Comments on: Applescript Date/Time File Renamer Folder Action

By: mistersquid

mistersquid — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 13:05:59 +0000

Thanks for this extremely useful conversion tool. Hard to believe it’s not built into AppleSCript.

By: Jacob Wegelin

Jacob Wegelin — Sun, 02 Aug 2009 16:22:42 +0000

Thank you. Along with http://run-amuck.com/blog/2009/02/mac-os-x-screen-capture-default-location-and-default-file-name/, this worked.

Any suggestions how I would automatically perform a *subset* of this, i.e.: every time I copy or move a file to the designated folder, the file is renamed to the date and time, as the screen capture files are renamed by your script?

Better yet, instead of being renamed purely to the date and time, the date and time are pre-pended to the current filename? So that when I move “dog.txt” to the designated directory, it turns into 2009080212200115-dog.txt?

Another modification: Is there a way to get rid of the subdirectory for each day, so that all the files go into the designated directory? Since the filename starts with the date, there should be no confusion of files anyway, no real need of the many subdirectories.

Thanks for any suggestions.

By: el loco

el loco — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 19:36:53 +0000

great ! easy n clean ! thanks

By: ryan

ryan — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 22:14:09 +0000

Cool! Good to know it helped.

I might also recommend a open-source project called jhead, which I found recently. Jhead is exceedingly helpful as well for doing things related to the EXIF data in jpgs.

By: ii auai

ii auai — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 09:57:45 +0000

i kinda gutted this for a different use, but it hit the spot as a good starting point to 90% of my problem, all these years later. thanks!

By: Perroboy

Perroboy — Sun, 09 Sep 2007 12:03:05 +0000

Sorry, but there’s one thing I don’t understand, and that’s the odd padding at the end of the filenames.

For instance, an mpg created on 2003-12-02 is renamed: 20031202191812.mpg.

What’s 191812? The precise timestamp? Can I truncate this somehow?

Sadly, still doesn’t give me a workaround for files created on my videocam, which frequently dies and experiences date reset, producing files taken 1904-01-01

By: Perroboy

Perroboy — Sun, 09 Sep 2007 11:47:17 +0000

Hi,
Been searching for something like this for quite some time and was very excited to find yours.

Thanks a mil!

By: ryan

ryan — Mon, 30 Jul 2007 16:21:50 +0000

Cool. Good to know it helped. I’ll have to check and see what I’ve updated since then. And, yes, applescript is very verbose in some ways and somewhat counterintuitive at times. The best way to find out what syntax to use sometimes is just to find something similar that someone has done — it’s really hard to just find a reference guide online…

By: ruby tuesday

ruby tuesday — Mon, 30 Jul 2007 09:45:50 +0000

thank you so much! i’ve been losing sleep over how to get exactly this done .. seems simple enough until i try to pull it off in applescript. i’m more of a C++ / Java person i guess. kudos to you