How to create new filename from date taken or created
I have thousands of files of family photos with all sorts of meaningless filenames.
I have sorted them into folders by year
I would like to have them listed as
(PIC 261012-XXXX)
where PIC is static
where 261012 is retrieved from the photo's date taken or creation date
and XXXX is a sequential number
Does this sound proper for organizing?
Can you help me
Thanks ahead of time
I have sorted them into folders by year
I would like to have them listed as
(PIC 261012-XXXX)
where PIC is static
where 261012 is retrieved from the photo's date taken or creation date
and XXXX is a sequential number
Does this sound proper for organizing?
Can you help me
Thanks ahead of time
Welcome Wayne!
You asked about organization and Aren can certainly rename them like that easily.
But my two cents:
1) If the files contain any metadata -- especially device identification or location, I would add that that to the name as well as it can help a great deal in finding or triaging pics.
(There's a big difference if the photo/movie is from your phone, versus the dog-collar GoPro, etc.
Likewise Paris, versus the Grand Canyon, etc.)
See: https://www.advancedrenamer.com/user_guide/exiftool for how to browse the data your files might contain.
Also: https://www.advancedrenamer.com/user_guide/howto_gps
If you don't see any meta info, double check Settings -> Media files.
Note that even if location is just latitude/longitude, you can map that to places easily enough
2) As for the sequential number, that is usually not needed if you instead use hours, mins, secs (I use HHMMSS).
A 3 AM picture is often a different category than a 3 PM pic. ;)
3) If you really want the sequence number... Do you want unique across ALL files, or just unique within a given folder? (the latter usually makes more sense).
~~~
Here's how one of my pics is named:
"Sec 20240715 231544, Front Gate.webp"
Daunting at first glance -- maybe -- but not once you realize that the first two numbers are date and time.
"Sec" and other codes like "MyCell", "Carmella", and "DTT" can be determined automatically by Aren based on the device ID metadata and using a substitution.
Regards,
Randy
You asked about organization and Aren can certainly rename them like that easily.
But my two cents:
1) If the files contain any metadata -- especially device identification or location, I would add that that to the name as well as it can help a great deal in finding or triaging pics.
(There's a big difference if the photo/movie is from your phone, versus the dog-collar GoPro, etc.
Likewise Paris, versus the Grand Canyon, etc.)
See: https://www.advancedrenamer.com/user_guide/exiftool for how to browse the data your files might contain.
Also: https://www.advancedrenamer.com/user_guide/howto_gps
If you don't see any meta info, double check Settings -> Media files.
Note that even if location is just latitude/longitude, you can map that to places easily enough
2) As for the sequential number, that is usually not needed if you instead use hours, mins, secs (I use HHMMSS).
A 3 AM picture is often a different category than a 3 PM pic. ;)
3) If you really want the sequence number... Do you want unique across ALL files, or just unique within a given folder? (the latter usually makes more sense).
~~~
Here's how one of my pics is named:
"Sec 20240715 231544, Front Gate.webp"
Daunting at first glance -- maybe -- but not once you realize that the first two numbers are date and time.
"Sec" and other codes like "MyCell", "Carmella", and "DTT" can be determined automatically by Aren based on the device ID metadata and using a substitution.
Regards,
Randy
Reply to #2:
Hi guys,
Here's another take on that. I don't really worry about the name that much. Grouping by year is great, but only if you have a manageable number of pictures. If you've got 400 pics in a year (not an unreasonable sum for many people, I think) you might want to divide another way - by camera, or by location, or by month of the year. Or something else, if you want.
(Other than the museum/gallery work I do) I don't have that many pictures so I divide them by camera (cellphone or cheap digital, basically). I use a photo manager software app, the free and highly efficient Faststone Image Manager, to actually look at large thumbnails of the images to pick the photos, and optionally see them full screen; also it lets me tag a group for further manipulation within a directory. Again, wouldn't work if you have hundreds of photos in the same directory, but it's something to consider.
By the way, you can probably do what you asked in the first place with one New Name method:
New name: PIC <Date Modified||DateTaken:yyyymmdd>-<IncNrDir:pad:4>
...although I'd recommend putting something besides "PIC" in there (you already know it's a picture, right?). Here's one with a short string to identify the camera:
New name: <make:substr:1:3:upper><model:substr:1:3:upper> <Date Modified||DateTaken:yyyymmdd>-<IncNrDir:pad:4>
Tags user guide: https://www.advancedrenamer.com/user_guide/tags
You could add a timestamp method to change the Windows created date to whatever date you're pulling your information from; then you can sort your files by the actual date easily in a file manager. OR you can put the date first in the filename, followed by camera make/model, which would automatically sort filenames by date, *then* camera. That can be useful. You'd just have to swap the tags around in the second New Name method above.
Randy makes good points, and I certainly won't be hurt if you don't use any of these methods. :) I just wanted to give you another/other option/s to consider.
Best,
DF
Hi guys,
Here's another take on that. I don't really worry about the name that much. Grouping by year is great, but only if you have a manageable number of pictures. If you've got 400 pics in a year (not an unreasonable sum for many people, I think) you might want to divide another way - by camera, or by location, or by month of the year. Or something else, if you want.
(Other than the museum/gallery work I do) I don't have that many pictures so I divide them by camera (cellphone or cheap digital, basically). I use a photo manager software app, the free and highly efficient Faststone Image Manager, to actually look at large thumbnails of the images to pick the photos, and optionally see them full screen; also it lets me tag a group for further manipulation within a directory. Again, wouldn't work if you have hundreds of photos in the same directory, but it's something to consider.
By the way, you can probably do what you asked in the first place with one New Name method:
New name: PIC <Date Modified||DateTaken:yyyymmdd>-<IncNrDir:pad:4>
...although I'd recommend putting something besides "PIC" in there (you already know it's a picture, right?). Here's one with a short string to identify the camera:
New name: <make:substr:1:3:upper><model:substr:1:3:upper> <Date Modified||DateTaken:yyyymmdd>-<IncNrDir:pad:4>
Tags user guide: https://www.advancedrenamer.com/user_guide/tags
You could add a timestamp method to change the Windows created date to whatever date you're pulling your information from; then you can sort your files by the actual date easily in a file manager. OR you can put the date first in the filename, followed by camera make/model, which would automatically sort filenames by date, *then* camera. That can be useful. You'd just have to swap the tags around in the second New Name method above.
Randy makes good points, and I certainly won't be hurt if you don't use any of these methods. :) I just wanted to give you another/other option/s to consider.
Best,
DF