# Change Time zone **URL:** \ **Category:** General\ **Created:** [May 17, 2021, 10:21pm UTC](https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/change-time-zone/23133 "2021-05-17T22:21:24Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![tomdudones](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/forum.inaturalist.org/tomdudones/32/3805_2.png) [@tomdudones](https://forum.inaturalist.org/u/tomdudones)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2021, 10:21pm UTC](https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/change-time-zone/23133/1 "2021-05-17T22:21:25Z")
Just noticed that the last 200+ entries I’ve made while in Arizona have automatically entered EDT as the time zone! Is there any way of batch correcting this? Really don’t want to edit each entry individually. And how is it that INaturalist “knows” to put in EDT automatically? ---
**Author:** ![cthawley](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/forum.inaturalist.org/cthawley/32/1445_2.png) [@cthawley](https://forum.inaturalist.org/u/cthawley)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2021, 11:02pm UTC](https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/change-time-zone/23133/2 "2021-05-17T23:02:35Z")
It can depend on the device you’re using and how it is adding the time to the photos EXIF data. For instance, with my p/s camera, if I have time zone set to Eastern, it will upload as that, regardless of the location the observation is made. ---
**Author:** ![russell\_engelman](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/forum.inaturalist.org/russell_engelman/32/18136_2.png) [@russell\_engelman](https://forum.inaturalist.org/u/russell_engelman)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2021, 11:34pm UTC](https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/change-time-zone/23133/3 "2021-05-17T23:34:02Z")
I’ve been having a similar issue where the majority of my photos have been uploaded as UTC, despite being taken as EDT. No idea how to fix it other than doing it manually. ---
**Author:** ![russell\_engelman](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/forum.inaturalist.org/russell_engelman/32/18136_2.png) [@russell\_engelman](https://forum.inaturalist.org/u/russell_engelman)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2021, 3:19am UTC](https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/change-time-zone/23133/4 "2021-05-18T03:19:36Z")
Here’s an example I just encountered today. I took these pictures using two different phone cameras (myself and a friend) and when I uploaded the files to iNaturalist it records the time taken as 9:35 Greenwich Mean Time (UTC), i.e. 5:35 AM EDT, but I recorded the time the photos were taken by hand at the time they were taken and it was 9:37 PM EDT. ![time error example](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/uploads/inaturalist/original/3X/1/1/11bf8e5d9b49ff5ce32f6dac909549f1c52efc17.jpeg) Indeed, the exact same image says the photo was taken at 9:35 PM EDT when I open the detailed properties of the original file. ![original photo data](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/uploads/inaturalist/original/3X/0/4/04a2492dca4a7db4d98ecde4c22875761fc7818d.jpeg) ---
**Author:** ![marina\_gorbunova](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/forum.inaturalist.org/marina_gorbunova/32/31454_2.png) [@marina\_gorbunova](https://forum.inaturalist.org/u/marina_gorbunova)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2021, 8:34am UTC](https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/change-time-zone/23133/5 "2021-05-18T08:34:57Z")
Every user must set up a time zone in profile settings otherwise system will choose UTS or HST. ---
**Author:** ![TheWoah](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/forum.inaturalist.org/thewoah/32/18564_2.png) [@TheWoah](https://forum.inaturalist.org/u/TheWoah)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2021, 3:36pm UTC](https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/change-time-zone/23133/6 "2021-05-19T15:36:49Z")
I think in your settings you can change your timezone and update it to mst ---
**Author:** ![tomdudones](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/forum.inaturalist.org/tomdudones/32/3805_2.png) [@tomdudones](https://forum.inaturalist.org/u/tomdudones)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2021, 10:39pm UTC](https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/change-time-zone/23133/7 "2021-05-20T22:39:19Z")
I looked in Profile and didn’t see anything about time zone. ---
**Author:** ![jwidness](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/9d8465/32.png) [@jwidness](https://forum.inaturalist.org/u/jwidness)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2021, 10:47pm UTC](https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/change-time-zone/23133/8 "2021-05-20T22:47:33Z")
It’s in Account Settings. ![image](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/uploads/inaturalist/original/3X/9/6/9695b92ece7d693b590059c296c6ac87ea53c8f0.png) ---
**Author:** ![jasonhernandez74](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/forum.inaturalist.org/jasonhernandez74/32/33615_2.png) [@jasonhernandez74](https://forum.inaturalist.org/u/jasonhernandez74)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2021, 3:12am UTC](https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/change-time-zone/23133/9 "2021-06-01T03:12:18Z")
So here is my issue: My photos were taken across half the world, in many different time zones. It makes little sense for them all to show up as PDT, since 2pm in Namibia is an entirely different time of the day (or night) in California. A daytime picture (because it was taken during the local daytime) with a nighttime time (because it was nighttime in California at that time). Is there a way to set each picture’s time to its own time zone? ---
**Author:** ![marina\_gorbunova](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/forum.inaturalist.org/marina_gorbunova/32/31454_2.png) [@marina\_gorbunova](https://forum.inaturalist.org/u/marina_gorbunova)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2021, 3:20am UTC](https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/change-time-zone/23133/10 "2021-06-01T03:20:49Z")
Of course, in edit you can type in a time zone , but want to say having multiple time zones can lead to confusion so do it carefully. ---
**Author:** ![tomdudones](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/forum.inaturalist.org/tomdudones/32/3805_2.png) [@tomdudones](https://forum.inaturalist.org/u/tomdudones)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2021, 4:34pm UTC](https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/change-time-zone/23133/11 "2021-06-07T16:34:08Z")
Got it. Thanks. ---
**Author:** ![scottolmstead](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/forum.inaturalist.org/scottolmstead/32/19358_2.png) [@scottolmstead](https://forum.inaturalist.org/u/scottolmstead)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2021, 12:45am UTC](https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/change-time-zone/23133/12 "2021-06-11T00:45:57Z")
I’m having this same problem. I always change my camera date and time when I travel to a new region, so the exif data will be accurate. But when I go to upload photos to iNat it wants to put them in my “account” time zone. This is counterintuitive. Can’t I just set the uploader to grab the correct time from the photo’s exif data? Or at least set the time zone for each batch of photos I’m uploading? Does anyone know how to do this? ---
**Author:** ![jdmore](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/forum.inaturalist.org/jdmore/32/1116_2.png) [@jdmore](https://forum.inaturalist.org/u/jdmore)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2021, 5:15am UTC](https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/change-time-zone/23133/13 "2021-06-11T05:15:22Z")
My only solution has been to try to remember to change the time zone in my account settings before uploading a batch from a different time zone. Then to remember to set it back afterward. Certainly not ideal, but it does the job (if I remember). There has been [some thinking around trying to automatically set the time zone based on the geographic coordinates](https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/automatic-time-zones/7760) of each observation. But this will still fail if: - the observer forgets to change the time on their device(s) to the local time (that’s me!), and/or - the observer’s coordinates are imprecise enough (have a large enough “accuracy” circle) that they overlap more than one time zone - the observation is initially saved without coordinates ---
**Author:** ![system](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/uploads/inaturalist/original/2X/7/7831452cf7f0d653ff1ffd34176334b7ef1b6a17.png) [@system](https://forum.inaturalist.org/u/system)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2021, 5:15am UTC](https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/change-time-zone/23133/14 "2021-08-10T05:15:24Z")
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