poisonborz
IImmich
•Created by poisonborz on 12/23/2024 in #help-desk-support
Dates based on path (folder structure/filename)
Well, most features started as niche use cases: external libraries, folder view.
To make this cover a bit more use cases:
This feature could be "metadata based on path" per each external library. It would me a much faster/easier/user-accessible way of adding metadata without using XMP Sidecars. You could add description, datetime, or more in the future.
Apparent need:
You can search and find a lot of threads asking how to mass-update exif data to be properly ingested by Immich. Adding this via path/filename is accessible and it's how a lot of users already sort their collection. Storage templates also works via this principle (and it's how I first thought this already would work with Immich before discovering it's just for input). This would be the fastest way to update metadata indirectly in Immich.
My specific use case: my photo collection has a lot of photos that have no exif/date OR have a different one than the exif would suggest (with the filename being the correct one). Modifying path is the easiest way to add metadata. Date is purely presentational / for the timeline. Adding it as exif would be invalid/fake.
How it would work (without having dwelved to Immich's internal workings) - the following options per External library:
- metadata path template in the Storage Template format
- (maybe) prioritise or exclusive (take this as first source when searching for metadata or ignore the exif/creation date of the file completely)
When scanning metadata, Immich would then update the file's db-stored metadata based on this setting.
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