What date field is used by Organizer to sort?

[#1]

When using Organizer and sorting by date (Newest to oldest, or Oldest to newest), my photos are not showing in exact date-time order.

I know that the metadata has many date fields, and I'm wondering which one Organizer is using. (I'm thinking that Organizer is not using the camera original date and there is a discrepancy between that date and the date being used.)

[#2 · Accepted solution]

Old question:

https://johnrellis.com/psedbtool/photoshop-elements-faq.htm#_All_the_different

Theoretically, that's simple: the organier only uses the 'date_taken'. All indexing is based on that kind of date. The problem is that the downloader has problems to recognize that type of date, especially from Apple devices and on file types like PNG or some video formats. When the real date_taken is missing, the downloader will often use other date fields.

[#3]

Thanks for getting back.

PSE 2021 shows "Date Time Original" in the Camera Data (EXIF). But I'm assuming that is the same as the 'date_taken'.

I'm curious as to how this particular image acquired its metadata, since it shows as being taken by iPhone, and the image is from 1987.

[#4]

Sorting by date is very strange in the organizer. I have used the command "save metadata in file" for 35.000 photos in one catalogue. Unfortunately Elements Organizer has OVERWRITTEN all dates in the photos with the date when I used the command. Unbelievable! Without warning: even all EXIF-Dates were overwritten. The whole order of my photos was distroyed. Then I found that the organizer uses the OLD EXIF-Date when the photos. I would to like to write these dates back in the EXIF-area. How can I do this? Where can I find the date which Elements is using for sorting?