Video dates are not filesystem dates

Copying a video to another disk often changes the date shown by the operating system. MOV and MP4 containers can preserve creation information in QuickTime metadata. Foldnize uses embedded metadata rather than assuming the latest filesystem timestamp is the recording date.

Install ExifTool and FFprobe

ExifTool reads metadata from many media containers. FFprobe, included with FFmpeg, provides a fallback for MOV and MP4 files.

brew install exiftool ffmpeg

Equivalent packages are available for Windows and Linux. Foldnize skips videos when no supported tool can return a parseable creation date.

Rename and sort videos safely

Choose a folder containing MOV or MP4 videos.
Select Prefix mode to preserve the old name, or Replace mode for a sortable timestamp.
Enable Year/Month sorting if desired.
Run a Dry run and compare several proposed dates with known recordings.
Apply the operation after the preview is correct.

Video organization CLI example

npx foldnize --root=./videos --mode=replace \
  --year-month --dry-run

A video recorded on July 15, 2023 at 15:30:22 becomes 2023/07/20230715-153022.mp4.

Review timezone-sensitive recordings

Container metadata may be stored in UTC or include a timezone offset, depending on the recording device and software that last processed the video. Check known events in Dry run before reorganizing a large archive, especially when footage crosses timezones.

When a video is skipped

The file has no embedded creation metadata.
A messaging or editing app stripped the original fields.
ExifTool and FFprobe are unavailable or cannot parse the container.
The extension is not currently supported by Foldnize.

Organize videos by metadata date