P: Importing Files into a folder with the file system date rather than metadata date?

Hi John, that's very good information. I have an example I can share but I would rather not share the dropbox link publicly since it happens that the subject of the picture is a minor totally unaware of any of this. If you can send me an email to paulo . jorge . pereira @ gmail.com I will share the dropbox link with you.

I went back to check, the JPG in question have both fields, they match and they are correct and still one of the pictures ended up on a different folder and my guess is that just because the date on the filesystem is different.

The file is actually an export from when I used to run LR on Windows.

LR has always had problems renaming and moving files based on capture date. Some of the known issues:

- The files don't contain a capture date in the industry-standard field EXIF:DateTimeOriginal. 

- The files are imported via a USB cable.

- The files are imported via the Devices panel in the left column of the Import window.

Note that what Exiftool calls EXIF:CreateDate is not the same as the capture date (EXIF:DateTimeOriginal).   EXIF:DateTimeOriginal is when the shutter was pressed (capture date). What Exiftool calls EXIF:CreateDate is what the EXIF standard calls DateTimeDigitized, and it represents when the image was converted to digital form.;

Most (but not all) cameras and software set DateTimeDigitized (CreateDate) to be the same or nearly the same as DateTimeOriginal.  Some scanning software sets DateTimeDigitized to the date the image was scanned, and the user is then responsible for setting DateTimeOriginal to when the shutter was pressed.

When LR can't read EXIF:DateTimeOriginal for some reason (either because it is missing or nonconforming to the standard), then for capture date LR will use EXIF CreateDate, EXIF:DateTime (the last time an imaging app modified the image), or the file system's date modified. But when LR uses one of these other fields, it can behave inconsistently with respect to what it considers the "capture date".  Adobe has never been able to remove all of these bugs.

If you upload one of the images that LR misfiled into a folder, upload the image to Dropbox or similar and post the sharing link here. Then we can put it under the microscope and see what precisely is going wrong and which bug report this belongs with.

If you move files outside of LR and then use LR to import them from the new location you will end up with duplicated files in the LR catalog.

LR is based on having ALL your images imported into the catalog file. Not just Some of them. Then In LR you manage them. Whether that is moving them into different folders or combining one folder full of images into some other folder or even Editing them.

By the way, the script I used for this was just a dumb bash shell script:

for f in *.mp4;
do
echo Moving $f
mv $f "/Volumes/2017-2019/Pictures/"`exiftool $f  | grep "^Create Date" | awk -F: '{ print $2"/"$2"-"$3"-"$4 }' | awk -F' '  '{print $1$2}'`;
done

and the same for the .mov

for f in *.mov;
echo Moving $f
mv $f "/Volumes/2017-2019/Pictures/"`exiftool $f  | grep "^Create Date" | awk -F: '{ print $2"/"$2"-"$3"-"$4 }' | awk -F' '  '{print $1$2}'`; 
done

Thanks for reaching out. I sent you an example.

I am running on mac. For the phones I tried to import directly from Lightroom but it never works well, I end up with pictures that weren't imported for unclear reasons and thousands of videos (really just the .MOV From the Live Pictures) that are not imported. I now found the best way is to copy the files from the iPhone to the mac using  "Image Capture" which works well and then import the folder with the option to move into lightroom. Whatever fails (the videos) I will then use a home made script to place them into the right folder using the CreateDate from the EXIF and then sync the folder from Lightroom (guess what? The movies get imported and no issues with the video files anymore!)

Mostly I copy them directly from the SD/CF cards and in that case I haven't seen any issues. Where I do see issues if when I move a bunch of folders with pictures into the same drive and then ask Lightroom to import and MOVE the files into the folder structure I use to keep my master files.

If you MOVE them during the import process then they are not from a camera Memory card.
Are you Really Moving them or do you have Copy selected?
Although LR is not supposed to import files that are already in the LR catalog that system can be fooled fairly easily. I think you have hit on one of the reasons LR can get fooled about duplicate files.

Thanks for letting us know. We need some of those files to produce the issue.
I have sent you an e-mail off-list.

Thanks,
Sunil

Are you importing directly from a phone on a USB cable? I find that that often gets dates wrong, at least on Windows. So I copy to a temp folder on the hard drive using the OS, then import from there, which works properly. I do not have this problem when using a card reader.