use UTC time to rename filename of JSON file

[husch]

Hi,
I've a lot of photos from Google TakeOut. Some photos and MP4 are lacking a timestamp (CreateDate); for example those uploaded from WhatsApp. In the JSON sidecar I can find the tag PhotoTakenTimeTimestamp. With this tag I can create the ALLDates tag and rename the filename in YYYYMMDD_HHMMSS format in the JPG and MP4 files (thanks to examples of Stargeek).

However, I don't want to loose the connection with the JSON-files which also contain for example face recognition info. So, I should also rename the JSON-files. They also contain the correct tag PhotoTakenTimeTimestamp.

Example
IMG_4578.JPG    ---> renamed to 20221021_081000.JPG
IMG_4578.JPG.JSON ---> should also be renamed to 20221021_081000.JSON

I've tried commands such as
exiftool -api QuickTimeUTC -EXT JSON -d %Y%m%d_%H%M%%-c.%%e "-filename<PhotoTakenTimeTimestamp" .
but with no result.

The actual Google takeout formats are even a bit more complicated with MP4 files.
I've added a typical json-file.

Any suggestions or link to other solutions?

Thanks.

[Phil Harvey]

This is tricky for 2 reasons.

1. The -d option has no effect here because this isn't a standard date/time tag.

2. We may run into time zone problems if you named your videos using local time.

Ignoring 2 for now, this will get us started:

exiftool -ext json -d %s "-filename<${PhotoTakenTimeTimestamp;$_=$self->InverseDateTime($_);DateFmt('%Y%m%d_%H%M%%-c.%%e')}" .

The -d option is effective in the call to InverseDateTime, which returns a standard EXIF-format date/time string.  We then reformat it for your file name using the DateFmt helper function.

- Phil

[husch]

Thanks very much. Works like a charm. Perhaps for future users of Google TakeOut, I 've added the other commands to rename the downloaded files (photo & video).

Code Select Expand

exiftool --ext json -r -tagsfromfile "%d/%F.json" -d %s "-Alldates<PhotoTakenTimeTimestamp" .
exiftool --ext json -d %Y%m%d_%H%M%S%%-c.%%e "-filename<CreateDate" -overwrite_original .
exiftool -ext json -d %s "-filename<${PhotoTakenTimeTimestamp;$_=$self->InverseDateTime($_);DateFmt('%Y%m%d_%H%M%S%%-c.%%e')}" -overwrite_original .

The first command moves the date from the Google TakeOut JSON-sidecar to the exif-dates; e.g. CreateDate. Only  for non-JSON files.
The second command renames those files with the CreateDate formatted as YYYYMMDD_HHMMSS.xxx. The overwrite_original option however leaves sometimes orphan-files.
The last command is taken from above and renames the JSON files also; so that the photo and JSON file have the same name (in case you want later to access other info e.g. face recognition data in the sidecar).

[Phil Harvey]

The overwrite_original option however leaves sometimes orphan-files.

What do you mean by this?

- Phil

[husch]

It does leave some ..._original files after processing. I thought that the -overwrite_original option would delete them. I also tried the -overwrite_original_in_place option, but with the same result. Below I give you a screenshot with one JPG + JSON (typical result of a Google TakeOut of Whatsapp uploads); before and after the processing with the above commands. As you can see, the original jpg is preserved.


I've also included the original files, in case you need some testing.

[Phil Harvey]

Your first command didn't use -overwrite_original, so that's where they came from.  The second command won't delete "_original" files that already exist.

- Phil

[StarGeek]

Your first command didn't use -overwrite_original

Specifically,
exiftool --ext json -r -tagsfromfile "%d/%F.json" -d %s "-Alldates<PhotoTakenTimeTimestamp" .

which should be
exiftool --ext json -r -overwrite_original -tagsfromfile "%d/%F.json" -d %s "-Alldates<PhotoTakenTimeTimestamp" .