The examples below demonstrate the use of this feature. When organizing files by date/time, the -d (date format) option is essential for specifying a format for the date/time tag(s) used to generate the new file and/or directory name. See the -w option in the application documentation for details. Modifiers may also be used to change the default behaviour of these format codes. Note that these codes must be escaped with an extra % if used within a date format string.

Also, %c may be used to add a copy number to the output file name to avoid collisions with existing file names. When writing the FileName, Directory or TestName tag, %d, %f and %e may be used to represent the directory, name and extension of the original file (in a similar way to the -o, -w and -tagsFromFile options).

(Note that there is no corresponding test tag for Directory, but TestName supports a full path name just like FileName, so the directory may be tested as well.)

Writing TestName displays the old and new names without making any changes to the files. The write-only TestName tag provides a mechanism for dry-run testing of the rename feature. Existing files will not be overwritten (but see 'Warning' below). contains a ' /' character), then the file is also moved to the specified directory (see example 6 below), and the directory is created if necessary. If the new FileName has a directory specification (ie. The directory is created if it doesn't already exist. Writing the Directory tag moves a file to a specified directory.

The most common use of this feature is to organize images by date/time, but any other tag value may also be used. This is a powerful feature when combined with the -tagsFromFile ability to copy the values from other tags. FileName and Directory tags FileName and Directory tagsīy writing the FileName and/or Directory pseudo tags, ExifTool can be used to rename and/or move images into directories according to any information contained in the image.

Exiftool createdate datetimeoriginal