Help: Incorrect Dates for iPhone Photos - Correct in iOS/Google Photos, but Wrong in Immich
Hi everyone,
I'm stuck on a strange timeline issue with about 1000 assets from my iPhone (mixed JPG, PNG, MOV) that get the wrong date in Immich.
The paradox: The timeline for these exact same files is perfectly correct inside the native iOS Photos App and also in Google Photos.
What I've tried:
A direct backup from the Immich iOS app -> Fails for these ~1000 files.
A full Google Takeout migration using the google-photos-exif community guide -> Also fails for the same files.
Key Finding:
After extensive troubleshooting, I've found that the problematic files land on my server without any EXIF date tags. It seems the correct date information, which Apple and Google can clearly see, is lost during any kind of export or sync process (e.g., Google Takeout doesn't provide a .json for them).
My Questions:
How can Apple/Google correctly date these files if standard EXIF data is missing? What non-standard metadata might they be using?
Is there a recommended tool or method to extract this "hidden" date and write it into the files before importing to Immich?
As a fallback, is there a tool that can reliably write dates based on filenames (e.g., Screenshot_YYYY-MM-DD.png)?
My setup is the latest Immich via Docker on an Ubuntu Server with an NFS library.
Thanks for any ideas!
I'm stuck on a strange timeline issue with about 1000 assets from my iPhone (mixed JPG, PNG, MOV) that get the wrong date in Immich.
The paradox: The timeline for these exact same files is perfectly correct inside the native iOS Photos App and also in Google Photos.
What I've tried:
A direct backup from the Immich iOS app -> Fails for these ~1000 files.
A full Google Takeout migration using the google-photos-exif community guide -> Also fails for the same files.
Key Finding:
After extensive troubleshooting, I've found that the problematic files land on my server without any EXIF date tags. It seems the correct date information, which Apple and Google can clearly see, is lost during any kind of export or sync process (e.g., Google Takeout doesn't provide a .json for them).
My Questions:
How can Apple/Google correctly date these files if standard EXIF data is missing? What non-standard metadata might they be using?
Is there a recommended tool or method to extract this "hidden" date and write it into the files before importing to Immich?
As a fallback, is there a tool that can reliably write dates based on filenames (e.g., Screenshot_YYYY-MM-DD.png)?
My setup is the latest Immich via Docker on an Ubuntu Server with an NFS library.
Thanks for any ideas!
