[Feature]: Metadata Editor

[Nonobis]

Feature detail

Hello,

A metadata editor could be very cool feature, with update of metadata directly on file

For fixing date/time of files or gps coordinate etc ...

Platform

Web

[r3nor]

This would be great!

[panoti]

For this issue, I suggest some solutions:

1. Wrap native tools like exiftool, exiv2 by using childprocess to parse and write metadata.
   • Pros: so easy, best performance, always updated, support many file types.
   • Cons: heavily depend on perl (only with exiftool), install more binary packages (exiv2)
2. Wrap native libs like exiv2 by using node-gyp. Exiv2 also provide API so that other app can communicate to.
   • Pros: best performance, always updated, support many file types.
   • Cons: not easy to implement with node-gyp.
3. Transpile native libs like exiv2 to wasm.
   • Pros: best performance, always updated, support many file types.
   • Cons: pretty difficult to transpile C++ to wasm.
4. Using pure javascript lib but they're outdated like piexifjs.
   • Pros: so easy
   • Cons: outdated, lack of support, performance issues.

[JVT038]

Additionally, can you also add a feature for mass metadata editing?

I have thousands of videos and images from WhatsApp and they're all in IMG-YYYYMMDD-WA0001.JPG format, but don't have any exif data, so Immich automatically assumes they're taken on the file creation date (which in my case is March 2022). So there are currently a lot of images from 2017, 2019, 2020, etc. which are placed in March 2022, because they're from WhatsApp without exif data.
I'm currently fixing this with the exiftool, which takes the filename and sets the exif data based on the filename, but could this be done in the web ui? I'm sure I'm not the only one uploading WhatsApp images to Immich

[pabloscloud]

yes, same situation for me. I uploaded like 300 photos but there date is wrong. A possiblity to change the date would certainly be great!

[r3nor]

I think that, following on what @JVT038 said, it would be a very good feature to fallback on filename timestamp (if available) when no metadata is found. Most images from phones or cameras contain the timestamp on the filename, so it would be a good fallback before using the modified date.

[jkaplon]

Might this also include a "Description" field?

gphotos has it in the metadata panel, and it's proven useful with pics of kid drawings (where there's no chance of success by an image classifier).

Hopefully this is a well-supported EXIF item and will be easy to add...but I don't want to be making scope-creep-assumptions.

[samip5]

The exif parsing is actually done with exiftool-vendored library now. :)

[AD-Wright]

I'm looking for some way to edit the date/time of already-uploaded photos, and I think for that purpose editing the exif data would be useful. Was this issue closed by mistake? I can't find any way to edit the metadata.
Also, I'm curious - if the date/time was changed, would the photo be moved to the proper place in the folder structure?

[jrasm91]

Related to #2466, which adds support for sidecar files, with the option to re-extract exif from them.

[jrasm91]

It's still being finalized, but I think the better approach would be to not update the originals directly (this impacts the hash and causes all sorts of issues), but instead edit the exif and save it instead to a sidecar file. Immich will import and apply the new data from the file over the values from the original file.

[feerlessleadr]

Thanks, I'll have to figure out a way to do that with exiftool, or if there is a better tool to do that.

[jrasm91]

Exiftool can do it. I think there are lots of 3rd party tools for editing and most should support writing to a sidecar. The OP of the PR mentioned digikam

[feerlessleadr]

Thanks, when I was reading I guess I figured it only exported to sidecar rather direct writing to a sidecar.

[jrasm91]

Yup, it should be able to do both

[iqapps]

May I suggest, that when downloading photos, you are given the option to download the original, or a modified with overwritten exif from sidecar data.

[MalteKiefer]

Any news here on the status?

[bo0tzz]

No news

[silverl]

I just completed my first enormous Google Takeout-to-Immich import. So far so good!

Oddly, I have 3 files that for whatever reason came in with a year of 2036. Now they always show at the top of my gallery.

May I ask, what is the correct way to fix a date in the absence of a metadata editor?

Thanks

[alextran1502]

You can edit the exif of the file using exif-tool then rerun the metadata extraction job

[jrasm91]

No super recommended though as the hash will be out of sync. Better to delete them, correct the exit and re-upload. Or, use a tool that can write sidecar xmp files, which immich can detect.

[eygraber]

@jrasm91 what are the implications of the hash being out of sync? I have thousands of images that need to be corrected, and I'm not looking forward to deleting, correcting, and then re-uploading.

