Python script to add date-created property to Obsidian Markdown files.

add_creation_date_to_obsidian_files.py

# Add date created to Obsidian files, if they don't already exist.

import os
import datetime
import re

def get_creation_date(filepath):
    """Get the creation date of a file."""
    stat = os.stat(filepath)
    try:
        # Attempt to get the creation time directly (works on some systems)
        return datetime.datetime.fromtimestamp(stat.st_birthtime)
    except AttributeError:
        # Fallback to modification time if creation time is not available
        return datetime.datetime.fromtimestamp(stat.st_mtime)

def format_date_iso(dt):
    """Format a datetime object into the ISO format: YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SS."""
    return dt.strftime("%Y-%m-%dT%H:%M:%S")

def add_date_created_to_file(filepath, date_created):
    """Add the date-created property to the YAML frontmatter of a Markdown file if it doesn't already exist."""
    with open(filepath, 'r', encoding='utf-8') as file:
        content = file.read()

    # Check if the file already has YAML frontmatter
    frontmatter_pattern = re.compile(r'^---\s*\n.*?\n---\s*\n', re.DOTALL)
    has_frontmatter = frontmatter_pattern.match(content)

    # Check if the date-created property already exists
    date_created_pattern = re.compile(r'^date-created:\s.*$', re.MULTILINE)
    if has_frontmatter and date_created_pattern.search(content):
        print(f"Property 'date-created' already exists in {filepath}. Skipping.")
        return

    # Format the date-created property
    date_created_str = f"date-created: {format_date_iso(date_created)}\n"

    # Add or update the frontmatter
    if has_frontmatter:
        # Insert date-created into existing frontmatter
        new_content = frontmatter_pattern.sub(
            lambda match: match.group(0).replace('---\n', f'---\n{date_created_str}', 1),
            content
        )
    else:
        # Add new frontmatter with date-created
        new_content = f"---\n{date_created_str}---\n{content}"

    # Write the updated content back to the file
    with open(filepath, 'w', encoding='utf-8') as file:
        file.write(new_content)
    print(f"Added 'date-created: {format_date_iso(date_created)}' to {filepath}.")

def process_directory(directory):
    """Process all Markdown files in the given directory."""
    for root, _, files in os.walk(directory):
        for filename in files:
            if filename.endswith('.md'):
                filepath = os.path.join(root, filename)
                creation_date = get_creation_date(filepath)
                add_date_created_to_file(filepath, creation_date)

if __name__ == "__main__":
    # Path to your Obsidian notes directory
    obsidian_notes_directory = "/Users/michael/Projects/scratch/notes/Notes/Random"
    
    # Check if the directory exists
    if os.path.isdir(obsidian_notes_directory):
        print(f"Processing directory: {obsidian_notes_directory}")
        process_directory(obsidian_notes_directory)
        print("Processing complete.")
    else:
        print(f"The directory {obsidian_notes_directory} does not exist.")