ExifTool Forum

Greetings!

I'm trying to have a script that uses part of the parent folder name for the photo filename. For example, I put all of my photos into a folder called "2024.01.02-atlanta-gardens", and run the script to achieve the following output:

2024.01.02-atlanta-gardens / 01-capture / 2024.01.02-atlanta-gardens-15.00.23.jpg, 2024.01.02-atlanta-gardens-15.04.55.jpg

But it would only take the location and description from the parent folder name, and use the photo metadata for the date part of the filename. I'm also moving the files to an 01-capture directory, but probably not relevant.

Currently I "cd" into the folder and run the following:
exiftool -r -d 01-capture/%Y.%m.%d-LOCATION-DESCRIPTION-%H.%M.%S%%-c.%%e "-filename<CreateDate" .
The only missing piece is grabbing that location and description to add to the name. Any ideas? I'm sure I'm missing something very simple. It's easy for me to change it in the script but it's so close to perfection I'd like to see if i can get this last part so I'm not messing with the script at all.

Thanks a ton for any help you can provide. Exiftool has been amazing for my photography workflow.

Quote from: rockyiv on March 11, 2024, 10:39:32 PMI'm sure I'm missing something very simple.

It's actually a bit complicated.  You can't include a tag name in the -d (-dateFormat) option (https://exiftool.org/exiftool_pod.html#d-FMT--dateFormat).

First, I'm a little confused by your output name.  I'm assuming that you mean you end up with this
2024.01.02-atlanta-gardens/01-capture/2024.01.02-atlanta-gardens-15.00.23.jpg
and
2024.01.02-atlanta-gardens/01-capture/2024.01.02-atlanta-gardens-15.04.55.jpg
And not a single long name with a lot of extra spaces and two separate times.

Since you are CDing into the directory and calling it with the dot, exiftool will have to figure out the correct directory, because if you just returned the Directory, all you would have is the dot.  For example
y:\!temp\x>exiftool -G1 -a -s -Directory .
======== ./20140257_6918.jpg
[System]        Directory                       : .
    1 directories scanned
    1 image files read
To get the full directory path, you will have to use the FilePath tag which expands from relative directory paths to absolute directory paths.

Because you are putting date and time values on each side of the directory names, this means you have to duplicate CreateDate on each side and use the DateFmt helper function (https://exiftool.org//exiftool_pod.html#Helper-functions) to format each one differently.

To grab the correct data from the FilePath, you'll have to use RegEx (Regular Expressions), which would look like this
${FilePath;m/\d{4}\.\d\d\.\d\d\-([^\/]+)/;$_=$1}

To use the DateFmt helper to reformat the CreateDate, you would use these two expressions, basically just taking the appropriate parts from your -d format string
${CreateDate#;DateFmt('%Y.%m.%d')}
and
${CreateDate#;DateFmt('%H.%M.%S')}

Putting this together ends up with
exiftool -r "-filename<01-capture/${CreateDate;DateFmt('%Y.%m.%d')}-${FilePath;m/\d{4}\.\d\d\.\d\d\-([^\/]+)/;$_=$1}-${CreateDate;DateFmt('%H.%M.%S')}%-c.%e"

You have the -r (-recurse) option (https://exiftool.org/exiftool_pod.html#r-.--recurse) in your command, if you actually do have subdirectories, then I suggest testing the command first with TestName instead of FileName. Subdirectories might mess up the command.

StarGeek I cannot thank you enough! I have no scripting background, just a little bit of Linux command line knowledge. The FilePath syntax was just over my head. Especially getting rid of the beginning chunk of the name. Looks like I should learn some regex. I just had to convert it for use with Mac/Linux and it worked.

For anyone curious, this workflow is...

• Create a folder named YYYY.MM.DD-DESCRIPTION (example: 2024.03.12-atl-gardens)
• Add all photos/video into this folder
• Open up terminal, type in "cd [folder location]. You can just type in cd, space, and then drag the folder into terminal and it will fill in the folder location.
• Paste in code into terminal and hit enter (works on Mac, need to use StarGeek's code above if on Windows I believe):

exiftool -r '-filename<01-capture/${CreateDate;DateFmt("%Y.%m.%d")}-${FilePath;m/\d{4}\.\d\d\.\d\d\-([^\/]+)/;$_=$1}-${CreateDate;DateFmt("%H.%M.%S")}%-c.%e' .[/list]

If you don't want the additional "01-capture/" folder, you can just remove that part from the script.

This will take all of my photos, rename them to YYYY.MM.DD-DESCRIPTION.hh.mm.ss.ext. and put them into a folder called 01-capture within the parent folder. But the filename uses the creation date of the file, not the folder date which is perfect. If I have a multi-day trip, I'll typically name the parent folder just the first day of the trip. So I don't want the file names to take that part of the folder name, just the description part (ie "atlanta-gardens").

I now have a script where I can put all of my photos and GPX data file in one folder, and it will automatically rename all of my files, geotag my photos, create a working folder structure, and separate JPGs and RAW files and movie files into their own folders. Couldn't have done this without ExifTool.

Thanks again StarGeek for the really detailed response. And yes you were correct about not wanting one long name, I did not do a great job of describing that.