You request a Snapchat export. Wait 48 hours. Download the ZIP file. Import everything into Apple Photos or Google Photos. Then you check your library and realize every single photo shows today’s date.
Three years of memories stacked on January 13, 2026. Birthday parties from 2022. Your graduation from 2021. That trip to Barcelona last summer. All showing as taken today. No GPS coordinates. No way to sort chronologically. Your entire photo timeline is destroyed.
This happens to almost everyone who downloads Snapchat Memories. Search “Snapchat export wrong date” on Reddit and you’ll find hundreds of threads. The problem isn’t random. It’s how Snapchat’s export system works by design.
When you export from Snapchat, you get your photos and videos as files. But those files arrive completely blank. No EXIF data. No DateTimeOriginal field. No GPS coordinates. Nothing that tells a gallery app when or where each photo was taken.
Apple Photos looks at a JPG file and checks for a field called DateTimeOriginal in the EXIF metadata. That’s how it knows a photo was captured on June 15, 2023, at 3:42 PM. When that field doesn’t exist, Apple Photos uses the only date available, the file creation date, which is the day you downloaded it.
Google Photos does the same thing. So does Adobe Lightroom, Microsoft Photos, Amazon Photos, and every other gallery app. They all expect standard EXIF metadata. Snapchat exports don’t include it.
The information exists. It’s sitting in a separate file called memories_history.json. This JSON file contains exact timestamps, GPS coordinates, timezone data, and everything a proper photo should have embedded inside it. Snapchat just doesn’t put that data where it belongs.
Without proper EXIF data, thousands of photos are imported with the wrong date. Your 2019 vacation appears to have happened in 2026. Your graduation photos from four years ago show as taken yesterday.
Finding specific memories becomes impossible. You can’t search by year. You can’t browse chronologically. Map view doesn’t work because GPS coordinates are missing. Location-based albums stay empty. Years of geotagged memories become generic files with no place information.
A user reported on Medium that they couldn’t delete Snapchat because of photos of their late father, but manual downloads would take forever, and the files would be unusable anyway.
Even before you deal with metadata problems, the actual download process breaks constantly. Snapchat’s browser-based system wasn’t designed to handle what users need.
When you open memories_history.html from your export and click “Download All Memories,” your browser tries to download thousands of files simultaneously. Chrome blocks automatic downloads by default because malicious sites used to exploit this feature.
Even when you allow multiple downloads, browsers struggle with the scale. A typical export with 5,000 photos means 5,000 separate HTTP requests. Each file needs memory. Each needs network bandwidth. For exports over 50GB, browser tabs eventually crash.
You’re left with a Downloads folder full of randomly-named files like “memories_00342.jpg” with no way to know which memories are missing.
When files fail to download, you don’t get a report. No “failed downloads” list. No checklist showing what succeeded. Just thousands of files with cryptic names scattered in your folder.
If you try clicking “Download All” again, you’ll download everything from scratch, including files you already have. No intelligent retry. No resume functionality. Just start over and hope it works this time.
According to Snapchat’s official support documentation, download links expire after 7 days. If you realize days later that files are missing, you need to request an entirely new export and wait another 24-48 hours.
If you used Snapchat’s text, stickers, or filters on your photos, those overlays export as separate ZIP files. The base photo downloads as one file. The overlay downloads as another file inside a compressed archive.
To see your photo the way you actually created it, with the birthday text, the location sticker, and the filter you applied, you need to manually extract the overlay ZIP and merge it with the base image. Once. For every single memory with an overlay.
If you have 3,000 memories with text captions or stickers, that’s 3,000 manual extractions and merges. Most people give up and import just the base photos, losing all the overlays they spent time adding.
Your Snapchat export includes memories_history.json. This file contains everything the HTML page shows you, but in a format apps can actually process:
Apps that read this JSON can download files directly from Snapchat’s servers without browser limitations. They can handle concurrent downloads properly because they’re built for it. They can track which files succeed and which fail.
Most importantly, they can embed the correct metadata into each file as they download it.
ExportSnaps is a desktop app for macOS and Windows that processes memories_history.json directly instead of relying on browser downloads.
