In Powershell, How can I prepend the date/time an image or video was captured to the existing filename?

Question

For years, I've wanted to be able to deal with all of the photo and video formats I record on my Apple and Android phones and rename the files to include the date/time the photo or video was actually taken so that I can organize my photos/videos in chronological order.

It sounds so simple. I have files like the following:

IMG_0991.PNG     // Screen capture
IMG_0994.JPEG    // Apple Live Photo (with matching *.MOV)
IMG_0994.MOV
IMG_1022.HEIC    // Apple formatted photo
IMG_1024.JPG     // Industry standard JPG 
IMG_1025.MP4     // Industry standard MP4 video
IMG_8755.JPG     // Random image downloaded when texting someone (no date/time in this)

I want to rename the files so the date/time a photo was taken or a video was taken is included in the name of the file. So for example,

2022-11-16 164411 IMG_0991.PNG
2022-11-16 170549 IMG_0994.JPEG
2022-11-16 170549 IMG_0994.MOV     // It's important that the date/time matches the JPEG
2023-01-24 090503 IMG_1022.HEIC
2023-01-25 221923 IMG_1024.JPG
2023-01-29 010322 IMG_1025.MP4
IMG_8755.JPG                      // This file is not renamed because there is no EXIF Date/time

Is there a way to do this in Powershell? If so can you provide an example?

Searching for a solution

I've found some posts on the question but not necessarily using powershell to get the answer.

• How to add a Date/Time to video capture?

• How do I add date-time properties to my JPG files using Python, for correct indexing in Google Photos?

• Learning about how photos and videos store dates Photo Dates TIFF tag

• Using EXIFTOOL to extract the date/time of a photo or video https://exiftool.org/

exiftool -DateTimeOriginal -p $DateTimeOriginal img_1008.jpeg
2022:11:30 16:52:54

• I learned that *.MOV files don't have a -DateTimeOriginal field but -CreateDate shows something (but I'm not sure what the date represents)

• I've tried using ACDSee (closest so far but didn't rename videos).

• I've tried Adobe Lightroom but it did not support the format I was looking for

And more...

Answer 1

Unfortunately, image metadata isn't a nice simple set of definitions. It's a complete Universe of Madness. Video metadata is even worse (a Multiverse of Madness), with, in the case of Model, the same name is used in seven different locations, six of them in the same group. xkcd "Standards" is very relevant.

Because date/time data can be located in many separate tags, it can make it difficult for an all in one solution. But it is possible in exiftool with a lengthy command.

Here is a command you can use in Windows CMD or on Linux/Mac command lines

exiftool -api QuickTimeUTC -d "%Y-%m-%d %H%M%S %%F" "-Filename<FileModifyDate" "-Filename<CreationTime" "-Filename<CreationDate" "-Filename<CreateDate" "-Filename<DateTimeOriginal" /path/to/files/

This command attempts to set the filename from multiple possible date/time tags. When there is more than one assignment to the same tag, in this case Filename, then the last valid option takes priority (see Note #1 under the -TAG[+-^]=[VALUE] option).

Starting at the last assignment
DateTimeOriginal : this is the most common timestamp in images directly from a camera. It can also appear in videos and PNGs, though it is rare in PNG files.
CreateDate : this is also common in photos, as most cameras will set this and DateTimeOriginal to the same value. It is more complicated in videos because it is supposed to be set to UTC, not the local time. The -api QuickTimeUTC option option earlier in the command tells exiftool to adjust this time to the local timezone of the computer. If the video was taken in a timezone different than the local computer, then that video would need to be handled separately.
CreationDate : This tag can be found in videos and will be in the local time where the video was taken. It is unaffected by the -api QuickTimeUTC option.
CreationTime : This is a PNG timestamp. PNG metadata doesn't have much support in programs/apps. Even though a location for EXIF data was finally added to the PNG standard in 2017, it is still fairly rare. If EXIF data does exist in the file, then one of the previous options will take priority.
FileModifyDate : this is the file system time stamp, so it will always exist. It will be used when none of the other time stamps appear in the file.

-d (-dateFormat) option : this option is used to format the date/time as desired. The formatting variables can be found under Common Date Format Codes. Also in this option is the %%F variable. It stands for the original filename. The percent sign needs to be double because it is being used in a date format string. See the linked docs on the -d (-dateFormat) option for details.

If you need to recurse into subdirectories, the -r (-recurse) option can be added to the command.