Do not touch EXIF ​​data

In preview on the Mac you can use:

Using Preview (Simple Edits)

1. Open the image in Preview.
2. Go to Tools > Show Inspector (or press Command + I).
3. Click the EXIF tab to view data like Camera Model, Lens, etc.
4. You can often edit the Description, Keywords, or add GPS data here directly, which modifies the EXIF, but be careful with date fields as they might behave unexpectedly.
   
   This is no batch editing. There are apps in the App Store.

Hi street79 and Happy New Year to you too!

TLDR: Flatten and save, don't export.

The following remarks are macOS-specific - I don't know how it works in Windows.

macOS Finder displays the file creation and modification dates (macOS filesystem metadata), not the image creation and modification dates (EXIF image metadata).

And what you want is for the file creation date to match the image creation date.

However, when you export the document as a .jpg, you are creating a new file in the file system, and the Date Created and Date Modified you see in macOS Finder reflect the attributes of the new file. There's nothing you can do in Affinity to change this behaviour, or match them to the date of the image. And as far as I'm aware, Finder windows can't display the original dates of images.

In Affinity, if you re-open modified files and display the Metadata panel, you'll see that the Date Shot still reflects exactly that: the date that the original image was created. But this will only work if you export the original metadata - if you uncheck Embed Metadata in the Export dialog, this information will be lost. ExifTool (see below) also reports the image's original date and time in the new file.

One way round it is not to export a new jpg, but to update the original file by flattening it (In Affinity 3 Pixel Studio and Affinity Photo 2, go to the Document menu, choose Flatten) and then File>Save (not File>Save As...). This will remove all the edit history, layers, adjustments etc from the working document, but because you're not creating a new file, the information displayed in macOS Finder will retain the file's original Date Created.

However, the file's Date Modified in Finder will change to reflect the date and time that you last saved it. Again, this is part of the way the file system works, and not related to the EXIF metadata.

Another way is to use a dedicated EXIF editor like ExifTool to modify the file system metadata by setting the file creation date to be the same as the original creation date. ExifTool is a command-line tool (available for both macOS and Windows) and has an extremely steep learning curve. If you're not used to coding, it's not the best place to start learning And even in ExifTool, modifying file creation dates in macOS requires the installation of additional Developer tools that aren't available in standard builds of macOS. So that particular method is not for the faint-hearted.

You could also look at some of the results from a Google search for macOS modify file date, but again you're going to be into the realms of Terminal and the command line.

Hope this makes sense!

There is a bug in Windows 10.
"Created" and "Modified" dates are switched. File can't be modified before it is created.
Well, this is Microsoft and everything is possible.

street79 I’ve used 'Photos Exif Editor' for several years now, available from the Mac App Store.
Not Free, but still only around £3 or £4 I think.

The fainthearted amongst us – myself included – may try jExifToolGUI: https://hvdwolf.github.io/jExifToolGUI/

Use ACDSEE(paid) or XnViewMP(free for personal use) with built in exiftool

GraphicConverter has built in ExifTool too, but no option to edit.

Do ACDSEE and XnViewMP have this option?

Not that I'm an expert but both have functions to edit exif data.

I was looking in the wrong place. GraphicConverter has lots of options to edit metadata. Just not in the ExifTool panel.

Quote from h_d

Flatten and save, don't export.

But remember that opening, modifying, and resaving JPG files will lose image quality. How much loss occurs will depend strongly on the image content to start with.

It's not clear to me whether street79 is talking about editing the image content or metadata, but it sounded more like image content. If it's only metadata then using a metadata editor that doesn't modify the image data would be a good approach.

Another shout-out for Graphic Converter, which has powerful batch processing and metadata tools. It's worth downloading the trial just to see the (sometimes overwhelming) number of options.

It also has lossless cropping of JPEGs, if that is part of the workflow.

I use it as a DAM for my modest needs.

Regarding creation dates, I had a number of old photos of sunsets which were shown as being created at 11 in the morning. Somehow the time I transferred the photos to the computer was being recorded as the creation date. A batch convert of the creation date to the time of original capture corrected that.

Graphic converter is mac only.

ACDSEE and XnViewMp can be run on both Windows and Mac

Quote from street79

I maintain a certain number of .jpg photos of jewelry (thousands) sorted by creation date.
I'll need to make changes to some of them periodically, but I've realized that after editing and exporting the changes,
I inevitably lose the sorting order because the Creation Date and Modification Date have changed.

If I understood this correctly, you are using macOS 12.7.6 and no additional image management software, meaning you rely only on the Finder. If that is the case, it already explains a large part of the behaviour you are seeing.

On macOS, the following applies in general: once a JPG is edited and exported again, the system treats the file as technically newly created. As a result, the file creation date is reset and the modification date is updated in any case. Even if some EXIF data remains intact, Finder file dates are independent from it. Options like “include metadata” usually affect descriptions such as titles or keywords. Time-related information is often rewritten during export or ignored by the Finder.

Without dedicated photo management software, macOS basically works with two different logics. One is file system based, sorting by file creation or modification date. This is very fragile, as these values change with every export. The other approach is EXIF based, sorting by the capture date stored by the camera. This method is much more stable, as long as this field is not overwritten. Problems arise when an archive relies on file dates that macOS resets when saving.

So the core issue is not the image editing itself, but which date is used for sorting. If the Finder sorts by the file creation date, the chronological order will be lost after every export, simply due to how the system works.

If you want to continue working with the Finder, there is still a practical solution. In column view, you can enable the “Date Created” or, better, the “Date Added / Capture Date” column (depending on Finder settings) and sort by the capture date instead of the file creation or modification date. It is also worth checking that your editing software keeps the EXIF field DateTimeOriginal unchanged.

This way, a consistent chronological order is possible even after editing, without the need for additional software.

Quote from RM f/g

GraphicConverter has built in ExifTool too, but no option to edit.

GraphicConverter can edit everything, and then some!
Some options are deeply buried in context and "menubar icons" menus though. Because there are so many…

Hello. I also use GraphicConverter. If you use that program there are various options in the browser view for sorting, including "Exif Date", which will sort based on time of capture.

There is an tool for Windows and Mac, terminalprog: https://exiftool.org. With an batch edit. Perhaps this will help. There is also a GUI available: https://github.com/FrankBijnen/Ex…ses/tag/V6.3.11.

Quote from DePruus

There is an tool for Windows and Mac, terminalprog: https://exiftool.org. With an batch edit. Perhaps this will help. There is also a GUI available: https://github.com/FrankBijnen/Ex…ses/tag/V6.3.11.

The GUI is Windows-only - the OP uses macOS.

Quote from Toblerone

If you want to continue working with the Finder, there is still a practical solution. In column view, you can enable the “Date Created” or, better, the “Date Added / Capture Date” column (depending on Finder settings) and sort by the capture date instead of the file creation or modification date.

It may be that the automatic Italian-English translation has messed something up, but I can't see any way of adding a 'Capture Date' column or view in macOS. (Unless it's available in Tahoe, for which my MacBook Pro is too old.)

'Date added' refers to the date the file was added to the folder/directory. 'Date Created' refers to the date the file (not the image) was created.

In Column View in macOS Finder, you can see the Content Created date (and lots more image metadata) if you enable it in Preview Options:

But I cannot see any way of sorting by Content Created or by 'Capture Date'. Forgive me if I'm missing something.

Anyway, street79 has found a solution (Using Touch in Terminal, they don't want to use ExifTool) so there's not a lot more to say.