Fixing an iOS/iPhone issue where apps don’t save photos with the original date and time metadata

How to solve an iOS/iPhone bug that prevents third-party editing apps (e.g. Lightroom, VSCO, AgBr) from retaining the date/time metadata from the original photos when saving new edited files

I’ve tried to pack the right terms in the title and heading above in the hopes that you’ll find this page if you have the same problem that I did.

For several years, edited photos saved from apps like VSCO wound up with the “current” date and time as the “capture time” on my iPhone, meaning that they don’t sort chronologically alongside the original photos when viewing the Photo Library. I noticed with one app that when I made edits on my iPad, it worked as expected, i.e. the original capture time was retained, but mistakenly believed it was a bug in that specific app that only surfaced in their iPhone version.

Last week I discovered this behavior in the new AgBr app, and got to emailing with the developers. In that process, I realized it was a problem with my iPhone, and most likely down to a bug in iOS rather than the photo editing apps.

Without further ado, the solution is to “Reset All Settings” in your iPhone’s Settings app (under General → Transfer or Reset iPhone). This will undo many of your longstanding settings, such as known WiFi networks and cards in your Apple Wallet. It’s a pain in the ass, but much better than wiping the entire phone and starting over from scratch, which is what I thought I would have to do.

I have no idea when I picked up this problem, but it’s a deep-seated one that has followed me across several iPhones, resurfacing with each migration and “restore from iCloud backup”.

Funnily enough, I chanced upon the solution while whining about this problem to Michael, and while I was celebrating with way too much joy than fixing a computer problem should give someone, he pointed out that just a few weeks earlier he had also solved a longstanding problem with Safari on his Mac while telling me about it. I think we’ve figured out a winning formula.

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Summary

Issue Description: Edited photos saved from third-party editing apps on iOS/iPhone lose the original date/time metadata, resulting in incorrect chronological order in the Photo Library.

Cause: Likely a bug in iOS.

Solution: Reset All Settings in the iPhone’s Settings app (under General → Transfer or Reset iPhone), though it will reset some settings.