How can I reorganize photo folders by capture date and keep XMP sidecar files?

Question

I want to change an existing photo library from event-based folders to a date-based structure such as yyyy/mm/dd/filename.ext, while preserving the XMP sidecar files that contain edits and metadata. My current camera-import workflow already saves new files by date, but I need a way to reorganize older images already on disk. Is there a simple way to move both the image files and their matching .xmp sidecars into date-based folders using the images' capture metadata?

file-management workflow darktable exiftool xmp-sidecar

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

Photography Stack Exchange contributor

4y ago

user101785 · Answer

Here's the shell script I came up with:

#!/bin/bash

set -e

in_dir=$1

for f in $(find $in_dir -iname \*.cr2 -or -iname \*.jpg | sort); do
  out_dir=$(exiftool -DateTimeOriginal $f | awk '{print $4}' | sed 's#:#/#g')
  mkdir -p $out_dir
  mv -v $f $out_dir/$(basename $f)
  mv -v $f.xmp $out_dir/$(basename $f).xmp || true
done

rmdir $in_dir

It's invoked one directory at a time, and will crash if it encounters anything unusual. It also doesn't work if there are spaces in any filename. So it's not great, but it solves my problem for now... better answers are still welcome, if not for me, then for the next person who comes along.

How can I reorganize photo folders by capture date and keep XMP sidecar files?

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