Question How to re-set time stamp of media files captured by phone (photos and videos) to correct time and date of capture?

[Stefunnique]

Hello Everyone.

I have a Vivo Y33s that runs Android 11.

I have discovered that the time stamps for media files that my phone has captured (photos and videos taken by my phone) are changed when I move time zones. I have set my phone time to be automatically set by the system, which simply means it relies on the SIM card and the carrier providing the SIM card services and I saw that when I moved to a different time zone and got a new local SIM card, the time stamps for all the media files taken by the phone, has changed to match the new time zone and all the times are messed up.

This is pretty bad since I use the time stamps on the media files to refer to what I did when, especially when I go on holidays and I order files by time and date. Some files have even jumped dates now because the new time is after 12am the local time which makes it 1 day ahead.

While I am on this topic: I have noticed that Whatsapp does the same and it is highly irritating, if there is a fix for that too (to retain the time and dates for messages that were sent and received in their original local time even after I move) that would be awesome, but if not then I would at least like a fix for my files.

Thank you all in advance.

 

[B. Diddy]

That's strange, because even if it changes time zones, it should still be able to figure out the chronological order, since it should still be using UTC (coordinated universal time).

Which gallery app are you using? Does it get ordered correctly if you use Google Photos?

 

[Stefunnique]

That's strange, because even if it changes time zones, it should still be able to figure out the chronological order, since it should still be using UTC (coordinated universal time).

Which gallery app are you using? Does it get ordered correctly if you use Google Photos?

So sorry for the very late reply.

I am using the default google "Photos" app and no, it is not ordered correctly in the Google Photos app. I have several videos that were taken on the same day, one after the other, in a specific time zone, say time zone A. After moving to time zone B which differs by up to 10 hours, the app organised the group of videos into 2 days, most of the videos were in day 1 and one was in Day 2 because according to time zone B, it was past 12am so it was considered t be Day 2 now. However, when I looked at the time stamp in the file details, they still say the correct local date and time that they were taken.

 

[B. Diddy]

Did you happen to edit that one video that's showing up on day 2 some time after you shot it? Or did it originally save to an SD card, and then you moved it to Internal Storage?

 

[Stefunnique]

Did you happen to edit that one video that's showing up on day 2 some time after you shot it? Or did it originally save to an SD card, and then you moved it to Internal Storage?

I got 2 email notifications of 2 replies from you with 2 different questions. This is the only question that shows up on Android Central. The answer to this question (whether I saved it on one place then moved it to something else or edited it) is no, for both. I do not have an external SD card or similar and everything is saved on my phone directly. The only time I move it is when I move it via a USB cable to my computer and from there, to a hard drive, or very rarely, to a specific folder within my phone's internal storage.

The other reply you wrote, I cannot see on Android Central but in my email it said:

In Google Photos, look at the details of one of those videos. Does it show the correct timezone associated with when you took the videos? There should be a local time, and then a GMT adjusted time. Swapping to a new SIM card should not adjust the EXIF data of the photo/video.

I have attached two screenshots of the data info of a video. I am not sure if that is the EXIF data, it came with the video on Android. Just to be clear: I know what EXIF data is, I do photography with cameras and use EXIF data, but the data from the phone videos and photos change and EXIF data is not supposed to change merely due to a SIM card swap/moving time zones, so I am not sure if it is the actual EXIF data or just some internal phone time reference.

I have included 2 screenshots of video's thumbnails and their info. For both cases, you can tell the true date and time the videos were taken by looking at their file name. The format is YYYYMMDD_HHMMSS.mp4 in 24 hour format;

One video is of a fireworks and drone show, was taken at night local time, in summer (to eliminate doubt, no, it was not in a place like far north Europe where there are virtually no daylight at all in winter), at 11:16pm on Sunday June 26th, yet you can see the EXIF (?) data now say it is 7:17am in the morning of June 27th on a Monday, which is entirely unreasonable. This was taken during a festival and the fireworks were part of the celebrations. When I organise my photos and videos by date and event, I rely on the dates to quickly put everything from the same day/event into the same folder and this messes it up entirely. This is not the only video or photo that it happened to, all the videos are like this now.

As you can see in the second video, the thumbnail of the video shows the local time is 2pm in the afternoon (look at the clock on the building), yet the video info says it is 10pm. The video was taken in Bremen, Germany during what is clearly day time, and the time in the information is Sydney, Australia time which is 8 hours ahead, as you can calculate, 2pm + 8 hours later is indeed 10pm on the same calendar day. In this case the date would not change but the time would so would affect records of the day's timeline/itinerary ie what was done at lunch time might seem to have been done after dinner.

Could it be perhaps, using "use local network" in the time settings on my phone? For the time, there is a "set time manually" as well as a "use local network"/"use operator time" or something similar. I can set the time manually regardless of what sim card I use, but, the time is already messed up and it seems it stays that wat unless I physically go to a different time zone again.

