Change EXIF Date Online — No Upload Required
Every JPEG photograph stores the date and time it was captured inside three EXIF fields: DateTimeOriginal (when the shutter fired), DateTimeDigitized(when the image was digitised), and DateTime (last modification time). This tool lets you rewrite all three fields directly in your browser — the image pixels are never touched and your file never leaves your device.
Why would you need to change an EXIF date?
- Wrong timezone during travel. Your camera clock was set to home time, so every photo from a trip abroad shows the wrong local time. Use Shift by Hours to add or subtract the hour difference in one click.
- Camera clock not set. A new camera or a factory reset often defaults to 2000-01-01. Use Set New Date to correct the timestamp before you organise your library.
- Scanned film or slide photographs. Scans have no shutter date — the scanner sets the digitisation date, not the year the photo was taken. Correcting this lets photo apps sort scans by the actual era.
- Privacy. Sharing an accurate date can reveal a location visit or daily routine. Changing the date before sharing adds a layer of anonymity.
DateTimeOriginal vs DateTime — what is the difference?
DateTimeOriginal is the moment the shutter fired and is considered the “canonical” capture date. DateTimeDigitized was added for film scanners to record when a physical negative was digitised (for digital cameras both fields are identical). DateTime (also called ModifyDate by some tools) is updated whenever any editing software writes the file. This tool rewrites all three to the same value so every app sees a consistent date.
How it works — no re-encoding
The tool reads the JPEG’s APP1 EXIF segment, updates the three date fields using the piexifjs library, and re-inserts the segment without touching the compressed image data at all. This means the output file is the same size as the original and image quality is fully preserved. Only JPEG files are supported because JPEG is the only common format that uses the APP1/EXIF header this library can rewrite.
Related tools
- Use EXIF Metadata Viewer to see all EXIF fields before and after editing.
- Use Remove GPS from Photo to strip location data before sharing.
- Use Image Metadata Remover to clear all metadata in one step.