Why Google Takeout photos show the wrong date, and how to fix them

You exported Google Photos with Takeout, opened the folders, and every photo says it was taken today. The photos are fine. The dates are just not inside the files.

Why it happens

Google Photos keeps the date you see in the app in its own database. Takeout exports that as a separate .json file next to each photo, with photoTakenTime and geoData inside. Most photo apps ignore those JSON files, so they fall back to the file's download date.

Matching photos to their JSON is harder than it looks:

• Newer exports name them photo.jpg.supplemental-metadata.json.
• Long names get cut to 46 characters, so the JSON name no longer matches.
• Duplicates are numbered differently: photo(1).jpg goes with photo.jpg(1).json.
• A photo and its JSON can end up in different zip parts.
• Album photos are exported again for every album.

Fixing it for free with ExifTool

If you're comfortable on the command line, ExifTool can copy the date in:

exiftool -r -d %s -tagsfromfile "%d/%F.supplemental-metadata.json" \
  "-DateTimeOriginal<PhotoTakenTimeTimestamp" \
  "-GPSLatitude<GeoDataLatitude" "-GPSLongitude<GeoDataLongitude" \
  -ext jpg -overwrite_original "Takeout/Google Photos"

Run it once per naming pattern (%F.json, %F.supplemental-metadata.json), unzip every part into one folder first, and check a few photos before deleting the originals. The truncated and renumbered names need extra handling.

Fixing it in the browser

I built ExportFixer for people who don't want to script this. You drop all the Takeout zips in, it matches every naming variant, writes the date and GPS into each photo and video, removes the album duplicates and sorts everything by year and month. It runs in your browser tab and nothing is uploaded. The first 200 files are free: https://tanglement.ai/export-fixer/google-takeout-photos-wrong-date/

It also handles Snapchat Memories and iCloud Photos exports, which have the same problem.

Disclosure: I make it and sell it.