Importing photos from iPhone to an external drive

Question

Importing photos from iPhone to an external drive

Hi,

I've been trying to import photos from iPhone directly to an external drive. I'd like to have the photos in JPEG format and to keep their original metadata.

The best way I have found so far was to use Image Capture and then convert them with Quick Action. However I've noticed that the Date Modified or Date Created of the pictures imported by Image Capture are changed to the current date, even though the Image Capture can read the date of the original photo.

Is there a better way to import photos and keep the original date, when the photo was taken?

Posted on Oct 8, 2021 12:58 PM

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Answer 1

Oct 14, 2021 5:05 AM in response to Meg The Dog

Thanks, but I would prefer to find a free solution for such an obvious task. I guess the app is worth the money, when you use also the other features it offers, but it seems pretty expensive just to import photos form the phone.

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Answer 2

steve626

Level 6

11,501 points

Oct 8, 2021 8:47 PM in response to rado-van-heady

You could create a Photos Library on the external drive and import to that. The original dates of the images are preserved in Photos.

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Answer 3

Meg The Dog

Level 6

13,591 points

Oct 8, 2021 4:52 PM in response to rado-van-heady

I'm not sure if there is another way to do what you want, but I use the iMazing app to do offloading of photos and videos from my iPhone to my Mac and the various drives connected to it - and it does indeed preserve both the creation date and date modified data in the transferred file.

iMazing does a whole lot more and is very powerful.

(Someone else may have another way to transfer the images from Phone to Mac where that info is preserved without using a 3rd party app.)

https://imazing.com

MtD

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Answer 4

Oct 14, 2021 5:04 AM in response to steve626

My bad I haven't mentioned it, but I don't want Photos Library. Those picture should be accessible on Windows. I though that Mac will have a way to normally import pictures as files, because Windows failed importing them.

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Answer 5

Barney-15E

Level 10

116,782 points

Oct 8, 2021 3:37 PM in response to rado-van-heady

Is the content created date correct? How about EXIF date?

The file is just a wrapper for the content, and the date created is the date the wrapper was created on the file system.

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Importing photos from iPhone to an external drive

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