Whenever I transfer images to a new computer, MS changes the creation date to being the date they first came onto the new computer.
Copyright info is important in my work. Does anyone know a work around?
Their Photos app used to give the Original creation date, but they’ve changed that app and it doesn’t do it anymore.
Does anyone know of any apps that will tell me I really created it in 2003 not 2022 like MS says?
Thank you.
Not sure I think MS uses Date Taken or you could use that… unless this is not what you want…
Maybe the issue is the app doesn’t use that??
If you move/copy them with robocopy I believe the time info can be preserved…
There is likely a simpler way…
One discussion of options and command line can be viewed here…
On my win 10 laptop, Photos does show ‘date taken’ see below… I just pressed alt+enter to bring up the details, and there it is at the top left. I’m pretty sure my Win 11 desktop does the same - will try and check later.
Does that fit your purpose? I’m not sure if this works for file created outside the camera though, i.e. files that don’t have camera EXIF data in them.
Ms doesn’t change the files .
The FileCreationDate and FileModifiedDate is info coming from the filesystem. If a file is Neely created (when you copy) , that should change.
Inside of the file , is info in exif about when the shot was taken (If the clock in your camera was ok). That doesn’t change by copying…
The windows explorer can show that, and most of the time it does that automatically when it detects a folder is full of pictures.
In a folder detail view, you can right click the columns , and then add or remove columns. There are multiple date columns available , including ones from the filesystem but also ones from the metadata inside of the file.
If you want an image viewer that shows it, what about darktable? :).
But irfanview also has an image metadata overview to see what’s inside.
I confirm that
The date shown in explorer “date” field is the exif “date taken”.
Every correct image viewer (Irfanview, xnview, faststone,digikam…) can display the exif “date taken”.
Irfanview keeps your original dates. Even has the option to print you exif data if needed.
You have to trash a viewer that would not keep the exif data! And mainly the exif date taken 
And fortunately Irfanview like the viewers I listed above do keep the exif data.
Thank you Steven, 
You understood it might not be images from a camera having the issue. That meant a lot.
Yes, I don’t have a problem with JPG’s from the camera.
It’s my digital art that has the problem as a lot of it didn’t have the IPTC or EXIF data entered yet as I was still trying to get the original created dates that disappeared when I got that computer.
Hi Todd,
Thank you for those links.
I’ll probably do a trial run of a couple of those programs to see if they will fit my situation.
Thank you.
Hi Susan,
Does it keep the original dates from non JPG images?
My digital art doesn’t have EXIF or IPTC automatically entered like a camera JPG does.
Thank you for that info.
I hadn’t realized there were so many Date Columns available in File Explorer.
Currently that doesn’t solve my problem because all of the Date Created say the date they were put onto this computer, which isn’t helpful as they mostly say now they were created in 2022, which is certainly not the case.
And since most of my images are not JPG’s they don’t have EXIF or IPTC data attached as I was still working on this problem from my last computer.
I find it interesting that the computer doesn’t lose the original created date so much for documents.
Hi Jorismak,
Thank you for that info.
I hadn’t realized there were so many Date Columns available in File Explorer.
Unfortunately these images didn’t have metadata (IPTC or EXIF) as I was still working on determining their correct dates as the same thing happened with my last computer.
Then I found that the Photos app showed their real original created dates and was able to start entering their EXIF and IPTC info. That is until MS updated the Photos app and it quit doing that.
I use ACDSee but it shows the date imported onto this computer as the created date. Once I have the date and enter it into the EXIF and IPTC fields then ACDSee will show those as the created date etc.
Thank you,
As others have said, the date created is not what you want. The date modified is more relevant to you.
Actually, the Date Created is exactly what I want. I very rarely alter an existing image. I will alter it and do a Save As and change the name.
Copyright is about the date you created an image and that’s what I need.
I can’t prove copyright when the computer says it was created in 2022 when I really created it in 2005.
If you copy a file to a new file using xcopy or copy or robocopy, the new file is created “now”. But the “date modified” of the new file will inherit from the original file.
If you haven’t modified a file, its “date modified” will be the date it was first created.
Hi Alan,
About 3 computers ago, that happened and I didn’t know why the modified date was kept, but it was the original created date. Thank you for your explanation of why that was. 
However, I have a folder of over 200 images I created in 2017 but except for two of them they all have 2022 dates for both the created and the modified dates in the date colums.
I included the year created in many of my file names because this happened on the last computer too, so for those I at least know the year they were created.
I am dealing with bmp, png, tiff, pdn, pfi, mix, rtg and other file formats.
My jpg images from my camera have their EXIF and IPTC data which includes their created date. But I have at least 10,000 images so this is a real issue for me and I need to find a solution.
I mentioned three copying methods that will set the “date created” to now. But other programs can do whatever they want, such as inheriting the creation date of the new file from the old file. In Powershell, we can set a creation date like this:
(Get-Item "x.bin").CreationTime=("01 February 2012 12:34:56")
I expect a Powershell script could be written that set the creation dates of all files from the EXIF date.
Thank you for this info Alan.
Part of the problem is these images do not have EXIF data.
If you want a creation date to reliably accompany a file you need to either 1) add the tag EXIF:DateTimeOriginal with the proper date value to the file’s metadata, or 2) incorporate the creation date/time into the filename itself.
exiftool can aid you in doing either of these:
It’s a command line program, and there are GUI shells available for it. Of note to your specific need, there’s also an EXIF:Copyright tag available for you to insert your copyright assertion.
The operating system file date/times do not behave to the rules we photographers cherish…
I’m still confused what you done to get exif data away… aren’t it RAW files ? Those should always have it , and i know of nothing that thinks it’s a good idea to remove it.
Maybe some exiftool tricks can be good for you ?
Like taking the filesystem date and putting it into exif in one of the fields .
Or the other way around , making sure the filesystem modified and/created date is set to the photo-taken field in exif.
Or, matching up original raw files by filename and copying missing exif data from those into jpg files that don’t have it . Etc…
I know the commandline can be scary , but it can be a great help if you need to fix things in 1000s of images.
Or at least try a tool or GUI to help you with this, don’t go entering date indo one by one :).