# How to fix wrong photo dates and times > Select the photos, right-click → Date, place and copyright → Date and time… (Ctrl+Shift+D). Shift them by hours for a time zone, or set an exact date. Source: https://firelet.media/help/fix-photo-dates-and-times Published: 2026-10-26 · Updated: 2026-10-26 Applies to: Windows, macOS, Linux To fix a wrong photo date in firelet.media Gallery, select the photos, right-click and choose **Date, place and copyright** → **Date and time…**, or press [[Ctrl]]+[[Shift]]+[[D]]. Move them all by a number of days, hours and minutes (ideal for a camera left on the wrong time zone), or set the first photo's exact date and time and let the rest follow. Your files are never changed. ## Why dates go wrong The gallery sorts, groups and files photos by when they were taken, so one wrong clock scrambles a whole trip. The usual causes: - **The camera clock was never set**, or it reset when the battery ran flat. - **The time zone stayed at home.** Every photo from the trip is hours out, and photos from your phone and your camera no longer interleave. - **The file has no capture date.** Scans, screenshots and copies sent through messaging apps often don't record when the picture was taken, so the gallery falls back to the date the file was last modified. It shows up as photos in the wrong order, a holiday split across two days in the calendar, or pictures filed in the wrong date folder. ## How to fix a wrong photo date 1. Select the photos with the wrong date: click the first tile, then Shift-click the last. For a trip, select every photo from the camera with the wrong clock. 2. Right-click one of them and choose **Date, place and copyright** → **Date and time…**, or press [[Ctrl]]+[[Shift]]+[[D]]. 3. Read the line under the heading. It shows the current date of the first photo, and says "already corrected" if you've changed it before, or "the file's date — it declares no capture time" if the file has none. ![The Date and time dialog with the Move them all by, Set the first to and Use each file's own date on disk options](https://firelet.media/help/media/shot-datetime-dialog.webp "Choose one of three ways to correct the date, then press Apply") For a single photo you can also open it in the viewer, press [[I]] for the info panel, and press **Change…** beside **When**. > [!TIP] > To pick out one camera's photos from a mixed trip, open **Filters** ([[Alt]]+[[2]]) → **Camera**, press **Read camera data**, then choose the camera. ## Move them all by, or Set the first to The dialog offers three ways to correct the date. Choose one, then press **Apply**. ### Move them all by: time zones and wrong clocks 1. Choose **Move them all by**. 2. Pick **+** to make the photos later, or **−** to make them earlier. 3. Type the whole **days**, **h** (hours) and **min** (minutes). If the camera was still on home time on a trip three hours ahead, that is + 0 days, 3 h, 0 min. 4. Press **Apply**. The status line confirms how many photos moved and by how much. ### Set the first to: when you know one exact time Find a photo whose real time you know, such as a phone shot of the same moment, a clock in the frame or a sunset. 1. Choose **Set the first to**. 2. Pick the date, and type the time as hours and minutes, for example 14:30. Seconds are optional. 3. Press **Apply**. The earliest selected photo gets that time, and the others move by the same amount, keeping the gaps between them. ### Use each file's own date on disk This uses when each file was last modified. It suits scans and copies whose camera date is missing or plainly wrong, when the file date is closer to the truth. ## Back to the file's date Changed your mind? Select the same photos, open **Date and time…** and press **Back to the file's date** ("Forget the correction; the date in the file counts again"). The button is only active when at least one of the selected photos has a correction. There is no other undo, so check the result before moving on. ## What is changed: the library, not the file The new date is stored as a correction in the gallery's own library. The photo file itself is never touched, so nothing is lost and another program still sees the original date. Inside the gallery, everything follows the correction at once: the sort order, the date filter, the calendar, events, and the `{date}` token when you [rename or move files into date folders](https://firelet.media/help/move-and-rename-photo-files). That makes it worth fixing dates *before* you organise into folders. > [!NOTE] > Exported copies don't carry corrected dates. To share them with Lightroom, darktable or similar programs, write XMP sidecars: right-click → **Write metadata to XMP**, or use the **XMP sidecars** section of **Albums & keywords** ([[Alt]]+[[4]]). The date goes into a small `.xmp` file beside the photo. Locations are fixed the same way; see [how to add or change a photo's location](https://firelet.media/help/add-or-change-photo-location). ## Checking the result in the calendar Press [[Alt]]+[[6]] for **Calendar**. Click the month you corrected to see its days, then click a day to show only those photos. The trip should now sit on the right days, and its events are rebuilt from the new dates. Sorting the grid by **Oldest first** is another quick check that photos from two cameras now interleave. [Browsing by date](https://firelet.media/help/browse-by-date-calendar) covers the calendar in full, and the blog has a longer walk-through on [fixing photos in the wrong order](https://firelet.media/blog/photos-in-wrong-order-fix-dates). For old prints you have scanned, see [scanning photos and documents](https://firelet.media/help/scan-photos-and-documents). ## Questions ### Does changing the date modify my file? No. The new date is stored as a correction in the gallery's library. The file is never changed, and the date reaches an .xmp sidecar only if you write XMP. ### Can I fix a whole trip at once? Yes. Select every photo from the trip (or from the camera that was wrong) and apply one shift. They all move by the same amount. ### How do I undo a date correction? Select the photos, open Date and time… again and press Back to the file's date. The date written in the file counts again.