Is Google Takeout Missing Timezone Information?
Google Takeout stores the moment a photo was taken, but not the timezone it was taken in. Here is what that means and how to avoid photos landing on the wrong day.
Yes, in a way. The date is there, but the timezone is not.
Open any sidecar and photoTakenTime holds a number like 1689929130. That is seconds since 1 January 1970, counted in UTC. It pins down the exact instant, which is precise but incomplete. It does not say whether you were in Berlin or Los Angeles when you pressed the shutter. EXIF works the other way round: it stores plain local wall-clock time, 2023:07:21 09:25:30, with no zone attached. Converting between the two means picking a timezone, and whatever tool you use will pick your computer's.
Usually that is right, because most people photograph mostly at home. It goes wrong for holidays. A photo taken at 9 in the morning in Tokyo can come out as the previous evening if your machine is set to London. Photos near midnight can shift to the wrong day.
Before you run anything, set your computer's clock to the timezone where most of your photos were taken. Then let the app do the rest. It converts every timestamp consistently and writes both the EXIF date and the file dates in one pass, so your library stays in order. The first 500 photos are free.