What Happens if a Photo Has No Date Anywhere?
Some photos have no date in the file and no .json either. Here is what a good tool does with them.
A few photos in every export have nothing: no capture date inside the file, and no .json beside them. Usually they are very old uploads or stray video clips.
There is no honest way to invent a date for these. What a tool can do is fall back sensibly. First it checks the photo's own metadata. Then it looks at the filename, because names like PXL_20230721_092530123.jpg or IMG_20190714 contain a real date. Only if all of that fails is a photo genuinely undatable, and at that point it keeps whatever date the file already had.
The important part is being told. At the end of a run the app lists every photo it could not date properly, so you know exactly which ones need a manual look instead of discovering it months later. That list is usually short. The first 500 photos are free, so you can see how many of yours fall into it.