sort-camera-photos

No configuration camera photos sorting.

This tool is intended to rename photo files downloaded straight from camera before any processing is done. It's searching for all photos not having prefix like YYYYmmdd-HHMMSS_ (like 20190610-042345_). Then extract EXIF creation date and time and use it for new name. Input folder structure does not matter. All supported files will be moved to new place.

some_folder/placeA/_DSC7890.arw => 2020/2020-06-18/20200618-121314__dsc7890.arw

Sidecar files like jpg, jpeg or xmp also will be sorted (xmp will use photo creation date and time).

Output folder structure:

.
├── 2019
│   ├── 2019-06-10
│   │   ├── 20190610-042345_0101.arw
│   │   ├── 20190610-042345_0101.jpg
│   │   └── 20190610-042345_0203.arw
│   └── 2019-11-23
│       ├── 20191123-234512_0101.arw
│       ├── 20191123-234512_0101.arw.xmp
│       └── 20190610-234512_0102.arw
└── 2020
    └── 2020-03-08
        ├── 20200308-123445_101.arw
        ├── 20200308-123446_00101.nef
        └── 20200308-123447_02.cr2

This way even if you shoot with multiple cameras all photos will be sorted properly (if you synchronize time on all cameras).

Next you can change subfolders names to contain more useful info like 2020-03-08_Alice_portrait. This way if you want to copy/move this folder somewhere else it will always have unique name.

You need to remove old and empty folders by hand (it leave them just in case).

Warning: if destination file with same name already exists it will be overwritten. Thanks to using time with seconds in new file names this should almost never happen with different photos.

Usage

Download last release.

or install with Go:

go get -u -v github.com/matrixik/sort-camera-photos

You can also run last stable version with Docker, add to your bashrc/zshrc:

sort-camera-photos() {
    docker run -it --rm \
        --volume "${PWD}":"${PWD}" \
        --workdir "${PWD}" \
        --user $(id -u ${USER}):$(id -g ${USER}) \
        --name sort-camera-photos-local-docker \
        matrixik/sort-camera-photos "$@"
}

Go to folder where you want to rename all image files and run program

sort-camera-photos

Other info

Source of folder name structure idea:

https://www.photographyessentials.net/image-file-management-chronological-folder-names/

Additional good info:

https://composeclick.com/how-to-name-and-organize-your-photos/

https://www.scanyourentirelife.com/what-everybody-ought-know-when-naming-your-scanned-photos-part-1/