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Help Gallery app has its image dates wrong

D

doron1

Lurker
Hi folks,

I'm pulling my hair out on this one, perhaps someone can shed some light.
Android 10, recent version of Gallery app (1.8.9.465239415).

I have an SD card on my phone; most of my images are stored on it. Recently, it became full so I bought a larger one. Pulled the SD card out, copied all contents to the new one.
I made absolutely sure that all FAT timestamps on all files are set to what they need to be, i.e. the time the file was actually created. This includes all of: creation, modification and access times.

Inserted the SD card back. Fired up Gallery. It started grouping all pictures into one big pile, marked "October". Checking "info" on some samples showed the date of the card change (yesterday)!
Googled a bit, found a recommendation to clear the storage of some apps. So I cleared cache and local storage of: Gallery, Media Storage and External Storage (latter two are system apps). Rebooted.

Now the phenomenon is as follows - I can't make any sense of it:
One one hand, the "Camera" folder (actually, /DCIM/Camera on the card) seems to be indexed just fine! "info" on all files shows the correct date.
HOWEVER, all other folders on the SD card still show all image files having a date of October - the date of the move.
I verified, probably 10 times, that all actual dates on the files (C/M/A and even EXIF) are correct. None of them shows the October date. And still, this is what Gallery shows.

I can't even think of a scenario as to where it gets that October date from. Must be something cached somewhere still. Drives me nuts.

Thanks for reading this far! I'd be grateful for any input or pointers.
 
Dannydet said:
The gallery app is probably the worst to use when naming photos.
Click to expand...
Thanks for your reply.
I should have mentioned that everything was working well, for years, in Gallery. The phenomenon definitely started when I swapped SD cards, it was perfectly okay prior to that.
And regardless of how bad Gallery is, I can't figure out where it brings the October date from, - and, not in all folders.
 
Exactly how did you copy those photo files from your old microSD card onto the new card?
-- Did you remove the card from your phone and put it into your computer to do the file transfers on your computer?
-- Or did you connect your phone to your computer via a USB cable to do the file transfers?
-- If the latter, did you use a file manager app installed on your phone or using a file manager (Windows Explorer on a WinPC, Finder on a Mac)?

This sounds like it's not necessarily a glitch or buggy behavior but rather just an inherent problem with how different platforms handle file metadata.
 
svim said:
Exactly how did you copy those photo files from your old microSD card onto the new card?
-- Did you remove the card from your phone and put it into your computer to do the file transfers on your computer?
-- Or did you connect your phone to your computer via a USB cable to do the file transfers?
-- If the latter, did you use a file manager app installed on your phone or using a file manager (Windows Explorer on a WinPC, Finder on a Mac)?

This sounds like it's not necessarily a glitch or buggy behavior but rather just an inherent problem with how different platforms handle file metadata.
Click to expand...

I pulled the SD card out and made the copy on a Windows PC. While doing that I made sure (and then many more times) that all the timestamps in the metadata are indeed as they should be, and none is the dreaded date in October. Created Time, Modified Time, Access Time and EXIF timestamps all show the right thing. Still, Gallery does that...
 
Timestamps get stored in each photo file's metadata, and there's an inherent problem involving how different platforms interpret and display metadata. Windows prioritizes that data the way Microsoft prefers, Android the way Google prefers, and on top of all of that there's a really big issue in that any storage media using a FAT-based file system is simply not able to handle file metadata in a proper manner (microSD cards use either FAT32 or exFAT by default). The FAT file system goes back to the 90's, it's now obsolete and simply isn't able to support today's technology.

So there are OS issues, that only get amplified with the limitations with the FAT file system of a SD card.. An example being, the timestamp in the file's metadata will be something like 2022:10:05:16:35:36
or year:month:day:hour:minute:second (note that UTC is the standard for time zones)
If you have a few thousands of photos in your photo library, in a purely logical, numerical sort using that timestamp is simple. But we humans don't necessarily use logic. Here in America we prefer month, date, year and a 12-hour clock tied to time zones to view that same metadata, so doing that same kind of numerical sort involves some background conversion. Now add in how Microsoft and how Google interpret the timestamps in a file metadata, all diluted by FAT limitations. You're using two different operating systems and different ways to check your file dates.
In an ideal world, you would be able to use all your devices (computers, laptops, mobile devices, etc.) that are fully compatible with each other or are all using the same operating system, but here in the real world there are too many commercial interests, profit motives, and just plain tribalism in mindsets. That leaves us to cope with compromises and workarounds with all of our gadgetry.

I'll tentatively suggest you try the Simple Mobile Tools Gallery Pro app instead, it's a pay-for version but only a $1.29
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.simplemobiletools.gallery.pro&hl=en_US&gl=US
The point being, it has a much, much bigger feature set than the Gallery app. Be sure to go into the app's Settings menu to set it up accordingly to customize it to your particular needs -- i.e. there's a lot of options as to how you want the set the date appearance. Year-Month-Day or Month-Day-Year or Month/Day/Year and more, and use the display Sort icon in the top menubar.
 
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