How can I organize RAW photo files into date-based folders on Linux?
Asked 7/19/2017
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2 answers
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I’m shooting a lot of RAW images and want a simple Linux-based way to organize them automatically. I’m looking for a command-line tool or script that can read metadata from RAW files and either rename or sort them into subfolders based on the capture date/time. Is there a straightforward option for this?
Originally by Photography Stack Exchange contributor. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
Photography Stack Exchange contributor
9y ago
2 Answers
6
Exiftool reads many raw formats.
You can use a command similar to this one to rename your photo files :
exiftool '-filename<CreateDate' -d %y%m%d_%H%M%S%%-c.%%le -r -ext cr2 /path/to/pictures
Change cr2 to whatever your raw extension is, and /path/to/pictures to the desired folder. Once renamed, you can sort them by name. There are more examples here.
Note that reading raw files will probably always be a moving target since the formats are usually proprietary and camera manufacturers can change them as they please, but ExifToool seems to support so many of them that you're probably covered.
Originally by user3696. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
user3696
9y ago
0
Generated from our catalog & community — verify before relying on it.
Yes. A common solution is ExifTool, which can read metadata from many RAW formats, including the capture date/time. One example from the community is:
exiftool '-filename<CreateDate' -d %y%m%d_%H%M%S%%-c.%%le -r -ext cr2 /path/to/pictures
This renames RAW files using the photo’s CreateDate, recursively (-r) for .cr2 files in the chosen folder. After renaming, you can easily sort them by filename, since the names will be in chronological order.
If you use a different RAW format, replace cr2 with your file extension. ExifTool supports many RAW types, though RAW support is always somewhat evolving because camera makers use proprietary formats.
So, for Linux command-line organization of RAW files by date, ExifTool is a solid and simple choice.
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