Sort your session photos by capture date

Sorting by name works as long as all the photos come from the same camera: IMG_0001, IMG_0002 and so on until the end of the day. The problem starts when that is not the case. At a wedding with two photographers, one photographer's photos start with IMG_ and the other's with DSC_. If the bride also sends you a couple of phone photos over WhatsApp, alphabetical order mixes the ceremony with the reception, and you have to rearrange them by hand.

From now on you can sort a session's photos by capture date, that is, by the moment each photo was taken.

Where it is

In the Sort menu, next to the name options, you will find two new ones:

• Capture date (oldest first)
• Capture date (newest first)

They are in the three places where you could already sort: when you create a session, in the Images tab of an existing session, and in each folder's menu. In a folder, the order applies only to that folder's photos; the other folders are not touched.

The order you choose is the one your client will see in the gallery once you save. The date itself is not shown anywhere: it is only used for sorting.

Where the date comes from

Cameras and phones store the date and time each photo was taken inside the file (it is part of the EXIF data). PhotoHeart reads it from the original photo when you upload it, before compressing it, and saves it alongside the photo. You do not need to do anything beyond uploading your photos as usual.

The date options only appear when at least one photo in what you are about to sort has a date. If you have just selected many photos, they may take a moment to appear: PhotoHeart waits until it has read all of them, so the order is not left half done.

What happens to photos without a date

Not every photo has one. Photos sent through WhatsApp, Telegram or Instagram lose it along the way, screenshots don't have it, and many PNG files don't either.

Those photos don't disappear and they don't get mixed in: they go to the end, in the same order they had, whether you sort from oldest to newest or the other way round. And if two photos were taken in the same second, which is common in a burst, they are sorted between themselves by name.

What you should know

• Only for photos you upload from now on. Photos already in your sessions were uploaded before PhotoHeart started saving the date, so they don't have one to sort by. If you need this order in an older session, you will have to upload those photos again.
• Each camera's clock is used as it is. If you work with two cameras, synchronize their clocks before the session. If one is ten minutes ahead, its photos will appear ten minutes later than they were actually taken.
• You decide the order. Uploading photos does not reorder them by itself: you choose the option when you want, and afterwards you can still move any photo by hand, as before.

If you organise your sessions by parts of the day, this order works well with session folders: split the photos into "Ceremony", "Reception" or "Party" and sort each folder by capture date.

How to try it

Open a session from Sessions, go to the Images tab, upload your photos and, once they are saved, click Sort → Capture date (oldest first). If the session has folders, use the sort button in each folder.