Tools >Metadata>Transfer Missing? Grabbing data from filename

[Roncore]

Hello all!

I'm new to XnView MP and was trying to figure out how to pull Exif Date/Time Taken metadata from filenames. I kept seeing the suggestions to use the Tools >Metadata>Transfer function to do this, but I'm not seeing this on either version I have (Selfhosted and newest build on Windows). Can anybody help me with this?

Thanks in advance!

[xnview]

you have 'Metadata>add/replaceMetadata'

[Roncore]

Thank you for the reply, yeah I see that option, but that's not really what I was looking for.. I was just referencing a lot of threads from this forum talking about a transfer option and using it gather data from the filename. I guess that it was removed at some point?

[michel038]

I think the metadata transfer function (which has been renamed) doesn't allow you to extract a date from the filename and insert it into an EXIF date (if that's what you want to do?).
What you can do in this case is create a "Open with..." function and include an ExifTool call in it, with the following parameters:
-k -EXIF:alldates<filename
(add -overwrite_original if you want to prevent creation of backup files with.bak extension)

If you'd like detailed instructions on how to create "Open with..." entries using ExifTool, here's a tutorial: viewtopic.php?p=183222#p183222
It might be a little outdated

[jkm]

Welcome to the forums, Roncore...

[Edit: I see Michel was posting at the same time I was]

That function has been renamed a couple of times over the long development history of XnViewMP, and it is currently named "Add/Replace Metadata".

But it never really did what you want. It is capable of copying data from one field to another (so you could, for example, store the entire filename in a tag) but it cannot parse out information from the filename based on a pattern or algorithm. And as Michel points out, it cannot write the date fields using the filename at all.

Michel's example will work if your filename is a timestamp and nothing else, but not if your situation is more complex.
I'm assuming you have a filename that perhaps looks something like this: A1234567 01062022_141253.21.jpg where the timestamp you want is part of the filename but not the whole filename.

However, Exiftool can do what you want. It is able to parse out parts of the filename based on patterns and store them in a tag, like in the above example. If your filenames have a consistent pattern, then the dates you need can be parsed with a regex (regular expression).

If you don't have good knowledge of how to use Exiftool already, then the challenge you will face is that the Exiftool forums (which their large repository of information and access to experts) is unavailable due a catastrophic dispute with the hosting service. If you carefully read the Exiftool home page, you will see that there are alternative forums setup up to help people during this period:
https://exiftool.org/
https://exiftool.org/forum/index.php?topic=13073.0

You could try asking for how-to assistance on one of those forums if you need it.