iphone 13, timezones and google photos

[markseger]

I'm running on Widows 10 and in the past have used exiftool to successfully edit time zone information with both my android and nikon photos to get them to sort correctly in google photos.

Just recently I tried doing the same with my wife's iphone 13 photos. For example before edits I see metadata like this:

C:\mjs\photos>exiftool.exe -Offset* -f \temp\Photos-001\IMG_0993.HEIC
Offset Time                     : +02:00
Offset Time Original            : +02:00
Offset Time Digitized           : +02:00

and I change the entries to +1 like this:

C:\mjs\photos>exiftool.exe -m -Offset*=+01:00 -f \temp\Photos-001\IMG_1010.HEIC
Warning: Maker notes could not be parsed - /temp/Photos-001/IMG_1010.HEIC
    1 image files updated

C:\mjs\photos>exiftool.exe -Offset* -f \temp\Photos-001\IMG_1010.HEIC
Offset Time                     : +01:00
Offset Time Original            : +01:00
Offset Time Digitized           : +01:00

but when I upload to google photos it still shows the timezone as +2

I did not see any other metadata fields showing "zone" in them

As a side note to edit photo creation times, I right-click on a photo in windows explorer. In the past I have successfully used this feature to change older iphone dates/time but that no longer works with iphone 13. With those I don't even see the "photos" tab under the "change attribute" options.

[StarGeek]

I'm assuming that the images have GPS coordinates in them?  Google photos uses the coordinates to provide the correct time zone for that location.

[markseger]

Ahh, I was wondering if google photos uses gps. That could be the problem. Thanks.

[markseger]

ok. more info...

Looks like iphone DOES have GPS info and my nikon doesn't! The photos I'm looking at are from spain and portugal. The sections of spain we were in are due north of portugal and so in the same longitude. However, spain and portugal are in separate time zones and we did have to change camera times when crossing the border into portugal so I would expect the two timezones to be 1 hour apart.

Google photos shows the iphone timezone for portugal as GMT+0 and for spain as GMT+2 so clearly google photos is doing something wrong. The good news is it looks like the timezones for my portugal pictures are correct and those for spain off by an hour since they should be GMT+1, not GMT+2.

The easiest solution for me is to manually change the time a photo was taken via the photo attributes tab under windows explorer, but unfortunately this tab is not present for my iphone 13 photos. It WAS there for iphone 8. I did install v12.62 on top of whatever was there before, maybe a couple of years old. Might a complete removal and reinstall of exiftool help?

Is this an exiftool bug or a missing piece of metadata on iphone 13 photos that enables that feature?

[StarGeek]

Can you share the date and coordinates? Or a couple of the actual images?

I did a quick test for Jan 1 of this year, using Bragança, Portugal for one image and a location with the same latitude in Spain, and Google Photos used the correct time zones for each.

The easiest solution for me is to manually change the time a photo was taken via the photo attributes tab under windows explorer

I would suggest using a dedicated program to do so.  I wouldn't trust Windows to properly write any metadata.  Adobe Bridge is free and will correctly write metadata according to the standards and has a decent GUI.  Or a Digital Asset Management (DAM) program such as DigiKam (free) or LightRoom (paid) are also good choices.

but unfortunately this tab is not present for my iphone 13 photos. It WAS there for iphone 8. I did install v12.62 on top of whatever was there before, maybe a couple of years old. Might a complete removal and reinstall of exiftool help?

Reinstalling exiftool will not affect how Windows or any other program displays data.  Are the iphone images jpegs or something else (HEIC?)

[markseger]

I think it may be time for me to fall on my sword! I tried to upload the photos in question to a temporary google photos page and I'm thinking the only photos that are consistently correct are the ones on the iphone. I actually have my android photos showing up in 2 timezones in portugal and I think what happened was I manually set the time zone as we entered portugal and set it for automatic when we got to our hotel and I connected to wifi where it looks like it was correctly set.

So now I still need to go back and change the times on a couple dozen photos to make everything consistent. Gonna have to be more careful manually setting times when offline.

I tried attaching an heic photo that won't let me change the time via the attributes in windows in case you want to have a look but it keeps hanging. If you really need to see it I can try again. Meanwhile I did upload to google photos here - https://photos.app.goo.gl/3QjXcd6QWhYPXzF98. And if you download you should not see the PHOTO tab under change attributes.  While I realize you said not to do that it does work just fine with android and nikon times. In any event I'll try some other methods you recommended.

[StarGeek]

I tried attaching an heic photo that won't let me change the time via the attributes in windows

Windows can't edit HEIC images.  You'll find a similar situation with PNG files as Windows will only edit the "Date Taken" property and doesn't read/write any other metadata like EXIF or XMP.