“I have lots of photo files. Since 2006, when I purchased my first digital camera, the number of photos has grown quickly, and after getting an iPhone, the number of photos exploded.
With the high number of photos, the number of backups grew as well.
I decided to organize all backups and create folders using the format YYYY-MM from the metadata of the photo files.”
Bellow the python script. The script runs on macos:
import os
import shutil
import datetime
import logging
import tkinter as tk
from tkinter import filedialog
from PIL import Image, ExifTags
import pillow_heif
import piexif
import struct
# Setup logging
logging.basicConfig(level=logging.DEBUG, format="%(asctime)s - %(levelname)s - %(message)s")
ATOM_HEADER_SIZE = 8
EPOCH_ADJUSTER = 2082844800 # Difference between Unix and QuickTime epoch
def get_file_date(file_path):
try:
if file_path.lower().endswith(".heic") and pillow_heif.is_supported(file_path):
heif_file = pillow_heif.open_heif(file_path, convert_hdr_to_8bit=False)
exif_data = heif_file.info.get("exif")
if exif_data:
exif_dict = piexif.load(exif_data)
date_str = exif_dict["Exif"].get(piexif.ExifIFD.DateTimeOriginal)
if date_str:
return datetime.datetime.strptime(date_str.decode("utf-8"), "%Y:%m:%d %H:%M:%S")
elif file_path.lower().endswith((".jpg", ".jpeg")):
with Image.open(file_path) as img:
exif_data = img.getexif()
if exif_data:
exif_dict = {ExifTags.TAGS.get(tag, tag): value for tag, value in exif_data.items()}
logging.debug(f"EXIF metadata for {file_path}: {exif_dict}")
if "DateTimeOriginal" in exif_dict:
date_str = exif_dict["DateTimeOriginal"]
elif "DateTime" in exif_dict:
date_str = exif_dict["DateTime"]
else:
date_str = None
logging.warning(f"No DateTimeOriginal or DateTime found for {file_path}")
if date_str:
try:
logging.debug(f"Extracted date string from EXIF: {date_str}")
return datetime.datetime.strptime(date_str, "%Y:%m:%d %H:%M:%S")
except ValueError as ve:
logging.error(f"Error parsing date for {file_path}: {ve}")
else:
logging.warning(f"DateTime metadata missing or unreadable for {file_path}")
else:
logging.warning(f"No EXIF metadata found for {file_path}")
except Exception as e:
logging.error(f"Error extracting date from {file_path}: {e}")
# If metadata exists but could not be parsed, use file birth time (creation date on macOS)
file_stats = os.stat(file_path)
file_birth_time = file_stats.st_birthtime
logging.debug(f"Using file birth time for {file_path}: {datetime.datetime.fromtimestamp(file_birth_time)}")
return datetime.datetime.fromtimestamp(file_birth_time)
def move_files_to_folders(source_folder):
for filename in os.listdir(source_folder):
file_path = os.path.join(source_folder, filename)
if filename.lower().endswith((".jpg", ".jpeg", ".heic", ".mov")):
date_taken = get_file_date(file_path)
if date_taken:
folder_name = date_taken.strftime("%Y-%m")
else:
logging.warning(f"Could not determine date for {file_path}, using 'unknown' folder.")
folder_name = "unknown"
dest_folder = os.path.join(source_folder, folder_name)
os.makedirs(dest_folder, exist_ok=True)
dest_file_path = os.path.join(dest_folder, filename)
count = 1
while os.path.exists(dest_file_path):
name, ext = os.path.splitext(filename)
dest_file_path = os.path.join(dest_folder, f"{name}_{count}{ext}")
count += 1
shutil.move(file_path, dest_file_path)
logging.info(f"Moved {filename} to {dest_folder}")
if __name__ == "__main__":
root = tk.Tk()
root.withdraw()
folder_selected = filedialog.askdirectory(title="Select the folder containing files")
if folder_selected:
move_files_to_folders(folder_selected)
logging.info("File organization complete.")
else:
logging.warning("No folder selected.")
