OneDrive changing the dates on my photos?!?!?

Keep your day job.

I posted a while ago on this thread... Here is an update on what I have discovered. 

OneDrive does not change Date Taken. 

It will change Date Created and Modified, as most operating/file systems will (IMO, shouldn't do this for photos because...) 

The trickery happens when you think your photo had a Date Taken (exif tag) but it doesn't. So then OneDrive ends up using the Date Created field to sort your photos (but it just modified it!). 

Some old cameras/phones did not properly tag the photos.

My solution was to use Exiftool on Windows. It is command line based and not very user friendly and will be difficult for the average user. 

It lets you set Date Created, Modified and Taken. If your files are named using the date/time taken, you are in luck because it can figure that out and properly tag them. 

If your files are not named that way, it can rename them from one of the Date fields (if the original date is still in tact). I highly recommend trying to get everything named in the format YYYYMMDD_hhmmss. 

I had to manually organize my photos into different folders before running the commands. I came from Windows Phone and early on, they did not name files with the date, but they did have the Date Taken set properly. 

Hopefully this gives some people some ideas. Just make sure you back everything up before messing with things!

And watch out for crappy apps claiming they can fix your photos.

One more thing... If you click Details on a photo in OneDrive, it will show you the Date Taken value. If there is none, it won't show that value. 

With:

Without:

As indicated in an earlier post, the File Explorer | Properties | Details allows the date portion of "Date Taken" field to be edited.  But the Time portion of this EXIF field cannot be edited in File Explorer.  If you shoot 100 images in one day, you lose your ability to control or alter the sequence with the time of each image.  If you have many thousands of photo files, it may be impractical to edit the Date Taken on each one.  

I know I need help to perfect my workflow, but here is a start:  (1) Import from SD card with Multi Commander (or equivalent) with the setting to preserve all EXIF dates/times.  I personally prefer to focus on one folder for each month/year.  (2) Screen all photos and their dates.  (3) Move unusable photos to a Trash folder (review it later), and note those files that need date correction.  (3) Make a backup of these usable photos.  If you mess up the following steps, you don't have to go back and begin again.  (4) Use bulk file correction software such as EXIF Date Changer Pro (Rellik Software) or File Date Corrector (Infonautics GMBH) to fix the dates that need correction.  (5) Use Advanced Renamer to rename all files to include the date and time and possibly the location derived from GPS data.  Advanced Renamer lets you format date/time as you like, and it adds location names to go with the GPS coordinates.  Now when I see an old file named "2017.07.04  11.35.12  Napili-Honokowai," I know it's one of our favorite small resorts in Maui, and I know I have followed the workflow to make the dates reliable.

With old photo files and scanned photos, there is a need to fix or add dates and GPS one by one on all photo files.  You can use Picasa or Geosetter or equivalent to add GPS map coordinates.

Most of the photos are unorganized and i have posted this before.  Microsoft must not care?