Image Renaming based on EXIF

I recently decided to rename all my images based on when they were taken, specifically date and time.  It started with a desire to rename the images that I upload to my FTP from my iPhone, but expanded to generally renaming all the images.

At this time I believe the best format for renaming is: Year, Month, Day, Hours, Minutes, Seconds, however I may expand on this to put location in too.  This format will allow you to view a folder in name order and see all images in the correct chronological order.

The problem if finding an application to rename all your images based on EXIF information, I did some general Google searches for such applications - but it turned up shareware and the like - in this day and age I find that hard to believe.

In the end I came across a post referencing my favorite image viewer for accomplishing this task.  IrfanView, https://irfanview-forum.de/showthread.php?t=1435.

I have been using IranfView for longer than I can recall, but never knew about the powers of it's batch renaming.

Renaming options are found under File, Batch Rename/Conversion...





To achieve my renaming format I used the following pattern:

$E36867(%Y_%m_%d %H%M%S)

However, some image editors I have used over the years, I guess, strip the EXIF information, which ends up creating a null filename, followed by the next file not being renamed at all (based on settings).

At this point I chose to name the image based on the creation date, using the following pattern:

$T(%Y_%m_%d %H%M%S)

All in all I am fairly happy with the renaming, but like I suggest - location might be a good idea too.


Additional naming pattern information can be found in the help file.





Update:  You can also try out the following application, Namexif:
http://www.digicamsoft.com/softnamexif.html