Wrong date from iPhone

[arn4]

Hello, I have recently installed Immich and I have imported all photos from my iPhone (using "Recent") album. I have noticed that a big aet of this photos has random import dates in the futures. Most of them are bulked in the same day, sometimes even years after the photo was taken.
In the iPhone timeline the photo has the right date, and also the file seems to have the right one.

Here is an example: on Immivh the date of this picture is December the 6th 2024, while the true date was something like Auguast 2019:

Do you have any idea how to solve this issue? Did I do something wrong?

PS: I have noticed that for sure all the pictures was taken with Telegram app and saved automatically in the Photos of iPhone have the wrong date. The one instead taken with the Camera app are fine

[televoicepl]

Check this: #17374

[arn4]

I don’t think is the same issue, my metadata is wrong both in the client and on the web app

[arn4]

Too add more details, all the pictures that have the problem are saved from a third party app (like WhatsApp, Telgram, Instagram, ecc…). The date where they bulk could be the last time I did synchronization with Photos on my Mac (not 100% sure, but it is my guess); anyway the date they get is random: photos from years ago are imported as more recent than some photos of few months ago, even though both cases have wrong date.

More interesting, if I airdrop my photo to the mac and look at the date, it has the correct one. If I permanently delete the picture imported in immich through the iOS app, and then I upload the one airdropped to my Mac through the web app, the it get the correct date! I think it is really a problem of the iOS app

[hhhtylerw]

I'm having the same issue.

Here is an example of the date being completely wrong:

[jackbentley]

Worth noting here that I believe the date shown in iOS photos is the created date and from looking in the codebase the date shown in immich is the last modified date

[DaCookie4u]

I have the exact same problem with my SOs iphone. I configured the ios App to sync the "recent" album, and everything gets uploaded correctly, except pictures from different Apps like WhatsApp or Instagram.

Using the Photos App the pictures show the correct timestamp (or at least the timestamp when they were received via Whatsapp). Inside Immich App the timestamp seems to be random.

[SoulGit]

Very good explanation of the issue, thank you. I see the same behavior, IOS photos have the correct timestamp, external photos (downloads, other apps, etc.) are correct in the Photos timeline but seem to have the date of upload to Immich and appear incorrectly in the timeline.

[jowayne21]

Yes, same, I submitted it in the megathread as well, but it seems to be an issue with the iOS App not detecting the right date like you mentioned.

[dongziyudongziyu]

I have the same problem with my iPhone app.

[Mystrantus]

I have exactly the same problem. Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be a solution. I hope someone finds a solution or addresses the issue.

[Om3gaOfficial]

Same issue here...

[MidnightRocket]

I also have the same issue, so I dug a little bit.
It seems that the problem is mostly related to screenshots and imported photos into the iOS photos app.
These photos do indeed not contain the creation date within their EXIF metadata.
Instead, iOS photos seem to rely on the file creation date, when the image does not have the creation date within EXIF metadata.

[jackbentley]

From some verbose logging I can see that when uploading an image, this line seems to pull the current date/time for some reason - which is obviously incorrect:

immich/mobile/lib/services/backup.service.dart

Line 355 in 25efba8

asset.fileModifiedAt.toUtc().toIso8601String();

What's more odd is that sometimes it's not the current date/time and is a seemingly completely random date/time.

Not familiar with the codebase at all... seems to give the vibe of "default to now" and/or memory allocation issue further up (in Flutter?).

[jackbentley]

Can confirm that these lines from this PR applied to my server fix this issue for me:

https://github.com/immich-app/immich/pull/19288/files#diff-61222a9e424956861d68b088bbb08a464f1fa5d8a8c8fa7a3cfa116ae1f8170fR811-R814

[dongziyudongziyu]

The server uses the file creation time, but the file creation time in the background is the upload time. So this PR is modified to use the upload time of the mobile phone first.

[jackbentley]

This makes sense. For whatever reason it looks like creation/birth time is not stored in my filesystem at all. I assume looking at the code if birthtime is not present it will fallback to modify time.

The update forces the upload creation time if present 👍🏻 Good job

[KyleSeaman201]

Is this PR still valid? It seems to not have any recent activity.

