Moving them
How to move Snapchat memories to iCloud Photos with the right dates
Updated
Export from Snapchat, fix the dates, then import into Photos, in that order. Import the raw export and every memory lands on the day you downloaded it, because Snapchat's files arrive with no EXIF date. Photos reads the date from inside each file (EXIF for photos, the QuickTime creation date for videos), so that's where the real capture time has to be before anything goes in.
On a Mac
- 1. Request your export with Export your Memories and Export JSON Files ticked, and download every part.
- 2. Drop all the ZIPs onto this site at once and download the finished one.
- 3. Double-click it to unzip.
- 4. In Photos, File → Import, and choose the folder.
- 5. With iCloud Photos switched on, they sync to every device from there.
On an iPhone, with no computer
- 1. Send Snapchat's download to the Files app rather than opening it.
- 2. Open this site in Safari and choose the ZIP from Files. Keep the screen on until it finishes.
- 3. Save the finished ZIP to Files, then tap it and Files unzips it into a folder.
- 4. Open the folder, tap Select, select everything, then Share and save them to Photos.
What Photos uses for the date
For a photo, the EXIF DateTimeOriginal field. For a video, the creation date stored inside the movie file, and only if that's missing does it fall back to the file's own date. Snapchat's photos have no EXIF at all and its videos' internal dates aren't always right, so both are written on the way out. The date in the photo's EXIF and the date in the video's header come from the same entry in Snapchat's own list.
Some will have no location, and that's deliberate
Snapchat's export doesn't say which photo each coordinate belongs to, so when several memories share a day and were taken in different places, the location is left empty rather than guessed. A wrong pin on the map looks exactly like a right one. The index CSV in the ZIP marks every location exact, approximate or blank.
Check before you delete anything
Once they're in, scroll the Library by year, open a few videos, and look at the count. Snapchat's export sometimes lists more memories than it actually ships (in one real export about 4% had no file), so compare against what you expected before clearing anything anywhere.
Fix them before they go in
Dates, captions and locations back into every file, in your browser, with nothing uploaded. The first 500 files are free.