How to Batch Rename Photos by Date Taken

Camera and phone filenames like IMG_4021.jpg or DSC00147.CR2 tell you nothing about when a photo was taken, and they don't sort meaningfully once you mix files from multiple cameras or trips. Renaming by the date actually embedded in each photo's EXIF data fixes both problems in one pass.

Why EXIF date, not file date

A file's modified date changes every time you move, copy, or back it up — it's unreliable. The Date Taken field in EXIF metadata is written once, by the camera, at the moment of capture, and never changes afterward. That's the timestamp you actually want driving your filenames.

What a good rename pattern looks like

A pattern built from EXIF fields — date, camera, and a sequence number — keeps files chronologically sortable and self-describing even after they're mixed with photos from other sources:

2026-06-17_143022_Canon-R5_001.jpg — date, time, camera, sequence
2026-06-17_Zurich_042.jpg — date, city (if GPS-tagged), sequence

Doing this file by file doesn't scale

Manually renaming is fine for a dozen photos. For a shoot of a few hundred, you need a tool that reads the EXIF date from every file, builds a preview of the new names before committing anything, and — if you shoot RAW — renames the companion .xmp sidecar to match so edits don't get orphaned from their file.

The Exif Forge way

Build filenames from EXIF fields, with a live preview

Exif Forge's batch rename tool builds filenames from tokens like date, camera, lens and sequence number, shows you every new name before you commit, and keeps sidecars in lockstep.

Tokens: {Date}, {Time}, {Make}, {Model}, {Original}, {Counter} and more

Live preview of every new filename with collision detection

XMP sidecars renamed automatically to stay matched to their file

Save patterns as reusable presets for future shoots

See Batch Rename

FAQ

What if some files have no date taken in their metadata?

A good batch rename tool will fall back to the file's modified date, or let you skip and handle those separately, rather than silently misnaming them or failing the whole batch.

Will renaming break photos that are already organized in albums or folders?

No — renaming changes the filename, not the file's location or content. Apps that reference photos by folder path rather than a database ID are unaffected either way.

Can I preview the new names before committing?

You should always be able to — renaming hundreds of files is hard to undo cleanly, so any tool worth using shows you the full before/after list first.