Exporting photos using shooting date

[shrekin]

Hi,

first of all - it's awesome that osxphotos was created.

I'm new to using this tool, and I'm stuck what is the best command line to export all my photos, so I would ask you for advice.
I'd like to export all my photos with all EXIF data, using the original filename and I also want to keep the original shooting date of the file (or replace the current export date/time with the shooting date/time). It would help me to sort files using last modification time column.

Is there any solution for it? :-)

[RhetTbull]

Hi. The following command should do what you want with one exception: there is currently no option to export photos using the modification date of the photo. You can use the --touch-file option to export photos and set the date of the exported photo to the photo's creation date (what you refer to as "shooting date") but not the modification date. I also recommend you read the tutorial: osxphotos tutorial to get familiar with the tool.

osxphotos export /path/to/export/folder --exiftool --touch-file

But you also need to to decide what directory/folder structure you want on export (how do want the photos to be organized). The above command dumps them all in a single folder (/path/to/export/folder) which probably isn't what you really want. Take a look at the tutorial and the --export-by-date and --directory options to specify the output folder. --export-by-date sorts them by creation date, e.g. 2020/05/31/photo.jpg

[oPromessa]

My setup, in case it may be helpful:

• Command line:
  • please note I Use the --exportb option as I export the pics into a remote NAS server and keeping the exportdb speeds up the export.
  • then I load up all my options on a toml file

osxphotos export /Volumes/photo_folder_on_NAS/Pics --exportdb /Users/ABC/Pictures/Logs/.osxphotos_export.db --load-config colibri.toml

• contents of colibri.toml

[export]
cleanup = true
db = "/Users/Shared/Pictures/iPhoto Shared Library.photoslibrary"
description_template = "Album:{album,}{newline}Description:{descr,}"
directory = "{album[/,.|:,.]}"
#dry_run = true
exiftool = true
exiftool_merge_keywords = true
exiftool_merge_persons = true
keyword_template = [ "{keyword}", "{label}", "{searchinfo.activity?activity:{searchinfo.activity},}", "{searchinfo.venue_type?venue_type:{searchinfo.venue_type},}", ]
not_hidden = true
ramdb = true
report = "/Users/ABC/Pictures/Logs/colibri.csv"
retry = 2
skip_bursts = true
skip_live = true
skip_original_if_edited = true
strip = true
timestamp = true
touch_file = true
update = true
verbose = true

[shrekin]

Thank you a lot, my problem is solved and photos now are safe on disk :-)
@RhetTbull it was an awesome idea to create such a tool!

[ReessKennedy]

To be clear, this actually only set the files modification time to match the capture datetime ... if you want to have the files actual creation date change you likely have to run a custom script, I think.

This has brought me some trouble on my mac which has trouble with the touch function at the command line ... I found that I can use SetFile to change the creation but this seems to monkey with the timezone and then all my files were set to 5 hours later ... still working through it and can report back.

Perhaps @RhetTbull might shed some light or point us to some aid on this ... setting the files actual creation date to the capture date seems more useful to me than modification so you have a more immutable record.

[RhetTbull]

SetFile is deprecated for APFS file systems. I'm not aware of any way to change the actual creation date on APFS. Even if there were a way I'm not sure that's a great idea. In a file system, the "creation date" is the "birth date" of the file. That is, when those bytes were written to the disk. It's not analogous to "when the bytes were actually captured". For example, if you copy a file on macOS, the creation date of the copied file is set to the date the file was copied, not the date of the original file. For photos and videos, setting the modification date to the date the photo was shot still maintains the metadata and allows you to sort in the Finder via date modified.

The "immutable record" as @ReessKennedy put it, should be in the Photo's metadata if you want to store it someplace.

[ReessKennedy]

Thanks for the info @RhetTbull and I'm sure you're correct about best practices when it comes to creation date.

It's just nicer to set it as the creation, in my view, even if this is usually reserved for the date it was added to your machine, because the modification date is very temporary if I start to edit files ... then I can not longer sort easily by creation date.

Forcing it to set it as Creation allows me to preserve this even if I edit a file ... I get that the actual creation is still in meta but it's much easier to sort by the actual file creation date on a mac then this other EXIF meta value.

Maybe I am messing up something else by doing it this way but makes more sense and feels more durable and flexible to me this way.

Long live OSXPhotos! What a cool creation.

[RhetTbull]

If you can figure out a way to do this on APFS it could be run as a --post-command option. I'm not aware of a safe/durable way to edit creation date on APFS though.