Filling up DateTimeOriginal with FileModifyDate

[saurabh]

Out of the thousands of JPEG files in my collection, some do not have any EXIF information. For these files, I would like to fill up the DateTimeOriginal EXIF field with FileModifyDate info from the OS. This lets me rename all files based on their DateTimeOriginal.

Can someone help with a command that lets me selectively run the command:

exiftool "-DateTimeOriginal<FileModifyDate" <filename>

on those files that do not have DateTimeOriginal populated already? Thanks!

[StarGeek]

Try this :
exiftool -if "not defined $DateTimeOriginal" "-DateTimeOriginal<FileModifyDate" <filename>

Test if first, of course, but it should work.

[saurabh]

Your solution is so much better than mine. I wrote this highly inefficient script:

for file in `find -name *.jpeg`
do
   exiftool -time:all -s $file | grep DateTimeOriginal >/dev/null
   if [ $? != 0 ]
   then
      echo $file
      exiftool "-DateTimeOriginal<FileModifyDate" $file
   fi
done

I'll try yours and let you know if it works...

[Phil Harvey]

Also, you don't need to use "find" and loop over files.  See common mistake number 3.

- Phil

[saurabh]

exiftool -if "not defined $DateTimeOriginal" "-DateTimeOriginal<FileModifyDate" <filename>

totally worked for me. And I learned some new things. Thanks.