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Question

P: Lightroom is changing creation dates when exporting photos

Forum|Forum|3 years ago
April 17, 2022
8 replies
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So, Lightroom is changing the creation dates when exporting photos to the date I am exporting that photo. The new file will have this new date, and before, by unchecked "Automatically write changes into XMP" on the Catalog Settings, when exporting an image, the file created would keep the creation date of the photo.

It would help in terms of organizing photos and files. This new way, to access metadata and therefore the creation date, I need to check individullay each photo on LR. It is time consuming.

Anyone else dealing with this also?

macOS

I

Ivan32047626bsou

Participating Frequently

After a lot of debugging, I've found the issue, which is really silly. On iOS, go to Settings > General > Date & Time and here make sure "24 Hour Time" is enabled. For some reason, having the time displayed in 12hr segments makes the Lightroom bug out and not export with the proper capture time.

J

Jao vdL

Adobe Expert

Hmm. My device is set for 12 hour display and it does not do the bug. I get correct capture times. Will try switching to 24 hour to see if switching to a 24 hour clock does show the problem

I

Ivan32047626bsou

Participating Frequently

No difference. Works correctly no matter what clock (12 or 24 hour) is selected..

For me, as silly as it sounds, it fixed the issue. I suppose it has something to do with the region your device is set on, therefore how the metadata is written from the iPhone on capturing, and how the metadata is then matched on export. I suppose not all regions will have the problems. But funnily enough, it fixed it for me going from 12hr to 24hr clock style.

Thanks!

I

Ivan32047626bsou

Participating Frequently

I'm experiencing the exact same problem on iOS 18. When I export a photo with a specific capture date, it puts the photo at the end of the library, instead in it's appropriate location, like it was on <=iOS 17. Instead now, the photos get exported with the date of capture being the export date.

I

Ivan32047626bsou

Participating Frequently

On iOS 18, when exporting a photo, the capture date of the original pre-edited photo is not perserved. Instead, the capture date gets filled with the date/time of export.

J

Jao vdL

Adobe Expert

I just tested and it works correctly on iOS 18. Make sure that you select the option when you are exporting to include camera info in the metadata so that the capture date metadata gets filled. This is not checked by default when you're exporting from iOS mobile. If this field is not filled, a lot of software just assumes it is the file creation date of the exported file.

H

henrikd21517719

Participating Frequently

When exporting pictures to my iOS camera roll, the picture's date is changed to date/time of the export whereas a while ago Lightroom used to apply the date the picture has been taken. Is there a switch where I can change this behaviour of Lightroom?

thanks

E

eddiew65130227

New Participant

I'd like to know this too.

J

Jao vdL

Adobe Expert

Since you talk about the option of "autmatically writing metadata into XMP" you are referring to Lightroom Classic which is a different program than this forum is for. Adobe made the naming of their programs very confusing. Anyway, as already said, you need to realize that the file creation date is NOT the same as the capture time metadata. The file creation date is simply when you created the exported file. That HAS to be the exact time you hit export. However the internal metadata in the file will show you that the capture date and time in the exported file is still exactly when you originally shot the image. You are just looking at the wrong metadata. You can not see the image capture date in Finder unfortunately (which is an Apple problem, not a Adobe issue) so you can't sort a folder in Finder on the image capture date metadata. In Lightroom Classic however, it is completely trivial to organize images on capture date. So this is more a question of your wokflow and how you organize your images. If you just use Lightroom Classic to organize images this all doesn't matter as you can ssort on capture date. However if you want to organize your exported images in Finder, you need to do something else as Apple finder simply doesn't have this possibility. ot of us simply do not use finder to organize images and just use Lightroom Classic itself and just export new copies if you need an image. If you really need to organize the exported files outside of Lightroom, you should look into Bridge which should come with your Classic subscription. Bridge is a great content browser. Contrary to finder, the date created column in Bridge is actually taken from the capture date metadata and not from the file creation date.

J_MacDonald

New Participant

Jao,

I think you may be mistaken on this one.
I am running into the same problem on my end.
Lightroom Classic USED to maintain the original capture date and time in the exif data, but now it changes even capture time.
Below are two screenshots from an exif viewer that show what I am referring to.
I think this is also what the OP was facing.

Sorry to resurrect an old thread but I just found it while searching for a solution to this myself.

Jim Wilde

Adobe Expert

Can you clarify what you mean when you refer to "the creation date"? Do you mean the date/time that the image was taken using a digital camera (called the capture date/time) or do you mean the date/time that the exported file was created by the OS file system?

n_adiaAuthor

New Participant

Thank you Jim for taking the time to reply to me.
I mean that it changes the metadata of that exported file. Once exported, when I check the metadata of the file, the creation date (when photo was taken, edit date and exported date are all the same: the date when it was exported (when checking the info of the file but it is still correct when checking inside LR).

Before this week update, by unchecking "Automatically write changes into XMP" on the Catalog Settings, I was able to keep all metadata - date of creation, edit, etc on file intact when exporting on the info of the file (not only in LR) but also when exporting a file, the date you would see on the file (on a desktop for example) would also be the creation date. This detail was helpful when organizing photos by dates on folders on a drive, for example, in my opinion.

I hope I managed to describe the issue clearly to you.
thank you Jim!

L

L5CCD

New Participant

I am have the same problem with dates.

JP Hess

Inspiring

When a file is exported from Lightroom a new file is created. As such, it must be dated at the time it is created. That is why it has a new date.

M

mek

Known Participant

While it's true that exporting a file from Lightroom creates a new file, the notion that it "MUST" be dated at the time of creation is not accurate. Ideally, there should be an option during the export process to choose whether the new file retains the original image creation date, adopts the export date, or uses another specified date.
This flexibility would better accommodate various user needs and workflows.

A

Anonymous

Hi,

Lightoom on my iPhone has started to export the photos based on the day I edit and save them to my camera roll as opposed to the actual date the photo was takem. How do I change this setting? This issue didn't have until the last two weeks.

Thanks,

Harsihta

selondon

Adobe Expert

I cannot replicate this using a four year old photo, the photo appears in my Camera Rill as the most recent, but checking the EXIF data it shows as 2018.

Which version of Lightroom Mobile are you running?

A

Anonymous

I'm on version 7.3.0

Let me better explain 🙂 Image 1 was taken on 9 October, 2021 and I edited it a few days later. When i expported it back to my camera roll on my phone, it continued to show the same date as seen in image 2. However, today when I imported the same picture into Lightroom and exported it back to the camera roll, it saved it with today's date instead of the original date as seen in Image 3. This started happening a few weeks ago. Any idea how to fix it? Basically, if I edit a pictuires a few days later after I took it, I'd like it to show the date it was taken/created when I edit and export it back to my camera roll.

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