■ Rescue android photo date information

The other day wife's Samsung phone was full and we wanted to move photos and videos from the phone's memory onto the "external" microSD card to free up space for apps. I can't remember exactly how we did it, but the photos and videos ended up with foobar dates on the SD card: the modified date stamps reverted to "today" (the time of the move operation). As a result the android gallery app was grouping all the photos in a semi-random order using the corrupt dates.

There are other ways android date information is reset e.g. during bluetooth transfer to PC

Thank the maker for xplorer². Most android phones save photos and videos using an international date and time filename like 20230710_074948.jpg. Examining the numbers you can see they are in yyyyMMdd_hhmmss (year/month/day) format, e.g. 20230710_074948.jpg means the photo was taken 10 July 2023, 07:49 am. xplorer² can use information from the filename to restore the original date modified of the picture.

The xplorer² command you need is Change dates menu item. This command can set the date modified (or created) from a number of file properties, usually the filename (if using the above date convention) or date taken (or media created for videos). There is a snag: the menu command only works for photos in a regular filesystem drive, it cannot change dates directly on your phone (MTP protocol). You have 2 options:

If photos are in the microSD card, remove the card and insert it in your PC card reader, where it will appear like a regular USB drive (with a drive letter F:\). The files can be repaired on the SD card, which you then re-insert in your phone in an orderly fashion.
Otherwise copy the bad date photos to a folder on your hard disk (using xplorer²), repair the dates, then copy them back to your phone. This will be awkward and time-consuming but can be done.

Select all picture files that must be date-repaired and use Actions > Change dates menu command; the Change dates dialog will appear as below. On the left set it to repair date Modified using information from Name as the operation. If your photos don't embed date information in the filename (bourgeois iPhone user?), select Date taken from the drop-down list on the right. Click OK and all dates should be restored to their original values.

In a world not devoid of mishaps, xplorer² reassuringly is there to minimize file-related entropy — even on productivity-agnostic phones <g>