creation date

Hello
it is possible to change the creation date based on a simple rule. Specifically, I would like to change all files in my MP3 collection as follows. 31.12.[year]
The main folder should show the oldest new date as the creation date. The subfolders should be the same as the changed files as the creation date.
Example:
Main Folder: Music
Subfolders: A, B, C, etc
Files: various pieces of music that have been defined as follows: 01 – Title, 02 – Title etc
The year is available as a meta under [year].
I hope I have formulated my wish in an understandable way and would be very happy for help. In addition, I have to admit that I have no programming knowledge at all.
Stefan

Reply to #1:

Hi Stefan, welcome,

I'm sorry, I don't really understand what you want.

I suspect you'd do better showing actual examples of your filenames now, and folder structure, and then what you want them to look like after transformation. For instance, I have no idea how the subfolders become A,B,C... or why. Do you actually want the main folder to contain the oldest date of all files (something like Music 31.12.2005) or do you want the Date Created timestamp to hold the oldest date? Are the subfolders actually A, B, C, or do you want them to be something else?

We're looking forward to helping, but at least in my case this tired old Texas brain is having trouble with what exactly you want to happen. :)

Best regards,
DF

Reply to #2:
Hi DF,
Thank you very much for your quick response. Sorry, I have certainly presented my desire to reprocess the dates completely inadequately. I hope to illustrate the problem better and, above all, comprehensibly.

Main folder (name of the band)
AC Angry
AC Myles Creation Date is Creation Date Target
AC_DC 06.03.2024 31.12.1980 (1980, since in this example
etc example 1980 is the oldest
date would be)


Subfolder (name of albums) Creation Date is Creation Date Target
Are You Ready? The Very Best Of 06.03.2024 31.12.2016
Back In Black 06.03.2024 31.12.1980
Etc.

Single Files (Music Tracks) Creation Date is Creation Date Target
Are You Ready? The Very Best Of 06.03.2024 31.12.2016
01 – Thunderstruck 06.03.2024 31.12.2016
02 - Live Wire 06.03.2024 31.12.2016
03 - The Furor etc. 06.03.2024 31.12.2016

Back In Black
01 - Hells Bells 06.03.2024 31.12.1980
02 - Shoot To Thrill 06.03.2024 31.12.1980
03 - What Do You Do For Money Honey etc. 06.03.2024 31.12.1980

The year (in this example 2016 and 1980) is the year as a metatag [year]
I hope that I have presented my request in a useful way.
Many greetings Stefan (a real old man)

Reply to #3:

Sorry Stefan,

I've been studying your reply off and on for hours now and I'm still not understanding what you want to accomplish, I think mainly because I'm still unsure what you are starting with.

(Unfortunately this forum software doesn't preserve whitespace correctly, so these examples aren't as neatly laid out as I'd like)

I don't know if you already have your music files sorted into subfolders like:

[folder] Music
[subfolder] AC_DC
[subfolder] Back In Black
[files] 01 - Hell's Bells
02 - Shoot To Thrill
. etc

...or if they are like mine are, for instance:

[folder] Music
[files] Clapton, Eric & King, BB - Riding With The King - 09 - Days of old - 2000.mp3
GTR - GTR - 01 - When The Heart Rules The Mind - 1986.mp3
[Artist] - [Album] - [Track] - [Title] - [Year].[ext]
etc.

I'm not being rude, I'm just telling you what I need to be able to help you. Please just show me:

WHAT I HAVE NOW:

(A folder/file structure like the one I used above)

WHAT I WANT:

(How you envision your folder/file structure after the change)

I also need to know if you have already found a metadata tag that supplies the information you want to add, because in my experience it's almost never all in the same <tag> label. If you've found a field that gives you what you want, tell me what that field is. [Year] is not a valid tag. <Year> is the current year, so that's no help if I understand your needs. I don't know your level of Advanced Renamer batch useage, but in case it's low look in the button labeled with a big "i" on the far left side of the ARen window. That will show you all the metadata tags that you'll find embedded in the files EDIT: and what they contain. END EDIT

As an example, I have ONE album where the songs have a <Exiftool:DateTimeOriginal> field that is accurate, and it only supplies a year, not a full date. Because the metadata often contains information relating to the file and not the actual song, most of my song files contain date information that has nothing to do with the album date. So if that information isn't there, or is in different fields for different songs/albums, you'll need a different strategy than if it's all in one nice neat meta-tag.

Oh, and check the <DateCreated> tag as well - although I don't think that's ever been useful to me, you may get lucky. You can find that tag by adding an "ADD" method to your method list, then populating it:

Add: - <Date Created>
At index: 0
Backwards CHECKED

If you click on the "</>" button to the right of the "Add:" field you can try out other options. Don't change any files, just look at what's available.

