iPhone photo dates incorrect after transferring data from Android

How do I fix the dates on my photos?

I recently transferred all my data over to iPhone about 3 or 4 months ago from Android. After I did this, I checked my photos and almost every one was dated to the day I transferred my data to. Hundreds, if not thousands, of photos and videos are dated wrong. I went in and decided to manually change every photo, cross-referencing using my old phone. I finished with that, which took a few days straight. A couple of days ago, they reset after I did something with iCloud. I am in the process of redating all of them, but I don't want to be continually doing this. How do I stop this from happening again? Is there any way I can permanently change the photo dates, or do I have to redo the whole data transfer? (I was thinking about redoing it because my WhatsApp messages are all messed up, also, and I can't use WhatsApp on my new iPhone.) Would I get an Apple employee to look? Is there any solution or do I just have to brute force it every time?

iPhone 15 Pro Max, iOS 18

Posted on Nov 11, 2025 8:11 PM

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Nov 11, 2025 10:21 PM

Which date are you looking at and where?


Images have internal EXIF metadata date which is quite robust. On the other hand less important but usually more readily displayed filesystem file creation & modification dates are quite fragile and are easily changed when moving files around. This creates much confusion here.


If the latter, you can very quickly use 3rd party tools like GraphicConverter (below) or exiftool to copy EXIF metadata dates to those (not so important) file dates:



BUT many social media sites like WhatsApp, Facebook etc strip ALL metadata (dates, locations) from images for privacy reasons so it might be possible that your images don't have any meaningful dates so Photos.app grabs the file creation date as a last resort.


GraphicConverter or exiftool can reliably display internal metadata and verify if the EXIF dates are there or not. Or:


Internal image metadata date 'ExifIFD:DateTimeOriginal' can be checked outside Photos.app in Finder > View > Show Preview > Show More > 'Content Created' date in the right side panel (this is DateTimeOriginal but for some reason Apple labels it differently here). Screenshot on the left below.


Or in Preview.app > Tools > Show Inspector > i > Exif > 'Date Time Original' field. (FWIW sometimes Finder and Preview might display another date tag in those fields so I prefer to use GC or exiftool for that). Screenshot on the right below.


4 replies
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Nov 11, 2025 10:21 PM in response to BotHeroMaster

Which date are you looking at and where?


Images have internal EXIF metadata date which is quite robust. On the other hand less important but usually more readily displayed filesystem file creation & modification dates are quite fragile and are easily changed when moving files around. This creates much confusion here.


If the latter, you can very quickly use 3rd party tools like GraphicConverter (below) or exiftool to copy EXIF metadata dates to those (not so important) file dates:



BUT many social media sites like WhatsApp, Facebook etc strip ALL metadata (dates, locations) from images for privacy reasons so it might be possible that your images don't have any meaningful dates so Photos.app grabs the file creation date as a last resort.


GraphicConverter or exiftool can reliably display internal metadata and verify if the EXIF dates are there or not. Or:


Internal image metadata date 'ExifIFD:DateTimeOriginal' can be checked outside Photos.app in Finder > View > Show Preview > Show More > 'Content Created' date in the right side panel (this is DateTimeOriginal but for some reason Apple labels it differently here). Screenshot on the left below.


Or in Preview.app > Tools > Show Inspector > i > Exif > 'Date Time Original' field. (FWIW sometimes Finder and Preview might display another date tag in those fields so I prefer to use GC or exiftool for that). Screenshot on the right below.


Nov 12, 2025 7:21 AM in response to BotHeroMaster

As Matti pointed out, the date you get depends on the transfer method. Image Management Systems like Photos use the Image Creation Date, but once the picture is in the "hands" of File Management Systems like Finder or Explorer, then everything can change.


Since you have your old phone, you may be better off starting all over again, and transferring your pictures directly to iCloud Photos. I have zero experience with this, by you can see this:

Move content manually from your Android device to your iPhone or iPad - Apple Support


The key may be to use the  Apple Devices app. You could start with just a few pictures and see if the method you choose preserves the dates. Personally, I'd rather find a way to move the picture, preserving dates, than having to change all the dates (again!)


Matti uses Windows ( I think,) so he may have better ideas about moving pictures around like this.


Nov 14, 2025 7:12 PM in response to Matti Haveri

i think the main issue was when i transfered my data from the move to ios app. it created a new file insted of coppying over the old one. i thinbk i found a conveluted fix where i upload all my photoes to the microsoft cloud then drag them over to i cloud. then deleate all my photoes pree augast 3 and then redownload them off icloud. this seems to be the best solution i can find to preserve the dates as well as photo order. when i was changing the dates the photos unorderd themselfs at rndom i think to do with the time of transfer so even tho its a bit conveluted and will cost a bit of money it should get the resalt i need.


iPhone photo dates incorrect after transferring data from Android

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