Filee photo conversion: dates, EXIF and color profiles
Convert HEIC and other photos with Filee while choosing whether to keep EXIF, file dates and color profiles. Check privacy, orientation and image quality.
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Keep dates, EXIF and color separate
Filee has separate controls for file dates, photo metadata and color profiles. Keeping one does not mean keeping the others. For a photo archive you may want all three; for a picture you will publish, you may want the color profile but not embedded location information.
The settings were discussed in the developer's Reddit discussion. EpicRageGuy asked about EXIF during HEIC conversion; asamirid reported that new file timestamps disrupted a photo collection. The developer described separate fixes and settings. Those are attributed reports, not conversions performed by this wiki.
| What you want to preserve | What to inspect | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|
| The camera's capture information | Keep metadata (EXIF) in the preset | Can include camera details, capture time and location |
| Explorer or Finder sorting dates | Keep the original file dates | Created/modified file dates are different from EXIF capture time |
| The intended appearance of wide-gamut color | Color-profile setting | Removing EXIF and removing an ICC profile are different choices |
| An upright picture | Open the exported image | Filee applies EXIF orientation to the pixels |
Prepare a representative photo
Use a copy of an ordinary photo first. Include an iPhone HEIC if that is what you normally convert, and choose a destination folder separate from the originals. If some pictures are transparent graphics rather than photos, test those separately: JPG cannot preserve transparency.
Open the source in a viewer that shows its dimensions, orientation and metadata. Note the file's created and modified dates in your file manager. You now have a baseline for the attributes you actually need, rather than only an extension to compare.
Convert HEIC to JPG for sharing
- Open Filee's Home screen and drop in the photo, or select it in your file manager and use your configured drag gesture.
- Choose a JPG preset. In Settings, Presets, inspect its quality, resize and metadata options before applying the same preset to a batch.
- Choose whether to keep EXIF. For a public image, do not assume conversion removes location data automatically.
- Keep the color profile when color appearance matters. Check the setting separately from EXIF.
- Convert, open the output in its intended viewer and compare the appearance and orientation.
Reading HEIC uses Filee's image support. Writing a new HEIC is a different route and needs FFmpeg. The engine guide explains that direction matters.
Preserve the dates of a photo collection
For all conversions, the developer documents Settings, General, Keep the original file dates for every conversion. For an individual preset, use Keep the original file dates under its Output settings. The global setting was added in release 1.4.0; older advice that requires editing every preset is out of date for that release onward.
For the command line, the documented equivalent is:
filee convert *.heic --to jpg --keep-dates -o converted
Test the documented command on a small batch before applying it to a library. Packing several sources into one ZIP does not produce one meaningful original file date for that combined archive.
Diagnose washed-out color or unexpected size
The Reddit developer response for 1.2.3 explains that stripping metadata previously stripped the color profile too; a separate control was introduced. If an old online tip says that EXIF removal necessarily removes the profile, check the actual preset in your version.
Compare in the same color-managed viewer first. A difference between two unrelated viewers can be a display problem as well as a conversion problem. Converting an HDR or camera RAW source into an ordinary display image is also a different task from keeping a normal photo's ICC profile. Filee's documented RAW reader uses camera white balance and sRGB output; EXR/HDR inputs are not a tone-mapped archival workflow.
A higher JPG quality value does not restore detail lost in an earlier JPG. Filee's documented rotate path re-encodes a JPG; it is not a lossless JPEG rotation tool. Keep the camera original as your master and make the sharing copy from it.
Check before sharing or replacing a batch
Open a portrait and a landscape photo. Compare dimensions, rotation, important colors and edge detail. Inspect the new file's metadata in a tool that exposes the fields you care about, and check file dates independently. A smaller file is not by itself proof of a better result.
For a public copy, inspect for location and identifying metadata after conversion. For an archive, verify a sample's sorting order before moving any originals. Use output folders and naming to keep the two purposes separate.