Noodlesoft Forums

I have a number of photographs that have lost their orginal created and modified dates...

is there a way to restore photographs that have lost thier created and modified dates?

Paul

Unless they are recorded elsewhere, not sure if that is possible.

potentially yes using EXIFTOOL. The system create and modify dates may be distinct from other image file properties that have been retained because they are not modified normally by the OS. It depends on the devices that were used to take the pictures and what is stored. Download and install this tool: http://www.sno.phy.queensu.ca/~phil/exiftool/

Once installed, run the following in terminal:

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exiftool [path to image file]

in terminal. You will see the EXIF data and various date properties. Perhaps something like Create Date (different from file creation date) or Date/Time Original will have the retained image property values. If so, I have written a series of scripts that I use with hazel to modify the file create and modify dates to match these properties so as to retain the original values. Let me know and I can send them to you.

You might be able to and there are two ways this could be possible.
Use A Better Finder Attributes which can set the date created / modified based on the EXIF date.
If no EXIF date exists but your files are named in a specific format i.e. 2014-12-24 13:23:43.jpg you can use this script in the terminal to set the date created / modified. You will need the Xcode Terminal Commands installed - your Mac should prompt you if you want to install them if you're running the command for the first time.

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for f in *.jpg;
do date=$(printf %s "$f" | sed -E 's|^(....)-(..)-(..) (..)\.(..)\.(..).*|\2/\3/\1/ \4:\5:\6|'); SetFile -m "$date" -d "$date" "$f";
done


Change this section to suit your naming convention:

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sed -E 's|^(....)-(..)-(..) (..)\.(..)\.(..).*|\2/\3/\1/ \4:\5:\6|'

2014-12-24 13.23.43.jpg
(....)-(..)-(..) (..)\.(..)\.(..).*|\2/\3/\1/ \4:\5:\6


Hope that helps.