macOS Automator script to rename photos/videos based on creation date. Blog post: https://paulgalow.com/macos-quick-action-rename-photos-videos-timestamp

rename-photos-videos-timestamp.sh

#!/bin/bash

# macOS Automator script to rename photos/videos based on creation date
# Blog post: https://paulgalow.com/macos-quick-action-rename-photos-videos-timestamp

export PATH=/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin

# Create subfolder to store renamed files
createDestination() {
    readonly destination="$(dirname "$file")/sorted"
    mkdir -p "$destination"
}

# Check for file MIME type
hasMIMEType() {
    file -I "$file" | grep -q "$1"
}

# Send notification to user
sendNotification() {
    osascript <<-EndOfMessage
    display notification \
    "$1" \
    with title "Rename (Timestamp)"
EndOfMessage
}

# Determine file extension
setFileExtension() {
    if hasMIMEType "image/jpeg"
    then
        extension="jpg"
    elif hasMIMEType "video/quicktime"
    then
        extension="mov"
    else
        return 1
    fi
}

# Retrieve EXIF timestamp from media file
getTimeStamp() {
    local -r timestampRaw=$(mdls -name kMDItemContentCreationDate -raw "$file" | cut -d ' ' -f -2)
    timestamp=${timestampRaw//:/-}
}

# Rename file, handle timestamp collisions
renameFile() {
    # Exit function if file type is not supported
    setFileExtension || return 0

    getTimeStamp || return 0

    createDestination || return 1

    # Check if to be renamed file already exists
    if [[ -f "$destination/$timestamp.$extension" ]]
    then
        # If file exists append random string to file
        local -r randomString=$(md5 -q "$file")
        cp "$file" "$destination/$timestamp-$randomString.$extension"
    else
        cp "$file" "$destination/$timestamp.$extension"
    fi
}

# Send notification to user after the process has finished
presentResults() {
    # Count files in destination folder
    local counter=0
    for file in "$destination"/*.*
    do
        (( counter ++ ))
    done

    # Check if renaming was successful
    if [ $counter != 0 ] && [ -n "$destination" ]
    then
        sendNotification "$counter photos/videos have been renamed. Opening destination folder…"
        open "$destination"
    else
        sendNotification "Could not renamd any photos/videos."
    fi
}

# Main loop to collect input files from Automator
processFiles() {
    while read -r file; do
        renameFile
    done
}

sendNotification "Processing photos/videos.\\nThis can take a while…"

processFiles

presentResults

exit 0

It looks like you are running this with zsh as the interpreter. Perhaps there is an option to change that to bash? Since macOS Catalina the default shell has been switched from bash to zsh. That might be the issue here. Can you confirm you are running Catalina?

Can you confirm you are running Catalina?

Yes!

mdls has an option for printing only a specific attribute's value: mdls -name kMDItemContentCreationDate -raw <filename>

mdls has an option for printing only a specific attribute's value: mdls -name kMDItemContentCreationDate -raw <filename>

Thanks for pointing me to this, @alisey. I have updated the gist after your suggestion. And sorry for my late reply. I somehow managed to completely miss your comment.

Hi, I am using your code, but there seems to be an error. The timestamp after the photo is renamed does not correlate with the actual time stamp on the photo. For instance, a photo was renamed to 2020-07-03 18 01 07.jpg, but the actual timestamp is at 11:01 am, not 6:01 pm. Everything else is correct except for the time. Also, how can I get rid of the dashes on the date? All the renamed dates are off by 7 hours too much.

Hi @Minagamb, the resulting timestamps are UTC based so perhaps that explains why your timestamps are 7 hours off. Regarding the dashes on the date, try replacing timestamp=${timestampRaw//:/-} with timestamp=${timestampRaw//[:|-]/}.

how do I change from UTC? The photos are collected PST

Also thank you for getting rid of the dashes!

how can I convert from UTC to my local time zone? or can I just subtract the 7 hours into the script so that each file has 7 hours subtracted from it? Sorry for bombarding you