Ok, that's enough for now. I hope I'm helping you, I feel like I'm coming off as grumpy and demanding but I'm really just trying to help, and I can only do that when I understand what you know, what you have and what you want.

Best regards,
DF

Reply to #4:
Hi DF,
I don't find you rude at all and your remarks not at all grumpy. On the contrary, I really appreciate that you put so much effort and time into helping me.
Of course, it is clear to me that for a solution to be found, the problem or task must first be explained in an understandable way. As you already write, the forum software is quite limited in terms of visual representation, which doesn't make it any easier for me to formulate my wish.
It would probably be easiest to take screenshots, but unfortunately I don't know how to send them to you. In this respect, I will try to present my wish, hopefully more understandably, again.
My folder structure is

Level 1 Main Folder Music

Level 2 subfolders: a separate folder for each artist, e.g. AC/DC; Van Halen, etc.

Level 3 In the subfolder Band there are subfolders of the albums of this band, so on the example AC/DC
Are You Ready? The Very Best Of
Back in Black

Level 4 Music tracks of the respective album

I think you have interpreted this correctly
[folder] Music
[subfolder] AC_DC
[subfolder] Back In Black
[files] 01 - Hell's Bells
02 - Shoot To Thrill
. etc
.
This folder structure has proven itself for me and should continue to exist and not be changed.

I took up your hint and found within Advanced Renamer under the I group exifTool the metatag that contains the data with the year I want.

DateTimeOriginal or Year this would be related to the music titles (my level 4) 1980.

In the same overview, the FileCreateDate (2024:10:26 09:00:38+02:00) is also displayed.

According to my ideas, this should be changed to (DateTimeOriginal:12:31 09:00:38+02:00), although I wouldn't care about the time.

The Level 3 folders should be identical to Level 4.

The Level 2 folders should show the oldest date from Level 3.

While you, completely wrongly, had the feeling that you were too demanding, I have the feeling that I don't get my thoughts written down properly.
I very much hope that I succeeded this time.
Thank you very much in advance for your understanding and help.

Best regards,
Stefan

Reply to #5:

Hello again Stefan,

Ok, we're getting somewhere. Your explanation of your current file stucture was perfect, I understand it well enough to do some useful stuff. I'm still unclear on exactly what you want to see, but I'm going to proceed as though I understand and try to explain what needs to be done, at least up to a certain point.

I'm starting with the same file structure, which I created in a sandbox for the purpose of this exercise. The first thing to do is simply rename the Music folder to "Music - old" or some such, so that I can copy/move files into a new Music folder. I'd advise that you use the COPY mode, and when you get your music the way you want it you can delete the old music folder. Also if you find mistakes you'll have the choice of using ARen's undo command, or just delete the new folders and start over.

I don't know how confident you are in your abilities with Advanced Renamer, so I'm going to explain everything in detail as though you are starting from blank. Please bear with me if you are on a higher level. Also I'm assuming you are using the latest version 4 release.

Here's my sample folder/file structure, I'm hoping it matches with yours but it probably doesn't matter, as long as you want to just add the date at the end of the Album folder and filenames:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1vu5GjJvVSOLHrYa _eSqllmFpYCLF8Txk/view?usp=sharing

LOAD FILES, SET OPTIONS
After renaming "Music" to "Music - old", start an instance of ARen with no methods in the Method List (the area at left in the ARen window, with the heading "Renaming methods"). Before starting let's set the option of the replacement character for unprintable characters, in case we need to use an Exiftool option. On the ARen main menu (Add Import List Options etc) click on "Options"/"Settings", then go to the "Renaming" tab in the resultant pop-up panel. The first option is "Replace unsupported with:"; enter a dash or period in that field, depending on how you like your dates to look. Click "OK" to return. I'll assume you are using a period, since you used it in your first post.

Grab the "Music - old" folder with your mouse in File Explorer and drag it into the Files List area of ARen; that's the big blank area in the bottom right of the ARen window, with column headings. When you drop the folder you'll see a new window, or panel, labeled "Add folder", that asks what you want to add. Click on "Add the files in the folders", "Include subfolders", and in the "Filename mask" box enter something like "*.mp3; *.wav" (no quotes). If you have other file types like .ogg or whatever you'll need to add them to the list, separated by semicolons. Click OK and you should see your music files populte the Files List area.

SET UP ADVANCED RENAMER FILE LIST COLUMNS
Before you go any further set up the Files List area to display the "New path" column. Drag the right edge of the ARen window out to allow extra room, then RIGHT-CLICK on the column heading bar (where it says "Filename", "New Filename", etc.) . In the context menu check the box next to "New Path". Right-click again on the column heading bar, and this time select "More" at the bottom. In the new window on the right will be a box titled "Selected columns"; click on "New Path" in that box and click the "Up" button to the right until the "New Path" selected is just below "New Filename". Click OK and you should see that column in your main ARen window. This will show you where ARen will be copying the files when we get ready to do that.

