Why a photo's date and time can be wrong
Sometimes holiday photos sort under the wrong date, or a picture you clearly took in the afternoon shows a time in the middle of the night. Almost always, one of the four causes below is to blame.
1. The camera's clock is wrong
The time a photo was taken is simply whatever the camera's own clock said. Smartphones set their clocks automatically from the network, so they are rarely wrong. Digital cameras and action cams are different: if the clock was not set after a battery change or during first setup, they record a date years in the past or a random time. If every photo from one camera is off by the same amount, this is the cause.
2. Time zones
For a long time, the EXIF capture time recorded only the local time, without saying which time zone it was in. EXIF 2.31, released in 2016, added fields for the time-zone offset, but not every camera and program writes or reads them.
So when you organise photos taken abroad after you get home, a program may mistake the local time for your home time, or convert it the wrong way, and the photos can appear shifted by several hours. If phone photos and camera photos from the same trip sort into the wrong order, a few hours apart, this is the likely cause.
When a time-zone offset is recorded, PhotoBookInfo shows it under "Date taken". When it is missing, PhotoBookInfo notes that the time is based on the clock set in the camera.
3. You are seeing the file date, not the date taken
Apart from the capture time, every file has a "created" date and a "modified" date. Copying a photo to another folder, downloading it from the cloud or moving it over USB changes those file dates to that moment. That is why sorting by Date modified in File Explorer shows the date you moved the photos. To sort in shooting order, use the Date taken column instead.
4. The shooting information was removed
Photos received through messengers or social networks often have their shooting information removed. With no capture time, your gallery app sorts them by the date you received or saved them. Screenshots and photos newly saved by an editing app behave the same way. If PhotoBookInfo shows "Date taken: Not recorded", this is the case.
5. How to fix it
- iPhone: open the photo in the Photos app, swipe up or tap the info button, and tap Adjust next to the date to change the date, time and time zone. For several photos, select them, then use Adjust Date & Time from the menu. This works on iOS 15 and later.
- Galaxy: on many models you can open the photo's details in Gallery and tap Edit to change the date and time. The exact menu depends on the One UI version.
- Windows: in the file's Properties > Details tab, click Date taken and edit it directly.
- Cameras: before your next shoot, set the date, time and time zone in the camera's settings. Switching to the local time zone when you travel makes sorting much easier later.
The capture time is useful for organising photos, but when you send a photo to someone it also tells them when you were somewhere. For photos you plan to make public, consider removing it along with the location.
Check what your photo is carryingPhotoBookInfo reads photos inside your browser and never uploads them. It tells you if a location is stored and makes a clean copy for you.
Check a photo