A PowerShell script to organize photos by date taken

PhotoOrganizer.ps1

Param(
    [string]$source, 
    [string]$dest, 
    [string]$format = "yyyy/yyyy_MM/yyyy_MM_dd"
)

$shell = New-Object -ComObject Shell.Application

function Get-File-Date {
    [CmdletBinding()]
    Param (
        $object
    )

    $dir = $shell.NameSpace( $object.Directory.FullName )
    $file = $dir.ParseName( $object.Name )

    # First see if we have Date Taken, which is at index 12
    $date = Get-Date-Property-Value $dir $file 12

    if ($null -eq $date) {
        # If we don't have Date Taken, then find the oldest date from all date properties
        0..287 | ForEach-Object {
            $name = $dir.GetDetailsof($dir.items, $_)

            if ( $name -match '(date)|(created)') {
            
                # Only get value if date field because the GetDetailsOf call is expensive
                $tmp = Get-Date-Property-Value $dir $file $_
                if ( ($null -ne $tmp) -and (($null -eq $date) -or ($tmp -lt $date))) {
                    $date = $tmp
                }
            }
        }
    }
    return $date
}

function Get-Date-Property-Value {
    [CmdletBinding()]

    Param (
        $dir,
        $file,
        $index
    )

    $value = ($dir.GetDetailsof($file, $index) -replace "`u{200e}") -replace "`u{200f}"
    if ($value -and $value -ne '') {
        return [DateTime]::ParseExact($value, "g", $null)
    }
    return $null
}

Get-ChildItem -Attributes !Directory $source -Recurse | 
Foreach-Object {
    Write-Host "Processing $_"

    $date = Get-File-Date $_

    if ($date) {
    
        $destinationFolder = Get-Date -Date $date -Format $format
        $destinationPath = Join-Path -Path $dest -ChildPath $destinationFolder   

        # See if the destination file exists and rename until we get a unique name
        $newFullName = Join-Path -Path $destinationPath -ChildPath $_.Name
        if ($_.FullName -eq $newFullName) {
            Write-Host "Skipping: Source file and destination files are at the same location. $_"    
            return
        }

        $newNameIndex = 1
        $newName = $_.Name

        while (Test-Path -Path $newFullName) {
            $newName = ($_.BaseName + "_$newNameIndex" + $_.Extension) 
            $newFullName = Join-Path -Path $destinationPath -ChildPath $newName  
            $newNameIndex += 1   
        }

        # If we have a new name, then we need to rename in current location before moving it.
        if ($newNameIndex -gt 1) {
            Rename-Item -Path $_.FullName -NewName $newName
        }

        Write-Host "Moving $_ to $newFullName"

        # Create the destination directory if it doesn't exist
        if (!(Test-Path $destinationPath)) {
            New-Item -ItemType Directory -Force -Path $destinationPath
        }

        robocopy $_.DirectoryName $destinationPath $newName /mov
    }
}

Worked great. Thanks for posting this.

Nice!

Really appreciate this. It works, but I'm seeing a lot of exceptions being thrown: may be because I've got a source full of all sorts of things: raw files, video, etc.

Indeed I've made a few additions to the code to put specific file types in specific subdirectories... and it works... but I haven't found a clean way to deal with the exceptions.

I'll create a fork/pull request for your consideration.

Hm, I am only getting a load of red errors.

Exception calling "ParseExact" with "3" argument(s): "The string was not identified as a valid DateTime string."
At Q:\PhotoOrganizer.ps1:50 char:16
+         return [DateTime]::ParseExact($value, "g", $null)
+                ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
    + CategoryInfo          : NotSpecified: (:) [], MethodInvocationException
    + FullyQualifiedErrorId : FormatException

I downloaded and ran the script as it was. Thoughts?

Could be something with delimiter. Sweden uses komma for decimals, 3,1415. And semi-colon for string delimiter. value1;value2

Thank You! You are genius! It worked, needed to work around a little to allow poweshell to allow scrips running.
My family says thank you, because we had problems with photos transferred from android memory to SD card. All the dates was the same day we moved them.

Hm, I am only getting a load of red errors.

Exception calling "ParseExact" with "3" argument(s): "The string was not identified as a valid DateTime string."
At Q:\PhotoOrganizer.ps1:50 char:16
+         return [DateTime]::ParseExact($value, "g", $null)
+                ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
    + CategoryInfo          : NotSpecified: (:) [], MethodInvocationException
    + FullyQualifiedErrorId : FormatException

I downloaded and ran the script as it was. Thoughts?