TELL AREN WHERE TO COPY THE FILES
At the top of the window, in the middle just under the title bar, you'll see a box named "Batch mode:" with "Rename" showing in the box. Click on that box and you'll see three choices; choose "Copy". A new field will be revealed, to the right of the "Copy" box, labeled "Output folder:", and in this new field you'll enter the folder structure. You will enter one of the following commands, depending on which does what you want. ust copy what's inside the quotes and paste into the "Output folder:" field one at a time until you see something you like in the "New Path" column. Oh, you'll have to change the drive and, if your "Music - old" folder isn't directly under the drive itself you'll have to add that structure after the drive. In other words, if your music folder is in "C:\users\stefan\" you'll have to put that in where the "J:" is in my examples. Anyway:

j:\Music\<FolderName:2>\<Foldername:1> - <Audio Year>

(Apparently "<Audio Year>" is not working right now and just inserts a zero, so that's probably not useable in this version)

-OR-
j:\Music\<FolderName:2>\<Foldername:1> - <DateTimeOriginal>

-OR-
j:\Music\<FolderName:2>\<Foldername:1> - <Exiftool: DateTimeOriginal>

(whichever is most appropriate; there may be other tags but you'll have to figure that part out)

So I hope you see the pattern: Folder Name 2 (Artist) followed by Folder Name 1 (Album) plus a date tag. You are recreating your old file structure, but with dates added to the original album folder names. I put " - " (space+dash+space) between the foldername and the date, but of course you can change that if you want something different. If the <Year> tag gives you what you want, great. If not you'll end up with extra stuff in your foldernames, and we'll have to go back and remove it after the files are moved. Don't worry about that right now.

(NOTE: There's a good chance that one tag won't give you everything you want. You might be able to use <DateTimeOriginal> on some files but some show no year, just " - " at the end of the folder names of the new path. If that's the case we will have to break down the rename/copy operation into two or more procedures. I'll talk more about that in the next section.)

Once the "New Path" column shows the directory structure you want you can move on to setting up the new filenames.

ADD DATE TO FILENAMES
In the Method List (left side of ARen window) click on the button with a green circle surrounding a "+"; select "Add" in the drop-down and you'll have an Add method in the list.

First set the "At index:" field to 0 and CHECK the "Backwards" box. Make sure "Apply to:" is set to "Name".

If you just want the year, use:
" - <Audio Year>"
(no quotes) in the "Add:" field. If you want the full date use:
" - <Exiftool:DateTimeOriginal>"
or whatever works to get the information in there. You'll have time information in this case, but we'll strip it out in another method.

Now your files (in the preview "New Filename" column) should look something like "01 - Back In Black - 1980" (<Audio Year> or <DateTimeOriginal>) or "01 - Back In Black - 31.12.1980 09.00.38+02.00"
(<Exiftool:DateTimeOriginal> or <Exiftool:DateCreated> or whatever other field works).

That's assuming I got your Date/Time localization correct.

Some of your files may now show a preview ending in " - " if the tag you used contains no information for those files. I'd leave those files in, because if you want to do another pass you'll be able to use the " - " at the end to tell ARen to load only those files, which will make the reloading a little easier. If you are sure there are no tags that will fix those date-less files you can remove them (so as not to add the " - " at the end) in this manner: Right-click on the Files List portion, and in the pop-up panel choose "Remove special / Remove by pattern"; in the "Pattern" field enter " - $" OR " - 0$" (no quotes), depending if there is an ending zero in the filenames. That dollar sign is the Regular Expression symbol for the end of the filenames, so CHECK the box labeled "Use regular expressions". Click "OK" and the files with that ending will be removed from the list.

Now, if you are using just the year or a tag that only adds the date without the time, you are ready to run the batch. If you've used a tag with the time, like an Exiftool date tag, you'll need to add another method to remove the time portion (unless you want it in there of course). Here's how:

Add a REPLACE method using the green "+" button. Put in this information (no quotes):

Replace: "( \- \d\d\.\d\d\.\d\d\d\d).*"
Replace with: "$1"
Occurrence: All
Case sensitive: UNCHECKED
Use regular expression: CHECKED
Apply to: Name

Now the preview should show the correct information in the new filename.

If everything is to your liking, press the "Start batch" button and sit back.

Remember, if you find you've made a mistake in the new files you can either use ARen's "Undo batch" command OR just delete the whole new folder/file structure and start over with your original "Music - old" information.

You might want to save this batch to a ".aren" file. At the top of the Methods List click on the little floppy disk icon and save it as you would any other file.

