Photos are not sorting correctly by date from 2 different cameras (iPhone, Canon)

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Level 1

123 points

Photos are not sorting correctly by date from 2 different cameras (iPhone, Canon)

I am having issues with photos not being sorted correctly.

I have taken some photos on an iPhone (with data and time/timezone set automatically)
I also have photos taken on a Canon R7, which has the correct time (maybe a second or two different) and the right timezone
I have imported the photos from the Canon straight after (so in same timezone), by dragging the photos directly from the SD card into Photos app

Photos that were taken at the same time (give or take a few seconds) are showing in different places in the Photos app. However, when checking the time of the photos that are not in order, they *do* have the correct time on them.

In the screenshot below you can see two pictures of some red leaves. They were taken seconds apart. The album is set to 'Sort oldest to newest', yet there are numerous pictures in between. The second photo, taken on the Canon, appears in the sequence as if it were taken 1 hour later.

Note that I have tested to see if this is due to 'Daylight Savings Time' option being set on/off in the Camera. It is set to Off, and if I set to On, the time stamp shown in photos is 1 hour later.

So in summary, in Photos, the times shown when you do Get Info is correct on all, but they are NOT sorting correctly.

[Edited by Moderator]

Posted on Oct 11, 2025 11:23 AM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

léonie

Level 10

200,495 points

Oct 11, 2025 3:40 PM in response to Ian Lloyd

Ian, to compare the date and time of two photos, the Info panel does not suffice, because it is not showing the timezone assigned by Photos. I can see on your screenshot, that one of the photos has a known location, the other has not been tagged with GPS. In such cases the Photos.app may assign a different timezone on import.

Please select each of the two photos from your screenshot again in turn and use the command "Image > Adjust Date&Time", then look at the timezone strip the map and the "closest city" at the bottom panel. Has Photos selected the same timezone strip?

If not, you need to correct the time for the photos with the wrong timezone by the offset between the two timezones.

Select all photos imported with the wrong timezone together at the same time, then change the "closest city". This will just convert the time to new timezone, but not change the sort order. Now correct the "Time adjusted" by the timezone offset, so the the Date+Time original and Time Adjusted are the same.

[Edited by Moderator]

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Answer 2

Ian Lloyd Author

Level 1

123 points

Oct 21, 2025 1:07 AM in response to Matti Haveri

So, I did a little test last weekend while using both the camera and the phone. Took a photo of my watch one after the other on each.

Phone one first (which gives more accurate location):

Then the Canon:

Both have the original time as 12:24, but the Canon one has a different adjusted time by 1 hr (before I make a change). If I adjust the time here back one hour, everything is in sync. But I don't understand why this is even needed - both are set to same GMT timezone, both have the correct time set. While I am comfortable tinkering with Terminal and such like, I really shouldn't have to do any of that if the times are set correctly. I think that the easiest thing will be to set the time WRONG (early by one hour) on the Canon and it'll end up being correct once pics are merged.

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Answer 3

Oct 21, 2025 2:39 AM in response to Ian Lloyd

Ian Lloyd wrote:

Both have the original time as 12:24, but the Canon one has a different adjusted time by 1 hr (before I make a change).

That happens if the Canon image does not have GPS location. iPhone image has GPS location, GPS time or time zone offset while the Canon often lacks all those details.

In the example below the Canon image has no GPS nor time zone info while the iPhone has all of them.

Notice that GPSTimeStamp is always UTC while OffsetTimeOriginal uses DST +1hour in that image which happens to be shot in the summer. exiftool automatically adjusts DST winter/summer times and it even handles countries that do NOT use DST if there is GPS location in the image.

exiftool -config local_time.config -a -G1 -s -n -DateTimeOriginal -LocalTime '-OffsetTime*' -GPSDateStamp -GPSTimeStamp -GPSDateTime -GPSPosition .

======== ./2025-0601-1200-00_canon.jpg
[ExifIFD]       DateTimeOriginal                : 2025:06:01 12:00:00
======== ./2025-0601-1200-00_iphone.jpg
[ExifIFD]       DateTimeOriginal                : 2025:06:01 13:00:00
[Composite]     LocalTime                       : 2025:06:01 13:00:00+01:00
[ExifIFD]       OffsetTime                      : +01:00
[ExifIFD]       OffsetTimeOriginal              : +01:00
[ExifIFD]       OffsetTimeDigitized             : +01:00
[GPS]           GPSDateStamp                    : 2025:06:01
[GPS]           GPSTimeStamp                    : 12:00:00
[Composite]     GPSDateTime                     : 2025:06:01 12:00:00Z
[Composite]     GPSPosition                     : 51.47783 -0.00139

My Canon inserts proprietary time zone tags but many apps including Photos ignore those Canon-only tags:

[Canon]         TimeZone                        : +02:00
[Canon]         TimeZoneCity                    : Cairo
[Canon]         DaylightSavings                 : Off

(Nitpick: A GPSTimeStamp is not the same as UTC; GPS time is based on atomic clocks and does not account for leap seconds, while UTC is the world's primary time standard and is adjusted for leap seconds. Consequently, GPS time is currently ahead of UTC by 18 seconds.)

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Answer 4

léonie

Level 10

200,495 points

Oct 11, 2025 5:12 PM in response to léonie

While checking the timezones of photos from different cameras I am tweaking Photos to show the timezone suffix in the Info with the capture date. But this requires the use of the Terminal. Try it only, if you are familiar with the Terminal.

In the Terminal paste the following command:

  defaults write NSGlobalDomain AppleICUTimeFormatStrings -dict-add "2" "HH:mm:ss z"

To revert to the original format use:

  defaults delete NSGlobalDomain AppleICUTimeFormatStrings

Now I can compare date and time directly in the info, as the time is showing the timezone suffix as well.

Thanks to mightydane for the Terminal command: macOS Ventura 13.0 - Language Region - Da… - Apple Community

[Edited by Moderator]

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Answer 5

Oct 21, 2025 12:04 AM in response to léonie

Tip: If you took images in various places without changing the camera's timezone, you might try to fix that with exiftool.

If the image has GPS location and GPSDateTime or EXIF OffsetTime*, then with local_time.config exiftool can figure out the time zone and compute the local time and adjust EXIF date accordingly (just download that local_time.config file and put it to the same folder as the images).

https://exiftool.org/forum/index.php?topic=17674.msg94898#msg94898

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