Downloaded iPhone photos and videos won't display in correct order

[Protec]

When uploading all of my pictures and videos from my iPhone onto my various Hard Drives, I noticed the files have random "Date Modified" dates, despite being taken at other times. It is like this on the actual device too, which means my files don't show in the correct order when sorted by "Date Modified". I can't use "Name" or "Date Taken" either. Grrr..

 

Normally the "Date Modified" dates are accurate on the devices so when they are sorted in file explorer, they are ordered in the correct way.

[Koldov]

Just checked on mine and 'Modified' brings all sorts of randomness too...

 

I usually choose 'Created'.

 

[howartp]

You need a photo library manager that reads the EXIF data in the file, rather than the windows file system's view on life.

[mavhc]

Don't you just add the Date Taken column and sort by that?

[Koldov]

Don't you just add the Date Taken column and sort by that?

 

Unfortunately, it seems that Windows has a 'helpful' feature that automatically chooses the available columns based on the content of the folder.

 

Looking at my iPhone DCIM folder, it includes a few .MOV files and Windows has decided it is some sort of multimedia folder and has (helpfully) limited the columns to the following choices:

 

 

Move only some of the photo .JPG files into another folder and voila...

 

 

There may be some reg magic you can do to stop this.... I haven't bothered trying as it's never been an issue.

 

YMMV.

[LeMarchand]

Don't know about reg, but right-click on the top level folder>Customise>Optimise for Pictures + Apply to subfolders should work.

[mavhc]

I assume you don't have the More option because it's a PTP storage device

[Koldov]

Don't know about reg, but right-click on the top level folder>Customise>Optimise for Pictures + Apply to subfolders should work.

 

I assume you don't have the More option because it's a PTP storage device

 

Possibly, as I don't have the Customise option either.

[LeMarchand]

Possibly, as I don't have the Customise option either.

 

Sorry. Didn't look closely at the pics. Also missed out that the Customise is in "Properties", though probably not if looking at an external device.

 

[Ditto]

Sorry. Didn't look closely at the pics. Also missed out that the Customise is in "Properties", though probably not if looking at an external device.

I did - an interesting set of photos... Do my eyes deceive me? Is one a picture of a meerkat in a hi-viz jacket?

[Garacesh]

I did - an interesting set of photos... Do my eyes deceive me? Is one a picture of a meerkat in a hi-viz jacket?

 

Not gonna lie, I had to take a second look at that one, too!

I think it's a dog in a yellow sweater though.

[Koldov]

Unfortunately, screenshots, Whatsapp pictures and all sorts end up in the 'Camera Roll' folder on my iPhone for some reason... so I cannot take credit for all of those photos...

 

Including the Chihuahua who is having a birthday party!

 

Edited March 15, 2022 by Koldov

[Protec]

Don't you just add the Date Taken column and sort by that?

I can't use Date Taken as only pictures have Date Taken for some reason so all the videos will not be included.

 

- - - Updated - - -

 

You need a photo library manager that reads the EXIF data in the file, rather than the windows file system's view on life.

 

Windows can read the Exif data which is shown in "Details" in the image properties however the dates aren't accurate for whatever reason.

[Protec]

For most images, the date modified date is the same as the date taken date meaning most of the time, the images and videos can be sorted properly using the sort by date modified option. I have no idea why some images have suddenly got date modified dates that are completely different from the date taken date, as I have not altered the original images on the actual device itself at all!

 

 

 

All I can think is installing software to manually change the date modified date to what it should be. To be honest, I will probably just have to put up with it. I have tried taking all files off the original device again and the dates are still wrong.

[elsiegee40]

Split from Annoying Things thread

[Koldov]

Bit of a long shot here really (and not really much help to you - sorry)...

 

Just looking at my iPhone DCIM folder and sorted by 'Modified' dates (see screenshot below) it appears a vast amount of phots/videos were modified at exactly the same date and time.

 

I would expect this to therefore be some sort of internal iPhone function (because I certainly didn't 'modify' all those files at that time - possibly one or two, but not all of those), it's the only way I can think of explaining it.

 

A bit like how some Anti-Virus modifies the NTUSER.DAT file of a user profile?

 

[Protec]

Yeah, I came to the same conclusion. It must be a recent thing as sorting the files by date modified has worked on my old iPhone 5S to my 6S. My current iPhone 11 gives videos and pictures random date modified dates. Yeah, some of mine have the same thing, where videos and pictures have the exact same modified date, despite me not changing them at all.

 

It's a shame the "date taken" is not used for the videos too as they use "created" instead so can't be sorted that way.

 

So far, I have had to use sort by name, and have to ignore the random pictures at the top of bottom (ones with E in the name which are edited images which have been cropped, etc).

 

It must be still possible to sort the images, as the iPhone's own camera roll can do it. I guess it uses date modified and created together to order them correctly. Sometimes, if you have an image from iMessage, the image will go into a previous date on the camera roll from when it was taken, rather than from when it was saved.