EDIT: Oh, and BE SURE to set ARen back to "Rename" mode before leaving, otherwise all the files you use next time will end up copied to your music directory (it's happened to me! :)! END EDIT

Good luck, and let us know if you run into problems! I hope I haven't put you to sleep! :)

Best,
DF

Reply to #6:
Hi DF,
with a little trial and error, the variant

z:\Music\<FolderName:2>\<FolderName:1> - <ExifTool:OriginalReleaseYear>

so far it worked.

Initially, I stumbled across the date, until I rather accidentally changed the spelling from Exiftool to ExifTool, i.e. the T as an uppercase letter. After that, the result was without an additional REPLACE method, as you defined it as a goal for yourself.
The result is great but does not correspond in the real sense of what I had imagined.

After trying to get to know the functionality and the possibilities of Advanced Renamer better in the last few days, I dare to make another attempt to describe what my favorite solution would be.

Specifically, my view goes to the Timestamp method.

Apply to
Creation date and time

Set to
File name pattern or directory name pattern

Pattern
12/31/<ExifTool:OriginalReleaseYear>

Unfortunately, that doesn't work that way, but I hope it makes clear what I have in mind.
According to my ideas, the change should apply to the individual music tracks (my level 4) as well as to the folders albums (my level 3).
The Interpreter folder (my level 2) should have the oldest date as all the creation dates of level 3.
I hope I'm not being impudent when I ask you for help again.

Best regards
Stefan

Reply to #7:

Hey Stefan,

Like Bob Euker said in Major League, "Just a LITTLE outside!" :)

Oh well, can't win 'em all.

That's an interesting tag, <Exiftool:OriginalReleaseYear>. I've never seen it before. If there's a release year in my audio files, it's usually in <Exiftool: Date>.

By the way, you've got / (slashes) in your pattern, and those aren't allowed in file or folder names, so there's your first problem. Don't you guys use periods as date punctuation? And don't your dates read day.month.year?

OK, the basic scheme I outlined should work for you, but you'll need to change your "Output field:" content from:
z:\Music\<FolderName:2>\<FolderName:1> - <ExifTool:OriginalReleaseYear>
to:
z:\Music\<FolderName:2>\<FolderName:1> - 31.12.<ExifTool:OriginalReleaseYear>
(or 12.31.<ExifTool:OriginalReleaseYear> OR 31-21-<ExifTool:OriginalReleaseYear> or whatever other date scheme you want to use.

As to the Artist/Interpreter folder name, I don't know of any way to add the oldest date to it short of doing it manually. I tried to think of a way to do it in a script but I can't even come up with a way there. So you may have to live without that, or enter it manually. You could enter:
z:\Music\<FolderName:2> - 31.12\<FolderName:1> - 31.12.<ExifTool:OriginalReleaseYear>
and then you'd just have to enter the year of the oldest album, but do you really need that?

As to the filenames themselves, you should be able to use an ADD method like I said before, but just change the "Add:" field to " - 31.12.<Exiftool:originalReleaseYear>" if that's what you want.

Anyway, let me know if this helps (or not). I'm still having trouble understanding you, so please disregard anything that doesn't apply to your needs. And by the way, your English is a HELL of a lot better than my German! :)

Best,
DF

Reply to #8:
Hi DF,
I'm just frustrated right now. Finally with the goal in mind, the program under ExifTool no longer displays any data. I have no idea why this could be. Do you have a solution?
Greetings Stefan

Supplement:
I uninstalled the program and then reinstalled it. Then I had data and ExifTool again.

Reply to #9:

Let us know how it goes for you, buddy.

Best,
Df

Reply to #10:
In essence, I have now reached the point where the result is as I would like it to be. However, and I have no idea why, ExifTool suddenly stops delivering files when running the batch.
I've already uninstalled and reinstalled several times, but the problem keeps coming back. Do you have a solution?

Reply to #11:

Well, if I were you I'd try another version of ARen. Try downloading earlier portable (.zip) versions; you can just unzip those to a chosen directory and run them even though v4.05 is installed (I have at least four portable versions "installed", and several more "just in case". Version 3.95 is extremely stable and has good exiftool support, you just access it a different way. Instead of clicking on the big "i" button, highlight a file and at the bottom of your ARen windows there's a button labeled "Exiftool". Click and go...

By the way, are you sure the files actually contain Exif values? In other words, was the information there for a specific file and then just disappeared?

Good luck!
DF

Reply to #12:
Hi DF, a really good tip to switch to version 3.95. I now generate the result that I imagined. Minimal manual rework (my level 1) is still necessary - the effort is half as bad. Thank you very much for your great support and help.
In Germany we say "to drill a thick board", but it was worth it.
Best regards to Texas
Stefan