Usage

Once installed usage is straight forward, to search for files with the defaults, looking in the current directory for jpg files and outputting to YYYY/mm/dd directory structure in the current directory just invoke mvdate. the ctime (creation time) of a file, which is immutable, is extracted and used as a basis for creating directories.

Thus, given a directory with the following files...

❱ l
drwxrwx--- user1 users 4.0 KB Sun Jan 29 07:04:17 2023  .
drwxrwxrwx user1 users 4.0 KB Mon Sep  4 21:38:15 2023  ..
.rw-rw---- user1 users 2.5 MB Fri Oct 23 08:57:20 2020  IMG_20201023_085720.jpg
.rw-rw---- user1 users 2.5 MB Fri Oct 23 08:57:24 2020  IMG_20201023_085725.jpg
.rw-rw---- user1 users 2.4 MB Fri May 20 07:51:04 2022  IMG_20210115_091528.jpg
.rw-rw---- user1 users 2.4 MB Fri May 20 07:51:04 2022  IMG_20210115_091530.jpg
.rw-rw---- user1 users 2.6 MB Fri Apr  1 10:35:44 2022  IMG_20220401_093544.jpg
.rw-rw---- user1 users 2.6 MB Fri Apr  1 10:35:46 2022  IMG_20220401_093546.jpg
.rw-rw---- user1 users 2.5 MB Sun Jan 29 05:21:28 2023  IMG_20220729_085918.jpg
.rw-rw---- user1 users 2.4 MB Sun Jan 29 05:21:28 2023  IMG_20220729_085951.jpg
.rw-rw---- user1 users 2.7 MB Sun Jan 29 05:24:40 2023  IMG_20221021_085226.jpg
.rw-rw---- user1 users 2.5 MB Sun Jan 29 05:24:40 2023  IMG_20221021_085231.jpg

To move them to YYYY-mm-dd directory just invoke mvdate as the default file extensions is jpg and the method used is exif which extracts the Created date from the Exif data.

❱ mvdate
                       __      __
   ____ ___ _   ______/ /___ _/ /____
  / __ `__ \ | / / __  / __ `/ __/ _ \
 / / / / / / |/ / /_/ / /_/ / /_/  __/
/_/ /_/ /_/|___/\__,_/\__,_/\__/\___/


2023-12-27 10:12:18.553 | INFO     | Search directory                           : ./
2023-12-27 10:12:18.554 | INFO     | Searching for files with extension         : jpg
2023-12-27 10:12:18.554 | INFO     | Files found                                : 10
2023-12-27 10:12:18.554 | INFO     | Destination directory                      : ./
2023-11-04 09:12:12.887 | INFO     | Created target directory : 2020/10/23
2023-11-04 09:12:12.888 | INFO     | Created target directory : 2022/04/01
2023-11-04 09:12:12.888 | INFO     | Created target directory : 2022/05/20
2023-11-04 09:12:12.889 | INFO     | Created target directory : 2023/01/29
Moving 10 files.: 0it [00:00, ?it/s]
2023-11-04 09:12:12.911 | INFO     | Moved : IMG_20201023_085720.jpg -> ./2020/10/23/IMG_20201023_085720.jpg
2023-11-04 09:12:12.911 | INFO     | Moved : IMG_20201023_085725.jpg -> ./2020/10/23/IMG_20201023_085725.jpg
2023-11-04 09:12:12.912 | INFO     | Moved : IMG_20210115_091528.jpg -> ./2021/01/15/IMG_20210115_091528.jpg
2023-11-04 09:12:12.912 | INFO     | Moved : IMG_20210115_091530.jpg -> ./2021/01/15/IMG_20210115_091530.jpg
2023-11-04 09:12:12.913 | INFO     | Moved : IMG_20220401_093544.jpg -> ./2022/04/01/IMG_20220401_093544.jpg
2023-11-04 09:12:12.913 | INFO     | Moved : IMG_20220401_093546.jpg -> ./2022/04/01/IMG_20220401_093546.jpg
2023-11-04 09:12:12.913 | INFO     | Moved : IMG_20220729_085918.jpg -> ./2022/07/29/IMG_20220729_085918.jpg
2023-11-04 09:12:12.914 | INFO     | Moved : IMG_20220729_085951.jpg -> ./2022/07/29/IMG_20220729_085951.jpg
2023-11-04 09:12:12.914 | INFO     | Moved : IMG_20221021_085226.jpg -> ./2022/10/21/IMG_20221021_085226.jpg
2023-11-04 09:12:12.914 | INFO     | Moved : IMG_20221021_085231.jpg -> ./2022/10/21/IMG_20221021_085231.jpg
Moving 10 files.: 10it [00:00, 4648.94it/s]

If you wanted to search for files in one directory and output to the desired structure in a different directory you can use the -b/--base option to specify the base directory to search and the -d / --destination option to specify the destination directory.

❱ mvdate -e jpg -b ~/pics/clearing -d ~/pics -m exif
                       __      __
   ____ ___ _   ______/ /___ _/ /____
  / __ `__ \ | / / __  / __ `/ __/ _ \
 / / / / / / |/ / /_/ / /_/ / /_/  __/
/_/ /_/ /_/|___/\__,_/\__,_/\__/\___/


2023-12-27 10:12:18.553 | INFO     | Search directory                           : ~/pics/clearing
2023-12-27 10:12:18.554 | INFO     | Searching for files with extension         : jpg
2023-12-27 10:12:18.554 | INFO     | Files found                                : 4
2023-12-27 10:12:18.554 | INFO     | Destination directory                      : ~/pics/
2023-12-27 10:12:18.562 | INFO     | Created target directory : ~/pics/2021/02/03
2023-12-27 10:12:18.562 | INFO     | Created target directory : ~/pics/2020/08/28
2023-12-27 10:12:18.563 | INFO     | Created target directory : ~/pics/2020/12/09
Moving 4 files.: 0it [00:00, ?it/s]
2023-12-27 10:12:18.564 | INFO     | Moved : selfie.jpg -> ~/pics/2021/02/03/selfie.jpg
2023-12-27 10:12:18.565 | INFO     | Moved : another.jpg -> ~/pics/2021/02/03/another.jpg
2023-12-27 10:12:18.565 | INFO     | Moved : IMG_20200828_100935.jpg -> ~/pics/2020/08/28/IMG_20200828_100935.jpg
2023-12-27 10:12:18.565 | INFO     | Moved : IMG_20201209_163230.jpg -> ~/pics/2020/12/09/IMG_20201209_163230.jpg
Moving 4 files.: 4it [00:00, 4735.76it/s]

You can disable all output by passing the -q/--quiet option.

NB If an image file has no Exif data for Created date then the ctime will be used.

Options

The table below lists all command line options.

Option (Short)	Option (Long)	Description
`-v`	`--version`	Print out the version and exit.
`-b`	`--base`	The base directory under which files are searched for.
`-l`	`--log_file`	File to save log output to.
`-m`	`--method`	Method used to extract date/time of file. Currently three options `exif` (default) which uses the `Created Date` field of Exif data of image files. For non-image files use either `ctime` or `mtime` for created/modified times. NB If an image is missing the `Created Date` field we default to `ctime`.
`-n`	`--nesting`	Level of nesting to move files to, should be a single letter, 'Y'ear, 'm'onth, 'd'ay (default), 'H'our, 'M'inutes.
`-q`	`--quiet`	Execute quietly and suppress all output.
`-s`	`--single`	Whether to have a single directory of the form `YYYY-mm[-dd[-HH[-MM]]]` rather than a nested structure.