Fix Wrong Photo Dates After a Trip Abroad
Came back from a trip and all your photos show the wrong time? If your camera clock was still set to your home timezone, every photo from the trip is off by a few hours. Here's how to fix them all at once.
What went wrong
Most cameras (including phones with "Set Automatically" turned off) record the date and time from their internal clock. If you traveled from New York to London and didn't update the clock, every photo is stamped 5 hours behind. A sunset at 20:00 local time shows up as 15:00 in your camera roll.
The fix is simple: shift every photo from the trip forward (or backward) by the timezone difference. A 5-hour forward shift turns that 15:00 back into 20:00.
How to shift all your trip photos at once
- Open the Photo Date & Time Editor.
- Upload the photos from your trip. You can select multiple files at once.
- Tap "Edit All Dates & Times".
- Choose "Shift by hours".
- Select Add (+) or Subtract (-) and enter the number of hours. For example, if you traveled from New York (UTC-5) to London (UTC+0), add 5 hours.
- Check the preview to make sure the new times look right, then tap "Shift All".
- Download the corrected photos.
Common timezone offsets
Here are the most common timezone corrections for travelers. Use "Add" when you traveled east, "Subtract" when you traveled west.
| From | To | Shift |
|---|---|---|
| US East Coast (UTC-5) | UK (UTC+0) | +5 hours |
| US East Coast (UTC-5) | Central Europe (UTC+1) | +6 hours |
| US West Coast (UTC-8) | Japan (UTC+9) | +17 hours |
| UK (UTC+0) | Thailand (UTC+7) | +7 hours |
| Central Europe (UTC+1) | US East Coast (UTC-5) | -6 hours |
| Australia East (UTC+10) | UK (UTC+0) | -10 hours |
Note: these offsets don't account for daylight saving time. If one timezone was in summer and the other in winter, the offset may differ by 1 hour.
Alternative: shift using the "Shift dates & times" mode
If you prefer to set the correct time for one photo and have all others shift relative to it:
- Upload your trip photos and tap "Edit All Dates & Times".
- Choose "Shift dates & times".
- The tool shows the earliest photo's current date. Change it to the correct local time for that photo.
- All other photos shift by the same amount, preserving the time gaps between them.
This is useful when you know the exact local time for at least one photo (a restaurant receipt, a ticket with a timestamp, or a clock visible in the background).
What about the timezone EXIF field?
Some cameras and phones store the timezone as a separate field (OffsetTimeOriginal). When you edit dates in the Photo Date & Time Editor, you can also set or change the timezone. This is optional but recommended, as it tells apps like Google Photos and Apple Photos exactly which timezone the photo was taken in.
If you only want to fix the clock offset and don't care about the timezone field, you can leave it unchanged and just shift the hours.
Frequently asked questions
Will shifting the time affect my photo quality?
No. Only the EXIF metadata is changed. The image data is never re-encoded, so there is zero quality loss.
Can I shift by half hours?
Yes. The shift-by-hours field accepts decimal values. Enter 5.5 to shift by 5 hours and 30 minutes, which is useful for timezones like India (UTC+5:30) or Nepal (UTC+5:45).
My photos are from different cameras. Can I fix them separately?
Yes. Upload the photos from one camera, shift them, and download. Then repeat for the next camera. Each camera may have had a different clock offset.
How many photos can I shift at once?
Free: up to 3 photos at a time. Pro: unlimited photos, with a batch ZIP download for the whole set.