Fixing Dates in Image EXIF Tag Data from Linux

The camera that lost track of time is still with us, now as a phone with the wrong time zone or a scanner that stamps today’s date on 1990s prints. jhead, the 2009 answer, is still in the repositories and still fine for JPEGs. The tool to learn, though, is exiftool: it handles RAW, HEIC, PNG and video as well as JPEG, it can shift dates instead of overwriting them, and it can copy a date between the EXIF tags and the file system in either direction.

sudo apt install libimage-exiftool-perl jhead

Read the dates

exiftool -s -AllDates image.jpg

DateTimeOriginal                : 2009:06:21 10:00:00
CreateDate                      : 2009:06:21 10:00:00
ModifyDate                      : 2009:06:21 10:00:00

-AllDates is shorthand for the three EXIF date tags; -s prints the tag names instead of descriptions. Photo managers sort by DateTimeOriginal.

Shift by an offset (the camera was a year behind)

This is the case the 2009 text handled badly, because jhead -ts set every photo to the same timestamp. exiftool adds or subtracts a delta and keeps the relative order:

exiftool -overwrite_original "-AllDates+=1:0:0 0:0:0" image.jpg

The delta is Y:M:D h:m:s. Subtract two and a half hours for a wrong time zone:

exiftool -overwrite_original "-AllDates-=0:0:0 2:30:0" image.jpg

Without -overwrite_original, exiftool keeps a copy of each file as image.jpg_original, which is the safe default while you are still finding the right offset.

Set one date explicitly

exiftool -overwrite_original -DateTimeOriginal="2003:01:01 00:00:00" -CreateDate="2003:01:01 00:00:00" image.jpg

File time from EXIF, or EXIF from file time

Two tags that often disagree: the EXIF date (what the camera said) and the file’s modification time (what the copy said). Make the file system match the photo:

exiftool -overwrite_original "-FileModifyDate<DateTimeOriginal" image.jpg

Or, for scans and screenshots with no EXIF date at all, write the file time into the tag so albums sort properly:

exiftool -overwrite_original "-DateTimeOriginal<FileModifyDate" image.jpg

A whole directory

-r recurses, -P preserves file modification times, and a directory argument processes every image in it:

exiftool -r -P -overwrite_original "-AllDates+=0:0:1 0:0:0" ~/Pictures/2003-trip/

Mixed folders are fine: a warning like Can't shift from year 0000 when shifting CreateDate - ./clip.mp4 just means that file had no such date to shift, and it is left alone.

jhead, for the record

Still installed with sudo apt install jhead, still JPEG-only, and the 2009 options still work:

jhead image.jpg
jhead -ts2003:01:01-00:00:00 image.jpg
jhead -da2004:01:01-2003:01:01 image.jpg
jhead -ft image.jpg

-ts sets the timestamp outright, -da shifts dates by the difference between two dates (here, one year forward), -ft sets the file’s modification time from the EXIF date. For anything that is not a JPEG, or for a shift expressed in hours, use exiftool.

I recently needed to organize a large number of old digital photos that had the wrong date embedded in their EXIF tag data. The camera I used many years ago would often lose track of time and would sometimes be set to the wrong year. Applications I now use to organize photos read this data and made my albums difficult to navigate. I came across a Linux command line utility called jhead that allows you to modify this information to whatever you wish, and its easy to use in scripts as well. Installing was easy, because it’s currently in most repositories, including Ubuntu’s.

To read existing EXIF tag data, simply run jhead against an image without any options. As you can see from the example below, my date is set to the year 2022.

jhead image.jpg 

File name : image.jpg

File size : 159390 bytes

File date : 2004:01:12 07:35:23

Camera make : Samsung

Camera model : Digimax 200

Date/Time : 2022:02:12 04:04:17

Resolution : 800 x 600

Flash used : Yes

Exposure time: 0.045 s (1/22)

Aperture : f/2.8

To clear all EXIF data from the file, use the -de option. Then recreate the EXIF fields with the -mkexif option, and check the data again. Notice the new Date/Time is set to the timestamp on the file.

jhead -de image.jpg

Modified: image.jpg
jhead -mkexif image.jpg

Modified: image.jpg
jhead image.jpg 

File name : image.jpg

File size : 147751 bytes

File date : 2004:01:12 07:35:23

Date/Time : 2004:01:12 07:35:23

Resolution : 800 x 600

To change the entire timestamp manually, use the -ts option. Notice, there is no space between the -ts and the option. I could not trust the month and day, so I simply chaged the date to midnight on January 1, 2003.

jhead -ts2003:01:01-00:00:00 image.jpg

Modified: image.jpg
jhead image.jpg

File name : image.jpg

File size : 147751 bytes

File date : 2004:01:12 07:35:23

Date/Time : 2003:01:01 00:00:00

Resolution : 800 x 600

For many more options, check out the man page or visit the jhead site for more info.