Metadata: Extract date from android whats app filenames

[JamesSwift]

I've been doing some tests on various photos and I've found that PP gets confused with date extraction sometimes.

For example, this file seems to have no embedded "Date Taken" info:

root@da67aa80bf7b:/photoprism# exiftool "originals/2019/11 November/IMG-20191120-WA0001.jpg"
ExifTool Version Number         : 12.05
File Name                       : IMG-20191120-WA0001.jpg
Directory                       : originals/2019/11 November
File Size                       : 196 kB
File Modification Date/Time     : 2021:02:20 15:33:03+00:00
File Access Date/Time           : 2021:02:27 13:37:34+00:00
File Inode Change Date/Time     : 2021:02:21 20:06:19+00:00
File Permissions                : rwxr-x---
File Type                       : JPEG
File Type Extension             : jpg
MIME Type                       : image/jpeg
JFIF Version                    : 1.01
Resolution Unit                 : None
X Resolution                    : 1
Y Resolution                    : 1
Image Width                     : 1600
Image Height                    : 800
Encoding Process                : Progressive DCT, Huffman coding
Bits Per Sample                 : 8
Color Components                : 3
Y Cb Cr Sub Sampling            : YCbCr4:2:0 (2 2)
Image Size                      : 1600x800
Megapixels                      : 1.3

When importing it, PP sets the right month and year, but sets the date for it (and all the other images from whatsapp) as the 1st:

I wondered what source PP is using for date information when the exif data doesn't provide it? Is it running a regex on the filename? Or Possibly on the folder path?

I know that finding dates for photos that lack proper exif data is a can of worms, as they can come in all types and formats. Given that Whatsapp will be a major source of photos for some libraries, and given it seems to strip that info though, I wondered if we can extract it with a regex looking for a few standard date formats in the file name?

[graciousgrey]

PhotoPrism already uses the filename and the folder path to determine the date in case there is no taken at in other metadata like exif. That's why the month and year are set correctly in your example.
I guess PhotoPrism either could not recognize the day and might use 1 as fallback or it misinterpreted the 1 in the end of the filename.

[JamesSwift]

Given that whatsapp photos are likely to be quite common, would this be considered a bug or a FR if PP doesn't recognize the date from their filename correctly? IMG-20191120-WA0001.jpg seems fairly straightforward to extract with a regex.

[graciousgrey]

Yes, we should definitely add it. Is this the only naming pattern that causes issues for you?

[graciousgrey]

Acceptance Criteria:

• Extract date from the following filename schema IMG-20191120-WA0001.jpg or VID-20191120-WA0001.jpg

[matglas]

I have seen the same thing with my files after I ran the photoprism index -f. Below is the exiftool output.

$ exiftool 20190512_190204_0A7ADC59.jpg 
ExifTool Version Number         : 10.80
File Name                       : 20190512_190204_0A7ADC59.jpg
Directory                       : .
File Size                       : 193 kB
File Modification Date/Time     : 2021:11:12 11:14:17+00:00
File Access Date/Time           : 2021:12:10 08:17:44+00:00
File Inode Change Date/Time     : 2021:12:07 21:27:43+00:00
File Permissions                : rwxr-xr-x
File Type                       : JPEG
File Type Extension             : jpg
MIME Type                       : image/jpeg
JFIF Version                    : 1.01
Resolution Unit                 : None
X Resolution                    : 1
Y Resolution                    : 1
Image Width                     : 1200
Image Height                    : 1600
Encoding Process                : Progressive DCT, Huffman coding
Bits Per Sample                 : 8
Color Components                : 3
Y Cb Cr Sub Sampling            : YCbCr4:2:0 (2 2)
Image Size                      : 1200x1600
Megapixels                      : 1.9

I'm trying to run optimize now to see if that helps.

I'm using version photoprism/photoprism:20211130

[matglas]

The optimize command didnt do anything. Hoped it would try to fix some of the dates based on file name. Would another index help?

[lastzero]

Only indexing will change the taken at time if there is new / different metadata. Optimize mainly updates automatically generated titles, descriptions and LOCATION estimates.

[matglas]

Great. Ill try a reindex and see if it changes. Thanks