[jrasm91]

Not a big deal now as it is only used for duplicates but it may be used for integrity checks in the future. Another option is to use sidecar files instead of updating the original directly

[GuoxiongXie]

Thanks Alex, when you said "You can edit the exif of the file using exif-tool", do you mean directly editing those files inside UPLOAD_LOCATION/library folder? Or do you mean editing some files outside of immich file system, and then upload those edited files to immich? Thanks for your clarifications!

[bcsteeve]

I don't know if it is new or if I never noticed, but Google Photos has the ability to edit date/time and location! If that's been like that for awhile, I don't know how I missed it, because I went through a lot of effort looking for an exiftool GUI to avoid learning the command line :)

[HarHarLinks]

I would like to be able to

• add missing metadata such as location
• edit metadata such as the timestamp e.g. in cases where the fallback timestamp is wrong and the original timestamp is (roughly) known
• add tags of persons who could not be automatically identified for any reason, but I am unsure that fits inside this suggestion

I'm sure that could be done in a way that only optionally touches the original files.

[lordraiden]

a bulk mode would be nice, to edit many files at once

[PterX]

This would be great!

[alien75]

Agree: that would be a very useful addition!

[imthefrizzlefry]

It would be nice to be able to write this data to the image files directly in case one day my decendents/family want to import my photos including updates I painstakingly made to thousands of pictures/videos, but at least being able to update any values stored in the immich database would make that possible as a future feature.

As an end user adding photos,
I want the ability to modify metadata,
So I can manage my content collection.

Use Cases:
A number of images imported from a previous photo management system had an incorrect timestamp; I want to update the timestamp via mobile/web.
An image I scanned has the incorrect timestamp, I want to update the timestamp via web/mobile.
An image I scanned has no location data; I want to update the location via web/mobile.
An image I took with my phone has little meaning if I forget the purpose of the photo; I want to add a comment to the image metadata so I never forget.
A Video I digitized from from reel/vhs has the incorrect timestamp; I want to update the timestamp via web/mobile.

[TiloHeidasch]

To me (and appearantly not only me) this is the most important feature missing from Immich right now!

I was about to create my own feature request before stumbling on this one, so if it is helpful, here's the user story from my feature request:

As an authorized user,
I want to change metadata (Date when picture was taken / Place on Map where picture was taken) of my indexed images,
so I can correct wrong or missing metadata after having them indexed by Immich.

I have several Photos, that have been digitized after the fact using a scanner. These Images date back to 1920. However, the date where they appear in Immich is of course their digitization date, which was more in the realm of 2015. I want to change the "Date where Immich sorts them to in the timeline" to the "correct" date manually.

I have several Photos that do not have / have a false location. They don't appear on the map view and some appear in their falsely marked locations e.g. 0,0 . I want to change the "Location where the picture is shown on the map" by clicking on a respective point on a map.

I have several Photos that require manual intervention, therefor I want the edit operations to be able to be done in bulk for as many Items I select. When selecting more than 1 Photo and changing any of the beforementioned metadata, I want all the photos to get the changed attribute.

[HarHarLinks]

I too have the 0,0 problem and similar problems where my phone's camera was not able to retrieve the correct location that I'd like to fix. The way to do that would be to select one or more photos to edit and then select the location on the map. The map should have a search box so I can easier navigate the world to some sight from my summer holiday trip I would have a hard time finding on the map. It should also allow me to select existing photos' locations to copy their location data.

[YFrendo]

I start a Draft, don't expect to much for now but if you want to follow my work : #5066

[AngelaDMerkel]

This is awesome. I think a toggle allowing the user to choose to write to a new sidecar or overwrite existing, or write to the image would both be very welcome

[YFrendo]

I choosed the sidecar path.
Write directly to the image is more tricky and can cause a lot of new issue (change the hash...).
For now the server part is ready for change date and position for singular asset or in bulk.

For now it overide the preexisting sidecar (but create a save of the previous one), I assume that if a user changes the metadata he also wants to modify his sidecar. I don't see any case where that wouldn't be the case.

I need to make the frontend part now x)

[jrasm91]

You can now update gps and date/time on the web and mobile app.

[HarHarLinks]

You can, but it is incomplete yet.
E.g. adding og people is missing, and the location editing map UI can be improved a lot.

[imthefrizzlefry]

I'll take a partial/imperfect implementation over nothing. Progress is good! Thank you for the hard work! We can incrementally improve it over time!

[HarHarLinks]

I definitely agree, but I wouldn't have closed this discussion yet.

[Sums123]

I made a post in relation to the timzeone edit functionality here
#6268