How do you export CR2 files to jpg and keep metadata for created date and time and location data

@jensjakobsen 

Please provide screenshots from File > File Info with the relevant sections highlighted, or from Adobe Bridge, and/or the Mac Finder.

There are at least two sets of dates for a digital camera image. Those sets of dates can be different, and you have to know how they are different and take care not to confuse them.

In operating systems (macOS, Windows…), the file creation date is always the date that instance of the file was created in the file system. If you’re actually asking about the EXIF capture date (the camera date/time of image capture), which is when the image was recorded by the camera, that is a completely different metadata date field than the Created date on the macOS Finder desktop. Your CR2 raw file shows that both are the same because the camera wrote the raw file to the card’s file system at the same date/time that it captured the image. But once you start saving/exporting copies, the camera and file system dates will differ because you have created a new file that is not the original. But the same copy can carry forward the EXIF camera capture date too, if that was included in the metadata.

Because you selected All Metadata in Save for Web, I think you did successfully carry forward the camera capture date, but the problem is, the EXIF capture date is not usually displayed by the macOS Finder so it is showing you the creation date of the file created by Save for Web.

If you want to see the EXIF capture date in a Finder window, switch it to Column or Gallery view (choose As Columns or As Gallery from the View menu) and make sure the metadata preview on the right is shown (if it isn’t, choose View > Show Preview). Then look for the Content Created line. That is the camera capture date/time. (Created and Modified are the file system dates.)

My diagram below shows how several Mac apps show both the camera capture date and the OS file system creation date together, and how they label them differently. This helps you understand and see the difference between those types of dates. The dates for my example image are April for when the photo was taken (camera EXIF date), and July for when the copy was saved/exported (OS file system date).

Some of the many Mac apps that can show the camera capture date are Adobe Photoshop (choose File > File Info), Adobe Bridge, Adobe Lightroom Classic, xnViewMP, GraphicConverter, Apple Preview (choose Tools > Show Inspector), and Apple Photos (choose Window > Info).

An application might store and display other types of dates. In the diagram, you can see that Lightroom Classic also tracks the date of the last metadata change (Metadata Date) as well as Last Exported Date. You can also see that some apps display the most recent date the file was opened; macOS Finder Column/Gallery views call it Last Opened and xnView MP calls it Last Accessed.