Specific questions about photos

I realize these questions are rather specific cases, but if anyone happens to know the answers thanks in advance. I have not been good about organizing my photos for a very long time. In 2011 I took out a hard drive from my old Dell and said I’ll get the data off this some day. Then an external hard drive that I used to use to backup my data I accidentally told Time Machine to use for backup not knowing it would wipe and reformat the drive. So I cancelled that in the middle and tried to get data off of it using programs designed to restore old drives. Anyways I have like 4-5 hard drives I’m going through all the itunes backups for and folder structures and I’m gathering together all of my pictures from 2002 until now and have been loading them into the Photos app watching Davids video field guide. So here are my questions.

  1. Some of my videos for some reason show up in Photos as taken 6/12/19 (the day I loaded them into photos). They were actually recorded in 2006-8 time frame. Can I manually edit the metadata Photos uses? FIXED

  2. Some of my videos won’t load because they are wmv files. Most wmv to mp4 converters cost money so I want to make sure I do things the right way if I will have to buy a program to get them into photos anyways, but can the new mp4 videos be edited to take the metadata of the original wmv files so in photos they show up in the right year? Ultimately that’s the main issue I just want all of my photos to show up in the timeline correctly. FIXED

  3. I use Google Photos and OneDrive to backup photos and iCloud to sync all my Photos on the Apple ecosystem. So all of the new photos I just loaded yesterday on my Mac are now synced to my ios and ipados devices and they’re now syncing to google and microsoft. Which made me wonder is it transferring the original versions or just the thumbnails? Like does microsoft and google do some maneuvering to somehow transfer over the original versions of the photos or whatever shows up in my ios library which I think is like just a thumbnail? FIXED I think based on the size of the images I saw being uploaded they were sending the full resolution files…

  4. There are a couple of times in the years view that it has a year that says 2002-2004, then 2004, 2005, 2006, I’m not sure if that will work itself out over time or if I need to fix something there. I noticed one time it I think was because a moment in the group of pictures was on New Years Eve and I was able to delete the pics that were taken after midnight anyways since the 3 taken weren’t good anyways and that time it fixed to where it now only shows 1 year in the year view at a time, but still it shows 2002-2004. This is only on the mac that it says 2002-2004, on ios it doesn’t. Maybe it will fix itself over time.

Sorry these are super specific, but any help is greatly appreciate. I also have hazel if I am able to do the conversions or metadata updates??

Side note, what do you guys do about backup photo libraries? I usually go through my photos library to delete excess pictures and screenshots and junk I don’t need at least every few months, but at that point google and microsoft have already backed them all up, I definitely always hope that nothing ever happens to my Apple photos because my current backup libraries are gonna be a mess for sure…lol.

  1. Is there a way to use automation on my Mac or iPad to automatically delete photos from OneDrive and google photos that have already been backed up but subsequently deleted in iCloud?
  1. Also, what does everyone do with their videos? I have a MacBook Pro with 256gb and I have photos set to keep originals (per David on video field guide) and currently my photos library is 65gb. I’m likely gonna save my files from my Mac and then erase and setup as new and transfer my files back over to get rid of any old things hiding on my computer that way I have more room for a larger library, But is it recommended ever to store the photos library itself on an external drive? And does everyone store all their videos in photos too? Or YouTube or something else?

You can adjust the date and time of items (and some other metadata) within the Photos app.

Thanks, I just saw that option when I clicked on one of the videos. Luckily it was only 52 videos. So I was able to open the folder I transferred them from and go video by video to update the dates. Now I guess I just need to figure out the best way to convert the wmv videos and if possible transfer the metadata to the new files so I don’t have to manually adjust them in photos afterwards.

Can’t comment on Microsoft, but as I recall, Google currently gives you around 15GB of storage with a free Gmail account. Everything, email, calendars, notes, files, photos, etc. count against your free storage. You can tell Google to store original rather than “high quality” photos & videos. But only up to the amount of storage you have available. Bottom line, if you want Google to store originals, you may need to purchase additional storage. $1.99/month buys 100GB.

In other news:

Thanks, yeah on google I have it switched to high quality so I don’t pay, but since I pay for office 365 I have OneDrive backup originals.