image-flatify

Take a directory, search image files recursively and rename them based on their creation time, producing a flat directory

Got so fed up with mobile devices creating image files named DCIM_01.JPG or similar, hence having the same filenames after importing them to my computer.

One annoying example is Sony Xperia which saves burst images in separate folders but the filenames inside those folders are always the same.

This tool will solve that step in the process when renaming and organising images.

The given directory will be searched recursively for media files and they all will be renamed to the given directory. Those directories which are touched during the operation, in case they will be empty after the rename, the directory will be renamed.

Please note that the minimum supported version of Node.js is 22.11.0, which is the active Long Term Support (LTS) version.

See also image-foldarizer for organising images by their names and counter numbers.

Installation

Make sure to have both GraphicsMagick and Mediainfo available in the PATH environment variable.

The versions supported (tested via automation) are GraphicsMagick 1.3.45 and MediaInfo 18.08. Other versions should work...

They can be installed for example for macOS via Brew:

brew install graphicsmagick mediainfo

In Ubuntu Linux it can be done with command:

sudo apt-get install graphicsmagick mediainfo

In Windows, the applications need to be downloaded from their sites and once installed, their installation paths should be added in the Path system environment variable.

Now install the image-flatify command line tool globally, which might need increased privileges:

[sudo] npm install --global image-flatify

Command line options

image-flatify --help

image-flatify [options] <directory> [more directories]

  -h, --help                 Help and usage instructions
  -V, --version              Version number
  -v, --verbose              Verbose output, will print which file is currently being processed
  -n, --dry-run              Try it out without actually touching anything
  -K, --keep-in-directories  Keep the renamed image files in their original directory
  -p, --prefix String        Prefix for the resulting filename, default empty
  -a, --append-hash          Always append a hash string to the filename instead of a possible counter
  -l, --lowercase-suffix     Lowercase the resulting file suffixes, or use as is by default
  -D, --no-delete-empty-directories  Do not delete any directories that become empty after processing

Version 4.0.0

Example commands

The following command shows how the renaming would be done in the current directory, but it is not done since the --dry-run option is used.

image-flatify -vn .

Contributing

First thing to do is to file an issue.

"A Beginner's Guide to Open Source: The Best Advice for Making your First Contribution".

Also there is a blog post about "45 Github Issues Dos and Don’ts".

Linting is done with ESLint and can be executed with npm run lint. There should be no errors appearing after any JavaScript file changes.

Unit tests are written with tape and can be executed with npm test.

Code coverage is inspected with nyc and can be executed with npm run coverage after running npm test. Please make sure it is over 90% at all times.

Version history

Changes happening across different versions and upcoming changes are tracked in the CHANGELOG.md file.

License

Licensed under the MIT license.

Copyright (c) Juga Paazmaya [email protected]