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
    }
}

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)