videos like MOV and MP4. Other files are skipped, and the bottom of the window says how many. Hidden files and aliases are skipped too.

A Photos library is never opened. If you drop one, or a photo inside one, the app says “This is a Photos library. Photo Date Fixer never changes what’s inside it. Export the photos first.”

Add Photos… at the bottom adds more. Clear List empties the list. Neither changes a file.

The list

Each row shows:

Column	What it shows
Photo	A small picture and the file’s name
Date Taken	The date saved inside the photo by the camera or phone, or “None”
File’s Date	The date the Finder shows for the file
New Date	The date the photo will get, with where it comes from under it, like “From the name” or “The date you typed”. When a row can’t get a new date, the reason is here in orange

The dates inside a photo are shown as the camera wrote them. A file’s date is shown on your Mac’s clock.

Where the new date comes from

Photos with a date in their name get it as soon as you add them. For the others, select their rows (or none, for all of them), pick one of these under New date for, and click Use This Date. Nothing changes on disk yet.

The date in the file’s name

For photos saved from WhatsApp, phones and screenshots. The app reads names like these:

Name	New date
IMG-20230514-WA0007.jpg	May 14, 2023 at 12:00:07
WhatsApp Image 2023-05-14 at 21.03.12.jpeg	May 14, 2023 at 21:03:12
20230514_210312.jpg, IMG_20230514_210312.jpg	May 14, 2023 at 21:03:12
Screenshot 2023-05-14 at 21.03.12.png	May 14, 2023 at 21:03:12
Screenshot_20230514-210312.png	May 14, 2023 at 21:03:12
2023-05-14 21.03.12.jpg, photo_2023-05-14_21-03-12.jpg	May 14, 2023 at 21:03:12
scan 1987-07-01.jpg	July 1, 1987 at noon

WhatsApp’s IMG-…-WA0007 names have the day but no time. The app gives them noon plus their number in seconds, so the photos of one day keep their order. A name with no date, like IMG_4021.JPG, says “There’s no date in the file’s name.”

A date I type

For scans. Type a date like “July 1987”, “14 July 1987”, “July 14, 1987”, “1987” or “1987-07-14”. What’s missing is the first day of the month, January, and noon. You can add a time, like “1987-07-14 18:30”.

With Keep this order: each next photo is one minute later, the selected photos get 12:00, 12:01, 12:02 and so on, in the order of the list, so they sort the same way in Photos.

If the app can’t read what you typed, it says “Type a date like July 1987, 14 July 1987 or 1987-07-14.”

Move the date

For a camera whose clock was wrong. Pick Later or Earlier, a number, and minutes, hours, days or years. The app moves the date taken, or the file’s date when the photo has none. February 29 moved by a year becomes February 28.

The file’s date, into the photo

Writes the date the Finder shows into the photo, for photos that have no date taken. The older of the file’s two dates is used.

The date taken, onto the file

Sets the date the Finder shows from the date inside the photo. The photo itself isn’t rewritten.

Fix the dates

Click Fix Dates of 9 Photos (the number is how many will change). The app asks first:

Change the dates of 9 photos? 7 get the new date inside the photo and on the file. 2 get it on the file only. The picture itself isn’t touched, and the old dates are saved, so Put the Old Dates Back can undo it.

Click Fix Dates. The window shows “Fixing 5 of 9…”, then a report: how many have their new dates, and each photo left alone with the reason.

For each photo the app:

1. writes the old dates of every photo down first, in a small file on your Mac;
2. writes a new copy of the photo next to it with the new date inside, without re-compressing the picture;
3. reads the copy back and checks that the picture is exactly the same, pixel by pixel, and that every other detail (the place, the camera, which way up it goes, the colors) is still there;
4. only then puts the copy in the photo’s place, and sets the file’s date.

If anything doesn’t match, the photo stays as it was, and the report says why.

What goes inside the photo, and what goes on the file

Kind	New date
JPEG, HEIC, TIFF	Inside the photo and on the file
PNG, GIF, RAW files, videos	On the file only. The row says “date on the file only”

Photos uses the file’s date for a PNG with no date inside. For a video, Photos uses the date saved inside the video when it has one, and the app doesn’t change that.

Fix copies instead

Fix Copies in a New Folder… asks for a folder, then makes fixed copies there and leaves your photos as they are. A file that’s already in that folder is never replaced: the copy gets a free name, like “IMG-20230514-WA0007 2.jpg”.

Put the old dates back

Put the Old Dates Back, at the bottom or in the File menu, undoes the last fix: the date inside each photo (taken out again if it had none) and the file’s dates. It works after you quit and reopen the app too. Click it again to undo the fix before that.

A photo that changed after the fix is left alone, and the report says so. Fixed copies have nothing to undo, since your photos weren’t changed.

When a photo is left alone

The report says	What to do
The file is locked.	Unlock it in the Finder’s Get Info window, then add it again
The drive can only be read, not changed.	Copy the photos to your Mac, or use Fix Copies in a New Folder…
Photo Date Fixer isn’t allowed to change files in this folder.	Check the folder’s sharing and permissions in the Finder’s Get Info window, or fix copies
The file changed after it was listed, so it was left alone.	Click Clear List and add it again
The file belongs to another user of this Mac.	Fix it from that user’s account, or fix copies

Good to know

• The Finder’s Date Added of a photo that gets its new date inside becomes the time of the fix, because the app puts a new file in its place. Date Created and Date Modified get the new date.
• A date inside a photo has no time zone. The file’s date is worked out with your Mac’s time zone, using summer time for a summer photo even when you fix it in winter. When the photo says which time zone it was taken in, that one is used.
• macOS may ask once whether the app can change files in your Desktop, Documents or Downloads folder, when you click Put the Old Dates Back after reopening the app. Click Allow.

Privacy

Everything stays on your Mac. The app reads only the photos you add, and changes only their dates, after you click. The old dates of each fix are kept on your Mac, so the app can put them back. Once a day the app sends its license key to my update server, updates.flaviocopes.com, to check for a new version, and about once a week it checks the key with Polar, the shop. There are no accounts and no analytics.

Photo Date Fixer isn’t made by, affiliated with or endorsed by Apple, WhatsApp or Meta. Photos, Finder and macOS are trademarks of Apple and WhatsApp is a trademark of Meta, used here only to say what the app works with.