If it helps at all, I noticed whatsapp always changes the time stamp of the messages to whatever the current local time is, when I move time zones. This happens every time. I am not sure if the 2 issues (the media time stamps and the whatsapp issue) are affected by the same setting.

For example: The time stamps for messages sent or received while I am physically in Time Zone A, when reviewed after I move to Time Zone B, looks out of whack. When I move back to Time Zone A, time stamps for the exact same messages look normal again but the messages sent while I was in Time Zone B, now are incorrect.

I would really prefer the time stamps just to stay the way they were created.

 

[B. Diddy]

Sorry about the confusion with the two notifications -- I actually deleted one of them because I realized you had already answered the question about looking at the details of the video

But those screenshots are interesting for two reasons. First, that's not the interface I see on the current Google Photos app on my Pixel 7 Pro. This is what the video details on my phone look like (the video itself is off the screen at the top -- I wanted to include the details that correlate with your screenshot):


I'm on version 6.43 of Google Photos -- which version are you using?

Second, I see the word "Modified" on both of your screenshots, which I think is the real root of the problem. At some point, your video files were modified, and when a file is modified, I believe the Photos app bases the sorting on that file modification. It looks like both of those videos were modified a minute after they were taken (accounting for the timezone shift), so assuming you didn't do anything to the file, I would wonder if something about the phone's firmware or camera software is doing that. It may be worth contacting Vivo support (or posting in a dedicated Vivo forum).

Another possible twist -- are you using the Google Photos automatic backup feature, or are you manually sharing the video file to Google Photos? Automatic backup shouldn't modify files, I wonder if manually sharing them to Google Photos might result in this.

 

[Stefunnique]

Sorry about the confusion with the two notifications -- I actually deleted one of them because I realized you had already answered the question about looking at the details of the video

But those screenshots are interesting for two reasons. First, that's not the interface I see on the current Google Photos app on my Pixel 7 Pro. This is what the video details on my phone look like (the video itself is off the screen at the top -- I wanted to include the details that correlate with your screenshot):

View attachment 354631
I'm on version 6.43 of Google Photos -- which version are you using?

Second, I see the word "Modified" on both of your screenshots, which I think is the real root of the problem. At some point, your video files were modified, and when a file is modified, I believe the Photos app bases the sorting on that file modification. It looks like both of those videos were modified a minute after they were taken (accounting for the timezone shift), so assuming you didn't do anything to the file, I would wonder if something about the phone's firmware or camera software is doing that. It may be worth contacting Vivo support (or posting in a dedicated Vivo forum).

Another possible twist -- are you using the Google Photos automatic backup feature, or are you manually sharing the video file to Google Photos? Automatic backup shouldn't modify files, I wonder if manually sharing them to Google Photos might result in this.

You are absolutely right in that this is not a screenshot of Google Photos. I didn't realise this when I was writing my post. I do actually absolutely use Google Photos. The reason it is not from Google Photos, is because I wanted to find a good example of a video quickly, so instead of scrolling through all my photos and videos I used Google Files and sorted by file type (Videos). I have now attached the screenshots from Google Photos and you can see the time information is the same although now it does not say "modified".

In the app info, it says Version 6.8.0.475691616, in the google play store it says 6.43. I am not sure if this is the most current one, or it simply list the version I have installed. I have not updated it even though there are updates available, because updating uses more storage space and from experience I generally don't like updated versions of apps.

I did notice that in Google Files, it is listed as Modified. I don't know why it does that but sometimes it happens on my computer too,

I have not shared it to Google Photos, they are taken by the native Vivo camera app and then shows up in the Google Photos app.

Also while retaking these screenshots, I discovered something else. I think you might be right in suggesting I ask Vivo: I discovered that the photos and media I took with my old Android phone, a Motorola, after it was backed up to Google and then re-downloaded to my Vivo android phone, that image still displays the correct date and time of capture when viewed in Google Photos as well as Google Files, although in Google files, it shows the download date and time as the modified date and time and then beneath that, the date ad time it was taken. Screenshots of these are also included, the one with the blue "Add location" is from Google Photos, the other is Google Files.

 

[B. Diddy]

I looked at my Files by Google app, and it also shows "Modified" for the one video I currently still have on my internal storage, so I guess that's the term it uses even when something has just been created (I didn't modify it myself).

I also realized that what I mentioned above about your files being "modified" one minute later is not surprising, because it just reflects how long the videos are and the time when the video ended and was saved.

Since you have your date and time set to be automatically determined by the network, it should pull from the carrier network you're using -- but one exception would be if you're using a VPN, which might change the phone's perceived network time based on the VPN server. Do you recall if you were using one?