Could be something with delimiter. Sweden uses komma for decimals, 3,1415. And semi-colon for string delimiter. value1;value2

I have had the same issue, so i pass script a bit. mby this will be helpful. I just pass the Unicode symbols and Format for ParseExact so that it passed for German Date.

function Get-Date-Property-Value {
    [CmdletBinding()]

    Param (
        $dir,
        $file,
        $index
    )

    $value = ($dir.GetDetailsof($file, $index) -replace "\u200E") -replace "\u200F" 
	
    if ($value -and $value -ne '') {
        return [DateTime]::ParseExact($value, 'dd/MM/yyyy HH:mm', $null)
    }
    return $null
}

Thank you @jongio! This was exactly what I was looking for! I had the same problems as @0xMLNK and @tamelander did, so I took @0xMLNK 's edit and made a additional minor change in the Get-Date-Property-Value function to make it work with Swedish date format. Posted as a fork here: https://gist.github.com/martenj77/f410d8b71fd4b1eec728f7d600f07fbe

Y

Hm, I am only getting a load of red errors.

Exception calling "ParseExact" with "3" argument(s): "The string was not identified as a valid DateTime string."
At Q:\PhotoOrganizer.ps1:50 char:16
+         return [DateTime]::ParseExact($value, "g", $null)
+                ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
    + CategoryInfo          : NotSpecified: (:) [], MethodInvocationException
    + FullyQualifiedErrorId : FormatException

I downloaded and ran the script as it was. Thoughts?

Could be something with delimiter. Sweden uses komma for decimals, 3,1415. And semi-colon for string delimiter. value1;value2

for me the solution was to change the Regional settings and to have the ofrmat of the date dd/mm/yyyy and the hour hh:mm

for me the solution was to change the Regional settings and to have the ofrmat of the date dd/mm/yyyy and the hour hh:mm
kinda wrong way, its simple to pass the script and not the system xD

Thank you very much, really appreciate your work.

I have a question: The script generates in the target new folders like "yyyy.yyyy_mm.yyyy_mm_dd"
How is it possible to change that for every month it creates a subfolder like "yyyy\mm"

Thank you in advance!

You can pass in a custom format to the script

Param(
[string]$source,
[string]$dest,
[string]$format = "yyyy/yyyy_MM/yyyy_MM_dd"
)

Thanks but I already tried that and in the destination folder it creates a folder called "yyyy.mm" instead of "yyyy/mm"

.\PhotoOrganizer.ps1 -source "E:" -dest "C:\test"

It seems that the slash "/" doesn't create a subfolder, it will used as . in foldername.

This:
.\PhotoMover.ps1 -source "C:\temp\phototest\source" -dest "C:\temp\phototest\dest" -format "yyyy/MM"
Created:

Can you try with:

`.\PhotoMover.ps1 -source "C:\temp\phototest\source" -dest "C:\temp\phototest\dest" -format "yyyy\/MM"`

To escape the slash?

Awesome, this works!

[string]$format = "yyyy\/MM"

Thank you so much!

For some reason the EXIF Date taken in some of my files are formatted like this:
" 23/ 07/ 2023 15:37"

including some not specificly identified non-printable characters. Sigh....

So I ended in replacing all non ASCII characters with a space, and then preg replaced the result to gat a compliance date format:

function Get-Date-Property-Value {
    [CmdletBinding()]

    Param (
        $dir,
        $file,
        $index
    )

    $value = ($dir.GetDetailsof($file, $index) -replace "`u{200e}") -replace "`u{200f}"
	
    $value = (($value  -replace '[^ -~]+', ' ') -replace '[\s]*(\d{2})\/[\s]*(\d{2})\/[\s]*(\d{4})[\s]+([\d]{2}:[\d]{2})[\s]*', '$1/$2/$3 $4')
    if ($value -and $value -ne '') {
		Write-Host "Found ""$value"""
        return [DateTime]::ParseExact($value, "g", $null)
    }
    return $null
}

Thanks @LeoZandvliet , that did the trick for me!

EDIT: I also needed to replace the "g" "general date format specifier" with my specific format, which here in AU turned out to be "dd/MM/yyyy hh:mmtt".

This is my final "return" line:

return [DateTime]::ParseExact($value, "dd/MM/yyyy hh:mmtt", $null)