How Do I Fix Photo Dates After Restoring a Backup?
Restored photos often arrive with the restore date instead of the original. Here is what is recoverable.
A restore copies files onto your disk now, so the file system dates become now. If the photo carries its own capture date inside it, nothing is really lost and only the sorting looks wrong.
Check one photo's Date Taken. If it shows a sensible year, the photos are fine and you just need to sort by that column instead of by Date Modified. If it is empty, the capture date was never inside the file.
For photos with nothing inside, the date has to come from somewhere else, such as Google Takeout .json files or a folder name you remember. Takeout JSON Metadata Fixer reads sidecars and can also stamp a folder with a date you set.