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Photos not showing up in chronological order in which they were made

I usually make pictures separately with my external camera device and with my iPhone. Until January 2023, both types of photos were automatically showing up in Photos in the chronological order in which they were made. In February 2023, I upgraded my MacBook Air to OS Ventura 13.2.1. Since then, photos do not show up any more in the chronological order in which they were made, but they seem to show up in the chronological order in which they were uploaded into Photos. This is obviously completely wrong. Has anyone experienced the same issue? How can this be solved? This last OS upgrade seem completely wrong, as far as Photos is concerned.

MacBook Air 13″, macOS 11.0

Posted on Mar 10, 2023 2:30 AM

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Posted on Mar 13, 2023 4:29 AM

Hi, the time and date of all photos that are shown are completely correct. But then I have for instance a few photos made on a given day around 15:00 (with my iPhone) followed by some other photos made on the same day around 17:00 (with my external camera), then followed by photos made on the same around 15:00 (with my iPhone). I tried to select them all and reclassify them from oldest to newest, but Photos does not seem to correctly capture the dates and times. This only happened since I upgraded to Ventura 13.2.1 in February. I never had that problem before.


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Mar 13, 2023 4:29 AM in response to Old Toad

Hi, the time and date of all photos that are shown are completely correct. But then I have for instance a few photos made on a given day around 15:00 (with my iPhone) followed by some other photos made on the same day around 17:00 (with my external camera), then followed by photos made on the same around 15:00 (with my iPhone). I tried to select them all and reclassify them from oldest to newest, but Photos does not seem to correctly capture the dates and times. This only happened since I upgraded to Ventura 13.2.1 in February. I never had that problem before.


Mar 13, 2023 4:28 AM in response to léonie

Hi, so I made recently photos during a trip in Turkey, and as usual, I created a specific album called Turkey. The time and date of each photo that is shown are completely correct. But then I have for instance a few photos made on a given day around 15:00 (with my iPhone) followed by some other photos made on the same day around 17:00 (with my external camera), followed by photos made on the same around 15:00 (with my iPhone). I tried to select them all and reclassify them from oldest to newest, but Photos does not seem to correctly capture the dates and times. At least, the entire classification in that specific album is completely wrong ... and irritating as it mixes up times...


Mar 10, 2023 7:16 AM in response to léonie

Hi, this used to be the way you described, and I never had any issue previously. But since I updated my OS, it is not the case any more. In specific albums, it has become impossible to classify photos in the chronological order in which they have been made. I called the Apple Customer Service, and got the "diplomatic" answer that it is now expected that photos should appear in the order in which they have been added (not sure why, maybe a crazy engineer @ Appel thought this should be right...). This is also not completely correct, but it does more or less correspond to the reality: photos now appear more or less in the order in which they have been added. I tried in a specific album to select all photos and order them from oldest to newest, it does not work.

Mar 10, 2023 7:57 AM in response to Sosunok

It is still working for me as expected.


Have your photos been taken in a different time zone then the timezone where you imported them?


Then you may need to fix the timezone for the photos taken with your external camera.

At least, check which timezone has been assigned to your camera photos and compare it to the timezone assigned to the photos taken with your iPhone at the same location.

You can see the timezone, if you select a photo and then open the command "Image > Adjust Date and Time". You will se the timezone strip and the closest city. Is this correct for the way the clock has been set in the camera? If not, you need to adjust the timezone for the photos taken with that camera to get them in line.


Mar 13, 2023 4:11 AM in response to Sosunok

You wrote:

" In specific albums, it has become impossible to classify photos in the chronological order in which they have been made. I called the Apple Customer Service, and got the "diplomatic" answer that it is now expected that photos should appear in the order in which they have been added (not sure why, maybe a crazy engineer @ Appel thought this should be right...)"


Can you give us an example of the "Specific albums", where the sorting is wrong?

The Shared albums are showing photos in the order they have been added, unless we sort them differently, also Recents, and Imports, but not "All Photos". The albums in the Media section (Selfies, RAW, etc" are all sorted by "Oldest first".

For any album you can see, what the predefined sorting is supposed to be, by selecting the album and going to the menu "View > Sort". If the album cannot be rearranged by the user, the default sorting for the album will be shown, greyed out. This way you can check, how the album is supposed to be sorted.


For example, the sorting of the Media Type > Videos album: It is sorted "Oldest first".


And the sorting of "All Photos", also sorted by Oldest First:



Mar 13, 2023 7:36 AM in response to Sosunok

This seems so much like a time zone issue! Cameras, and even phones, sometimes record the time zone is different ways, and Photos may not interpret the time data as the manufacturer intended. Since the differences depend on the camera, you might be able to just change one camera to match the other. You can use a Smart Album like this:



to gather pictures in an album a-ll from the same camera. Then you can use "Image>Adjust Date and Time..."



to fix the time on just the images from that camera. If you select all the pictures, it will show the date and time for the first one. Just highlight the hour and click on the little up or down arrow to get it right. All the pictures will have only their hour changed by the same amount.

Mar 12, 2023 8:11 AM in response to Sosunok

Sosunok wrote: Apple customer service... said that ... photos not showing up in chronological order in which they were made should be “expected”, which shocked me.

That sounds crazy. As léonie as said, "It is still working for me as expected." For me, too. So what we expect and what you expect seems different from what the Apple person expects. Weird.


But what we see as the time & date may not be what Photos sees. When you look at the Info Window (⌘-i) is the time and date what you expect? It's possible Photos somehow lost track of the creation date and substituted a "Last Modified" date, or something like that.


Did you do anything unusual during the upgrade to Ventura? Do you have a backup from before the upgrade?

Mar 13, 2023 4:25 AM in response to Richard.Taylor

The time and date of all photos that are shown are completely correct. But then I have for instance a few photos made on a given day around 15:00 (with my iPhone) followed by some other photos made on the same day around 17:00 (with my external camera), followed by photos made on the same around 15:00 (with my iPhone). I tried to select them all and reclassify them from oldest to newest, but Photos does not seem to correctly capture the dates and times.

Photos not showing up in chronological order in which they were made

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