Reader Question: “time date stamps on my folders get updated when I use icj update”

2023-11-15 • SEND FEEDBACK |
Related: data integrity, diglloydTools, IntegrityChecker, Java, reader comment

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UPDATE: I've made a minor fix to fixfolders so that icjh files do not affect the newest-date search for determining folder date. Not yet in the download, if you are a user who wants this feature contact me and I can provide a replacement jar file. 2023-11-15 improved tj fixfolders command to ignore certain hidden files for purpose of determining newest file eg ".DS_Store", ".icjh", ".icj", ".ic"

Paul F writes:

Quick question… not a big deal but the time date stamps on my folders (understandably) get updated when I use icj update.

I have a lot of old folders with old data and I’d like to preserve the time date stamp on those folders so I can easily see when a folder was last modified / updated.

Is there a setting or a way for me to execute icj update without affecting the time date stamp of the folder? 

I may be the only person that wants this so obviously don’t worry about it if this doesn’t make sense or can’t be implemented. I just thought I would ask in case I missed a setting somewhere.

MPG: it’s not possible unless icj proactively went and resets the date on the folder, which is problematic if something else happened besides icj. I would prefer to not incorporate that into icj.

However, Paul is not the only one to find this annoying. I also noticed! So I did something about it and went one better: often, image files have bad (incorrect) dates for two reasons:

• Camera bugs. For example, Fujifilm GFX100S often has a file date that conflicts with the internal EXIF date/time.
• Adobe Lightroom/Photoshop DNG: these programs reset file modification and creation dates when they write metadata changes into raw files. An ugly design choice* and super ugly for the user, as it forces a backup of these huge files plus destroys any ability to sort by shooting date. It is why I always force metadata to be stored in sidecar XMP files.

* Modifying a raw file of any kind is about as bad an idea as it gets. Original captures should IMO never be modified under and conditions.

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Or keep guessing about whether your backups are damaged, whether on a network SAN, or hard drive or whatever.

Solution to fixing folder dates and image file dates

Naturally I wrote a solution. It is in the ’tj’ command line, which is now included along with icj.

tj fixdates ...
tj fixfolders ...     

The tj command line is not yet documented, though it does have some built-in help:

Available commands:
wipe        wipe files
wipefree    wipe free space
fixdates    fix invalid file and folder dates
fixfolders  set folder modification date to date of oldest file
rmDS        remove pesky .DS_Store files
help        show help summary, or show help for specific command eg 'help verify'

Related

You can extract and store EXIF info as an extended attribute using the 'img' command:

Available commands:
scan        scan for images, store EXIF into xattr
rename      rename images
            options: --remove
fixdates    change dates to match EXIF info
            options: --dry
org         organize aseries, stacks, pixel shift, etc
            options: --num
samelens    organize shots with the same lens within folders
            options: --num
aseries     organize aperture series
stacks      organize focus stacks by sequence number
pixelshift  organize pixel shift captures
ddate       calculate difference in dates between two images
help        show help summary

Options that apply to more than one command:
--refresh   whether to refresh EXIF info