Does ExifTool change image metadata when moving photos into date-based folders?

Asked 8/20/2015

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If I use ExifTool to sort a batch of images into subfolders based on the capture date, for example:

exiftool "-Directory<DateTimeOriginal" -d "%Y%m%d"

will ExifTool modify any metadata inside the image files, or are the files simply moved unchanged apart from their folder location?

metadata file-management workflow exif exiftool

Originally by Photography Stack Exchange contributor. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0

Photography Stack Exchange contributor

10y ago

2 Answers

Using Exiftool in this manner will not change any of the metadata inside the file. Depending upon the filesystem, some of the filesystem based items (System:All tags in Exiftool) may change, such as FileCreationDateTime but these would change anyway no matter how you moved them.

Originally by user37960. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0

user37960

10y ago

AI Answer

Generated from our catalog & community — verify before relying on it.

Using ExifTool this way does not change the metadata stored inside the image file. It is moving/renaming the file based on the existing DateTimeOriginal value, not rewriting that embedded metadata.

What can change are filesystem-level properties, depending on your operating system and filesystem. For example, file creation or modification timestamps shown by the OS may update when files are moved or copied. Those are not the same as the photo’s embedded EXIF/IPTC/XMP metadata and may change with other file-management methods too.

So in normal use, the image metadata remains intact; only the file’s location, and possibly some filesystem dates, may change.

Does ExifTool change image metadata when moving photos into date-based folders?

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