When was this picture taken? How to find a photo's date

By CrispKit · Last updated 27 October 2026

Open the original photo file in an EXIF viewer and read the field called DateTimeOriginal, usually labelled "Date taken". The camera or phone wrote it at the moment of capture, from its own clock. If the file has no such field, the file can't tell you when the picture was taken, and you have to work from other clues.

The EXIF Viewer shows the date taken first, with the time zone when the camera stored one. The photo is read in your browser and never uploaded.

Where the date is stored

Cameras and phones save a block of data called EXIF inside each JPEG, HEIC and many other image files. The current version of the standard is Exif 3.1, published by the Camera & Imaging Products Association (CIPA) on 30 January 2026. A photo can carry three different dates and three matching time-zone fields. ExifTool's tag reference documents them like this:

Field (Exif name)	Tag	What it means
DateTimeOriginal	0x9003	When the original image was taken. This is the one you want.
DateTimeDigitized (ExifTool: CreateDate)	0x9004	When the image was digitized. For a photo from a digital camera it normally matches the date taken.
DateTime (ExifTool: ModifyDate)	0x0132	When the file was last changed. Editing apps often update it.
OffsetTimeOriginal	0x9011	The time zone of DateTimeOriginal, such as +02:00.
OffsetTimeDigitized, OffsetTime	0x9012, 0x9010	The time zones of the other two dates.

The dates are written as plain text in the form 2003:08:11 16:45:32, with colons in the date as well as the time. If you see a date in that shape in a list of metadata, you are looking at raw EXIF.

Step by step

Get the original file. A photo copied straight from the camera or phone, or sent as a file (not as a picture in a chat), keeps its metadata.
Open it in the EXIF Viewer. It reads JPEG, HEIC, PNG, WebP, AVIF and TIFF.
Read "Date taken". That is DateTimeOriginal. If the camera stored a time zone, it is shown next to it.
Check "All metadata" if the date taken is missing. A date may still be in the XMP or IPTC blocks (see below), or the modify date may give you a latest-possible date.

Why the date can be wrong

The camera's clock was wrong. EXIF records whatever the camera's clock said. A camera that was never set, or whose battery ran flat and reset the clock, writes a confidently wrong date.
No time zone. DateTimeOriginal itself has no time zone. Without OffsetTimeOriginal you know the local clock time but not where that clock was set, so a photo taken abroad can look hours off.
"Taken" isn't precisely defined. Wikipedia's summary of the standard notes that it does not say which moment during the taking of a picture the time tags should describe. For a long exposure the difference can be seconds.
Someone changed it. EXIF is ordinary data in the file and can be rewritten. ExifTool, for example, has a single command that shifts DateTimeOriginal, CreateDate and ModifyDate together. Treat the date as the file's claim, not as proof.

Why there's no date at all

If the viewer finds no EXIF, the app that last saved the file didn't write any or left it out. Screenshots, images exported "for web", and pictures saved from messaging apps and social sites often have none.

The file date on your computer is not the date taken. The "created" and "modified" dates your file manager shows belong to the copy on your disk, set when the file was saved, downloaded or copied. The EXIF Viewer lists that date separately as "file date on this device" so the two don't get mixed up.

Other places a date can hide

IPTC "Date Created". News and stock photos often carry IPTC metadata. The IPTC Photo Metadata Standard (2025.1) defines Date Created as "the date and optionally the time the content of the image was created rather than the date of the creation of the digital representation", so for a scanned old print it can hold the original date.
XMP. A separate metadata block with its own date fields, so a date can be there even when the EXIF block is missing.

The EXIF Viewer reads both, under "All metadata".

No metadata? Other clues

Reverse image search. TinEye lets you sort matches by "Oldest", which shows the earliest copies its crawlers found. TinEye is clear that this is the date it found the image, not the date it was posted: its help page gives a photo taken on 21 July 2008 whose oldest match was found on 31 October 2009. An early match still sets a latest-possible date. If someone says a picture shows today's news and TinEye found it years ago, the claim is false.
The picture itself. Phones, cars, shop signs, posters, weather and the season can narrow the date down. That's a judgement, not a reading, so say so if you report it.
Ask the source. The person who sent it may have the original file with its metadata intact.

Fixing a wrong date on your own photos

If your camera's clock was off by a known amount, you can shift the dates rather than retype them. ExifTool's documentation gives the example exiftool -AllDates+=1:30, which moves DateTimeOriginal, CreateDate and ModifyDate forward by 1 hour and 30 minutes. The EXIF Viewer doesn't edit dates; use it afterwards to check the result.

Before you share: the date isn't the only thing in there

The same metadata can hold the camera's serial number and, if location was on, the GPS position where the photo was taken. The EXIF Viewer shows whether a photo has a location and can save a copy with the EXIF, GPS, XMP and IPTC removed. For JPEG, PNG and WebP it leaves the picture data byte for byte unchanged, so there's no loss in quality.

Check a photo's date with the free EXIF Viewer

Open the EXIF Viewer and choose the original photo.
Read "Date taken", and the time zone if there is one.
Open "All metadata" for the other dates, XMP and IPTC.

The photo is read in your browser on your own device and never uploaded.

Open the EXIF Viewer

FAQ

How do I find out when a picture was taken?

Open the original file in an EXIF viewer and read DateTimeOriginal ("Date taken"). If the file has no EXIF, look for an IPTC or XMP date, or use a reverse image search to find the earliest copy online.

Can you tell when a screenshot was taken?

Only if the app that made it wrote a date into the file. Many don't add camera-style EXIF, so check "All metadata" for an XMP date. The file date on your computer only tells you when that copy was saved.

Is the date taken always correct?

No. It's the camera's clock at the time, which may have been wrong or set to another time zone, and anyone can edit EXIF afterwards.

Can I find out when a photo saved from social media was taken?

Usually not from the file. Pictures saved from social and messaging apps often come without EXIF. Ask the person for the original file, or try a reverse image search.

Sources

Each page below was read on 27 October 2026.

CIPA, Standards. CIPA DC-008-Translation-2026, "Exchangeable image file format for digital still cameras: Exif Version 3.1", publication 2026-01-30, a revision of CIPA DC-008-2024.
ExifTool, EXIF Tags. Tag IDs and descriptions: 0x9003 DateTimeOriginal "date/time when original image was taken"; 0x9004 CreateDate "called DateTimeDigitized by the EXIF spec"; 0x0132 ModifyDate "called DateTime by the EXIF spec"; 0x9010–0x9012 the matching time-zone tags. Page last modified 15 April 2026.
ExifTool, Application documentation. The -AllDates+=1:30 example, which shifts "DateTimeOriginal, CreateDate and ModifyDate forward by 1 hour and 30 minutes". Page last modified 27 May 2026.
Wikipedia, Exif. The example date format 2003:08:11 16:45:32, and that the standard "does not specify which particular event during the 'taking' of a picture the time tags should describe".
IPTC Photo Metadata Standard 2025.1. Definition of Date Created.
TinEye, Can I sort my results? The "Oldest" sort, and that the crawl date "isn't the date that it first appeared on the webpage". Last updated 9 June 2021.
TinEye, What does "first found on" mean? The example photo taken on 21 July 2008 whose oldest match is from 31 October 2009. Last updated 21 March 2019.