I did research and thought this
exiftool -n '-alldates<filename' /FILEPATH
Would overwrite the created date with the file name year. These are scanned in files so I utilized YYYY_Description for most files as I wasnt able to determine an exact month/day. Some do have YYYYMMDD but those are in the minority. When I run the script it says "Updated 1 file" in my test directory but it also creates a duplicate with a .original at the end but the created date isnt changed for either one.
I've reached the end of googling and I am sure it is a simple fix but I cant figure it out.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
When a file is modified, the original file is preserved with "_original" added to the name unless the -overwrite_original option is used.
The AllDates tag writes CreateDate, ModifyDate and DateTimeOriginal. You may want to change other dates in the video. See FAQ 3 (https://exiftool.org/faq.html#Q3) for help with this.
ExifTool will only set a date from a file name if it contains year (4 digits) and month,day,hour,minute,second (2 digits each). For partial dates, you can do this (to set CreateDate for example):
exiftool '-createdate<${filename}:00:00 00:00:00' DIR
Note that you can't use the -n option because that would defeat the date/time format parsing.
- Phil
Thank you so I attempted your code and I got:
Warning: No writable tags set from filename
1 image file unchained..
Is this because it is a scan/tiff file?
Quote from: KevnDale on October 29, 2023, 06:29:23 PMIs this because it is a scan/tiff file?
No, exiftool can write to tiff files.
Make sure you are not including the
-n (
--printConv) option (https://exiftool.org/exiftool_pod.html#n---printConv), as that will mess things up.
Are there any numbers in the filename other than the year, month and date? That will also cause problems.
Quote from: Phil Harvey on October 29, 2023, 06:22:05 PMexiftool '-createdate<${filename}:00:00 00:00:00' DIR
That fails because of 00 month and 00 day. And if there was a copy number as part of the filename, that would also cause problems.
Dang it, I had a command that worked for if it was only Year, YearMonth, or YearMonthDay, but I can't find it atm.
No other numbers in this test file (some do in my larger file selection)
It is YYYY_Description (No #s), I can remove them from the batch if it causes confusion.
Quote from: KevnDale on October 29, 2023, 07:27:58 PMI can remove them from the batch if it causes confusion.
No need, this command should work.
Not my post I was looking for, but found this post (https://exiftool.org/forum/index.php?topic=6915.msg34700#msg34700) from Phil. It just needed a little tweak for this situation.
Try this
exiftool -overwrite_original '-AllDates<${filename; my @a=(m/(\d{4})(\d\d)?(\d\d)?/); $a[1] or $a[1]='01';$a[2] or $a[2]='01';$_="$a[0]:$a[1]:$a[2] 00:00:00"}' /path/to/files/Example output, I had to change the quotes to work on Windows
C:\>exiftool -echo "Clear AllDates" -P -overwrite_original -alldates= Y:\!temp\x\y
Clear AllDates
1 directories scanned
3 image files updated
C:\>exiftool -overwrite_original "-AllDates<${filename; my @a=(m/(\d{4})(\d\d)?(\d\d)?/); $a[1] or $a[1]='01';$a[2] or $a[2]='01';$_=\"$a[0]:$a[1]:$a[2] 00:00:00\"}" Y:\!temp\x\y
1 directories scanned
3 image files updated
C:\>exiftool -G1 -a -s -AllDates Y:\!temp\x\y
======== Y:/!temp/x/y/2020 Description 01.tif
[ExifIFD] DateTimeOriginal : 2020:01:01 00:00:00
[ExifIFD] CreateDate : 2020:01:01 00:00:00
[IFD0] ModifyDate : 2020:01:01 00:00:00
======== Y:/!temp/x/y/202005 Description 02.tif
[ExifIFD] DateTimeOriginal : 2020:05:01 00:00:00
[ExifIFD] CreateDate : 2020:05:01 00:00:00
[IFD0] ModifyDate : 2020:05:01 00:00:00
======== Y:/!temp/x/y/20200515 Description 03.tif
[ExifIFD] DateTimeOriginal : 2020:05:15 00:00:00
[ExifIFD] CreateDate : 2020:05:15 00:00:00
[IFD0] ModifyDate : 2020:05:15 00:00:00
1 directories scanned
3 image files read
You are a legend! Worked like a champ! Month and day came over when i populated. Awesome thank you so much!!
Quote from: StarGeek on October 29, 2023, 06:53:22 PMThat fails because of 00 month and 00 day.
Oh, right. Thanks for figuring this out.
- Phil