This is my version of the shell script “Shell scripts for archiving digital photos in directories by date“. It utilizes  the exiftags command available in most linux distributions like Gentoo and debian Linux. Though the metacam program is also usefull since it can read Nikon NEF-files.Here’s an example of a directory tree they create:

2006  2006-10       IMG_48324.JPG       IMG_48325.JPG       IMG_48326.JPG       IMG_48331.JPG       IMG_48333.JPG       IMG_48334.JPG       IMG_48337.JPG  2006-11       IMG_48338.JPG  ...etc...

move-digiphotosThis bash script (move-digifotos) scans EXIF tags from .JPG files in current directory with metacam, creates necessary directories under $BASEDIR and moves the files in them:

#!/bin/bash# Reads EXIF creation date from all .JPG files in the# current directory and moves them carefully under##   $BASEDIR/YYYY/YYYY-MM/YYYY-MM-DD/## ...where 'carefully' means that it does not overwrite# differing files if they already exist and will not delete# the original file if copying fails for some reason.## It DOES overwrite identical files in the destination directory# with the ones in current, however.## This script was originally written and put into# Public Domain by Jarno Elonen ; in June 2003.# Feel free to do whatever you like with it.BASEDIR=/home/backup/testfind -maxdepth 1 -name "*.JPG" | while read x; doDATE=`exiftags "$x" | \   egrep "^[ t]*Image Created:" | \   sed -r "s/Image Created: ([0-9:]*).*/\1/"`if [ ! -z "$DATE" ];then    YEAR=`echo $DATE | sed -r "s/([0-9]*):([0-9]*):([0-9]*)/\\1/"`    MONTH=`echo $DATE | sed -r "s/([0-9]*):([0-9]*):([0-9]*)/\\2/"`    if [ "$YEAR" -gt 0 ] & [ "$MONTH" -gt 0 ]    then    INSTDIR=${BASEDIR}/${YEAR}/${YEAR}-${MONTH}    install -d "$INSTDIR"    INSTFILE="$INSTDIR/$x"    if [ -e "$INSTFILE" ] && ! cmp -s "$x" "$INSTFILE"    then        echo "WARNING: '$INSTFILE' exists already and is different from '$x'."    else        echo "Moving '$x'"        cp -ax "$x" "$INSTFILE"        if ! cmp -s "$x" "$INSTFILE"        then        echo "WARNING: copying failed somehow, will not delete original '$x'"        else        rm -f "$x"        fi    fi    else    echo "WARNING: '$x' doesn't contain date."    fielse    echo "WARNING: '$x' doesn't contain date."fidone