How to Change DateTimeOriginal in ExifToolGui

DateTimeOriginal is the capture time a camera writes into a photo, and it is the field that sorting, renaming and timeline tools all trust. When it is wrong, because a camera clock was never set, a battery reset it, or a scan carries the scanning date instead, ExifToolGui lets you correct it visually instead of typing ExifTool commands. The tool here is ExifToolGui V6.3.12 by Frank Bijnen, the maintained fork of Bogdan Hrastnik’s Windows GUI for Phil Harvey’s ExifTool.

This guide covers setting an exact new DateTimeOriginal on one file or a selected batch. If every photo from a trip is off by the same amount, an offset shift is the better tool, covered in shifting EXIF time by an offset. For scans with no real capture date at all, see fixing dates on scanned photos. All guides sit in the Tutorials hub, and the program itself is on the download page.

Before You Edit: Copies, and Knowing the True Time

Metadata edits write into the file itself, so work on copies until the workflow is familiar, and keep an untouched backup of any photo whose date you cannot reconstruct later. You also need the true capture time from somewhere outside the file: a phone photo taken at the same event, a message timestamp, a ticket, or another camera whose clock was right. ExifToolGui can write any date you give it; it cannot know which date is correct.

Open the folder in the GUI and select one file first. Read its current DateTimeOriginal in the Metadata panel so you can see the size of the error. A wrong year or a dead-clock value such as 2000-01-01 points to a camera that was never set. A date that is exactly the scanning day on an old print points to the scanned-photo case, which the guide linked in the introduction handles in full.

Set a New DateTimeOriginal in the Workspace

With the file selected, find DateTimeOriginal in the Workspace panel. The Workspace is the editing surface of the GUI: it shows the tags your current workspace definition includes and lets you type new values inline. Enter the correct date and time in the same format the field already displays, then save the change so the GUI hands the edit to ExifTool for writing.

If DateTimeOriginal is not visible, your workspace definition does not include it yet. Add it through the Workspace manager, or switch to a definition that shows the EXIF date fields. Building a personal date-fixing panel is covered in ExifToolGui Workspaces explained. After saving, click to another file and back: the panel re-reads the file, and the value shown is what is now stored, not what you typed into a form.

• Select the file or files in the file list.
• Enter the correct date and time in the DateTimeOriginal field.
• Save, then re-select the file to confirm the stored value.

Apply the Same Correction to a Batch

Batch capability has been a design goal of this GUI since its first versions: you can select multiple files and modify them at once. When a whole folder shares one wrong date, for example a set of scans from one sitting or photos from a camera used for a single event, select all of them, set DateTimeOriginal once, and save to write the same value to every selected file.

Be careful about the difference between same date and same offset. A batch set writes one identical timestamp to every file, which erases the seconds-apart ordering of a burst. If the individual times are right relative to each other and only the clock was wrong, do not overwrite them here; use the offset method in shift EXIF date and time by an offset instead, which moves every timestamp by the same amount and preserves the gaps.

Check EXIF and XMP Agree Afterwards

Photos can carry capture time in both EXIF and XMP, and other software may read either one. The GUI’s Modify menu includes a DateTime equalize function that aligns EXIF and XMP date-times, which is the tidy-up step after a manual correction: run it on the same selection so both stored times match the value you just set.

Finish by verifying outside the editing field: sort the file list by date, confirm the files now sit in the right chronological place, and, if you rename by date, preview the result using rename photos by capture date. If a value did not change, the usual causes are a read-only file or editing a copy in a different folder from the one you are checking, so confirm you are looking at the same file you saved.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the difference between setting and shifting DateTimeOriginal?
Setting writes one exact timestamp you type, which suits a single wrong date. Shifting moves every timestamp by a computed offset, which suits a camera clock that was wrong by a fixed amount.

Will changing DateTimeOriginal change the file’s Windows date?
DateTimeOriginal is metadata inside the photo. It is separate from the file-system dates Windows shows in Explorer, which is why photo tools sort by the metadata value instead.

Can I change the date on many photos at once?
Yes. Select multiple files in the file list and save the new value to all of them, but only when one identical timestamp is truly correct for every selected file.

A corrected DateTimeOriginal pays off everywhere: timelines sort properly, date-based renaming produces meaningful file names, and merged folders from two cameras interleave correctly. Return to the Tutorials hub for the offset, geotagging and batch guides that build on this one.