The app costs $15 one-time with no subscription. Unlimited processing. Works with both Android & iOS. Processing a typical 3,000 photo library takes 15-20 minutes, depending on download speed.
Go to accounts.snapchat.com and sign in. Navigate to My Data. Toggle ON both “Export your Memories” AND critically, “Export JSON Files”. The JSON file is what contains all your metadata. Select your date range (usually “All Time”) and submit the request.
Snapchat sends a confirmation email and takes 24-48 hours to prepare everything.
When ready, download the ZIP file. Make sure you have stable internet and at least double the estimated size available on your hard drive. A 15GB export needs 30GB free space to extract safely. Extract the ZIP file. Inside you’ll find memories_history.json and memories_history.html, plus possibly overlay ZIP files.
Don’t import the raw files anywhere yet. They’re broken. Open ExportSnaps and load your memories_history.json file. The app shows you a preview of all your memories with correct dates and locations. Choose your output folder and start processing. ExportSnaps downloads each file from Snapchat’s CDN and embeds proper EXIF metadata as it goes.
If some files fail to download (network hiccup, temporary server error), ExportSnaps creates failed.json in your output folder. Process this file the same way you processed memories_history.json. Only the failed files download again.
Multiple retry attempts are often needed. Files that failed due to network issues usually succeed on the second or third try. Having failed.json makes retries practical instead of starting everything over.
Once processing completes, import the files from your output folder to Apple Photos, Google Photos, or any gallery app. They work like regular camera photos immediately.
Photos are sorted chronologically by actual capture date. Your timeline flows from 2019 to 2026 instead of everything being stacked on the download date. The map views function because GPS coordinates are embedded properly. Search by location works. Years of memories appear in the right places.
Once your Snapchat Memories have proper EXIF metadata embedded, they become future-proof. Standard EXIF has existed since 1995 and will keep working across platforms and decades.
Upload to iCloud Photos or Google Drive, and the metadata travels with the files. Access your memories on your phone, tablet, or desktop; the dates and locations stay intact everywhere. Professional editing software like Adobe Lightroom reads the embedded data correctly.
Your Snapchat memories become first-class photo files compatible with every gallery app and photo management system. Not locked in a proprietary format. Not dependent on Snapchat’s servers. Just your photos, properly formatted, ready to last.
The browser-based “Download All” button was never designed for what users need. With Snapchat’s 5GB storage limit forcing exports, the download system breaks under pressure. The metadata stripping makes successfully downloaded files unusable.
Processing memories_history.json solves both problems. Apps can download intelligently without browser limitations. They can embed correct metadata so your timeline stays intact. Your photos work properly from day one in every gallery app.
Additional resources: Learn more about fixing Snapchat metadata issues and what’s inside the JSON file.
To download Snapchat memories properly, first request your data from Snapchat (Settings → My Data → Submit Request). Then, use a trusted tool like ExportSnaps to merge your media with the JSON metadata files. This ensures that all your timestamps, filters, and locations stay perfectly intact.
When you download Snapchat memories directly from the app or archive a ZIP, Snapchat doesn’t automatically link JSON metadata to your images and videos. As a result, dates and order get lost. Tools like ExportSnaps fix this by merging the metadata back into each file correctly.
Yes! If you use ExportSnaps, it restores and attaches the original timestamps to every photo and video when you download Snapchat memories. This keeps your snaps in their exact chronological order, just like in your Snapchat Memories tab.
The best tool to download Snapchat memories while keeping all metadata intact is ExportSnaps. It automatically reads your JSON files, restores timestamps, and organizes your snaps — saving you from hours of manual work or confusion.
Absolutely. Once Snapchat emails your data archive, you can use ExportSnaps to process everything at once. It automatically organizes hundreds or even thousands of snaps into a neat, date-sorted structure — making bulk downloads fast and efficient.
If you exceed Snapchat’s new 5 GB limit, older memories may get compressed or harder to access. That’s why it’s crucial to download Snapchat memories properly before the cap takes effect. ExportSnaps helps you back up everything safely while preserving every piece of metadata.
Snapchat separates your photos and videos from their metadata. When you download Memories, the files don’t include the original dates, times, or locations. That information is stored in separate JSON files that photo apps can’t read. So the download works, but the result looks broken because everything imports with the wrong date or order.