[hhhtylerw]

I was able to work around this problem by downloading my iCloud data to desktop then uploading it to a fresh Immich.

1. Run https://github.com/icloud-photos-downloader/icloud_photos_downloader to download to local folder
2. Log in with and use https://immich.app/docs/features/command-line-interface/ to upload to your Immich instance

I only needed to do a one-off because I've migrated to Android, however, this guide will show you how to do a persistent sync:
https://acook.jp/posts/syncing-icloud-to-immich/

[chemicalsam]

I have this problem with Screenshots only on iOS- it may show the wrong date and time on my iPhone but sometimes shows the correct date on the browser. It seems to mostly affect screenshots. No fix for this yet, I have posted about it before with to no avail.

[wistoff]

I also have this problem, is there any fix for this? I already tried Immich Go to upload the "originals" folder from my iCloud Library on Mac. But this creates the same issue with some metadata not being read correctly. In my iPhone Gallery and my MacOS Photos App all these elements have the correct date.

[troyerjs]

I have the same problem. Should this be moved to the issues? Or, will it get picked up from this discussion?

[chemicalsam]

It only seems to happen with screenshots. Not sure why. Very frustrating bug.

[troyerjs]

For me I believe its most 3rd party pics as well like snapchat, IG, etc...

[DaCookie4u]

OK, this is not a problem with Immich. Figured that out weeks ago, but didn't bother to post this here.

Immich actually uploads everything correctly and metadata is correct for all photos taken with the iPhone. The problem resides with the stupid camera roll the iphone has now since one of the last updates. There is no camera roll anymore and therefore WhatsApp photos, Screenshots etc. get mixed into the upload.

WhatsApp for example strips all metadata before (!) sending the photo. So the date on the photo is the data, the recipient receives the photo and not when it was taken. This works the same with Signal AFAIK. So the fault apparently is not Immich, but the way other Apps work and for me personally, that §$%&$ Apple removed the §$%&% Camera Roll! Why would you do that?

BTW: Solution for me was to deactivate the automatic photo export from the other apps. We only wanted the camera roll anyway.

[wistoff]

I found the following fix for me:
Photos until 2024 have the correct date when you download them using the MacOS photos app, export them from the app and upload them using the immich web application.

At some point from 2024 onwards the photos uploaded using this method get a wrong date in immich. However what worked in this case was using the iOS app for the upload directly from the phone.

I don't know if this date of 2024 is the same for everyone or if it's connected to how many of these photos were actually uploaded to the iCloud already. However it may be related to what @DaCookie4u says, since the iOS 18 update that removed the old camera roll was released in 2024. So maybe there is a critical point in the library which correlates which the date a user updated to iOS 18.

Not sure though. That was just how it worked for me. Maybe it helps.

[chemicalsam]

I run Synology Photos as well and it does not have this problem. So whatever they are doing to combat that - Immich should do as well.

When I take a screenshot and open Immich it has the correct date. Then I wait a few seconds and it changes the date and timezone. Something is going wrong on Immich’s side.

you can see it changes it when it gets uploaded.

[jargij]

Same for Google Photos, it just works fine with dates. It's not like google uses some custom API for fetching the pictures.

[juliogreff]

#21586 that just shipped on v1.141.1 has fixed this for me, so give that a try!

[chemicalsam]

Does not fix it for me. Screenshots still are hours difference from when they were actually taken.

[damianpumar]

same issue here! using latest version v1.14.1.1 and uploading images via github.com/simulot/immich-go

[caspinprince]

seems like this issue is still happening with the iOS app auto sync. when i upload directly from photo app seems fine. once this is resolved, would be nice to have an easy way to figure out the affected photos and fix them without re-uploading everything.

[chemicalsam]

Would really appreciate a fix or even an acknowledgment from the dev team.

[the1gofer]

same issue here. mostly movies created on iphone. but some photos as well.

[duceduc]

I am also noticing incorrect date timestamp when syncing from an album folder from iPhone. Mine seems to be using the UTC timestamp and not the actual date captured.

I've created an automation via the Shortcuts app on iPhone to take a daily photo. This is my automation flow.

On the Immich server, the date populated right under Details looks to be the UTC timestamp which is -9 hours of the actual date. The file name has the correct timestamp.