r/flickr • u/cygni61 • 8d ago

Creation Date Lost?

I'm in the process of downloading some (all?) of my photos from Flickr and merging them with my local collection. I was dismayed to see in the first batch that the creation date was missing, replaced by the date when the zipped download file was made. Did I lose this info when I uploaded the photos to Flickr, or is it restorable somehow?

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u/davispw 8d ago

You’re looking at the file’s creation date on your hard drive. Check the EXIF data for the one recorded by the camera, assuming you’re downloading the original image.

If EXIF is correct and you want to fix local files to match, there are various tools. I might ask your favorite AI for help installing and running “exiftool” on your particular operating system. There are others if command-line tools sound scary.

Reminder to back up your original photos—Flickr is not a trustworthy backup!

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u/designwallah 7d ago

In addition, if you’re on macOS, there’s an invaluable app called A Better Finder Attributes, with which you can manipulate file dates. I use it regularly to correct the file creation date of my images that I download from Apple Photos.