Import of mp4 with wrong timestamp
I have an external library that I'm importing and I have a bunch of videos showing up on 2025-06-21 which have been shot at various different times. The one with the boat was shot on 2022-10-15. As you can see on the screenshot, the folder where it's stored at, as well as the filename, indicate the correct date/time.
Can someone shed a light on this for me as to why immich supposes that video is being dated 2025-06-21.
BTW, there are numerous videos at different times (e.g. 2023-01-13) that show all up on 2025-06-21.
The import of the library has been conducted on 2025-08-27, so that's also not the date the video is tagged with.
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:wave: Hey @Robert,
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If this ticket can be closed you can use the /close command, and re-open it later if needed.Hey @Robert
Immich does not use file name or directory name to infer timestamps.
It relies on EXIF metadata. If there are no (certain) timestamps in EXIF, then the file system timestamps of the file are used.
Hey @Sergey Katsubo , that makes completeley sense. I have verified that those MP4s indeed do not have metainformations in them, however, the file's date and time are properly set and still, Immich seems to ignore it.
If someone could give a little startup help, I would gladly debug/trace that. I just don't know where to start.
Could you post exiftool output for one of these files?
If exiftool reads/shows expected timestamps but Immich uses wrong ones, then maybe metadata refresh is needed.
You can do metadata refresh from context menu of the video in UI.
Optionally, you can enable "verbose" logging level in Admin settings > Logging. Then trigger metadata refresh and see in the logs what Immich has read / imported.
exiftool does not report anything, no error, no output
That's what I said, there is no metadata in the file, only the file's timestamp and the file's name can be used to compute the proper date and time.
Hmm, weird.
Mayber there is a typo in the command? In case if you typed and not copy-pasted?
You can try without args
exiftool video.mp4.
Hypothetically I would assume that these files were copied on 2025-06-21, therefore they have filesystem timestamp of 2025-06-21, therefore Immich uses that TS in absence of other TS sources.As can be seen in the screenshot of my OP, the timestamp of the file is correct at 2022-10-15. I will do another test with exiftool later this day.
As can be seen in the screenshot of my OP, the timestamp of the file is correct at 2022-10-15Now I see 🫣 Btw, how the import was conducted? Upload through web, immich-cli/immich-go, mounting external library, ...? What else can be useful in addition to exiftool's output: 1. You can enable "verbose" logging in Admin settings > Logging. Then trigger metadata refresh for that video and see in the logs what Immich has read / imported. 2. The file info from the
asset table
docker exec -ti immich_postgres psql -U postgres -d immich -Pexpanded=auto -c "select * from asset where \"originalFileName\" = 'VID_20221015_163805(1).mp4'"
(if I typed file name correctly)
Maybe related https://github.com/immich-app/immich/pull/21508[Pull Request] fix(mobile): Correction of image creation date by using mtime instead… (immich-app/immich#21508)