How to Add a Date Stamp to iPhone Photos

By KT Apps · Updated October 16, 2026

Where your iPhone stores the date

Every photo your iPhone takes carries metadata, often called EXIF data, which includes the date and time it was taken. In the Photos app, open a photo and swipe up, or tap the info (i) button, to see it along with the camera details and, if location was on, the place.

This hidden date is reliable for photos taken with the camera, but it can be lost. Screenshots of photos, pictures saved from social networks or messaging apps, and some edited exports may have no original date, or the date you saved them instead.

Check and correct the date first

A stamp is only useful if the date is right. If a photo shows the wrong date, for example a picture from a camera whose clock was never set, or a scan of an old print, you can change it in Photos:

1. Open the photo and swipe up or tap the info button.
2. Tap Adjust next to the date.
3. Set the correct date and time, and tap Adjust to save.

This changes the date your library uses for sorting. It is worth doing before stamping, so the stamp and the library agree.

Option 1: Type the date with Markup

For one or two photos, the built-in Markup tool can put text on the picture:

1. Open the photo in Photos and tap Edit.
2. Tap the Markup (pen) button.
3. Tap the + button and choose Text.
4. Type the date, then use the format controls to change the size and color, and drag the text box to a corner.
5. Tap Done to save.

Limitations: you have to type every date yourself and position each one by hand, so it is slow for more than a few photos, and the style is hard to keep consistent. Menu names can differ slightly between iOS versions.

Option 2: Print services and editing apps

Some photo printing services and kiosks offer a date-printing option at order time, which adds the date to the print but not to your digital copy. General photo editors with a text tool work like Markup: flexible, but one photo at a time and with dates typed by hand.

Option 3: Stamp many photos at once with an app

A dedicated date stamp app reads the date from each photo's metadata and prints it automatically, so a batch from a two-week trip gets the right date on every picture without typing. Here is how it works in DateStamp:

1. Open DateStamp and tap Gallery to choose up to 30 photos, or Camera to take a new one. JPEG, PNG and HEIF photos are supported, which covers what the iPhone camera produces.
2. In Stamp Settings, choose to show the Date, the Time or Both, and pick a format such as ISO (2025-08-01), US (08/01/2025), EU (01/08/2025) or the system format.
3. Choose one of nine positions. In the preview you can also drag the stamp to move it and pinch to resize it.
4. Pick small, medium or large text, white, black or auto-contrast color, the opacity, and bold if you want it.
5. Save the combination as a preset if you will use it again; up to five presets are kept.
6. Check the preview, swipe to compare the original with the stamped version, then save. The original photos stay as they were.

DateStamp is on the App Store for iPhone, on Google Play for Android, and free in the browser, where photos are processed on your device and never uploaded.

Which option should you use?

• One photo, any custom text: Markup.
• Prints only, digital copies untouched: a print service with a date option.
• Many photos, each with its own correct date: a batch date stamp app.
• Photos with no original date, such as scans: correct the date in Photos first, or use a custom date in the app.

Tips for a good-looking date stamp

• The classic look is small text in the bottom-right corner. Keep it small so it does not compete with the picture.
• Use a color that contrasts with that corner: white disappears against sky or snow, black against shadows. Auto contrast handles this for you.
• Use the year-first ISO format for records and for photos shared between countries, since 08/01 means August 1 in the US and 8 January in much of Europe.
• Move the stamp if a face or important detail sits in that corner.
• Keep the unstamped originals. A stamp becomes part of the image and cannot be removed cleanly later.

Frequently asked questions