Batch Change Title to Capture Date-Description-Padded Sequential Number

The following is primarily the work product of Léonie. She provided the script which I modified to meet my specific requirements.

It's an application what will batch change the title of selected photos to the following format:

EXIF Capture Date (System's Short Date)–Description–Padded Sequential Number

The script is:

on run {input, parameters}

-- batch change the title to the input, © léonie, version 1.0.1

set n_digits to 2 -- how many digits for the appended number

set answer to display dialog "Select the number of digits for the appended numbers (0 .. 10). Selecting '0' will suppress the leading zeros." buttons {"o.k"} default answer n_digits

set n_digits_text to the (text returned of answer)

set n_digits to n_digits_text as number

tell application "Photos"

activate

set counter to 1

set imageSel to (get selection) -- get selected images

if imageSel is {} then

error "Please select some images."

else

repeat with next_image in imageSel

-- the counter with padded numbers

set ntext to the counter as text

repeat while (the length of ntext < n_digits) -- add leading zeros

set ntext to "0" & ntext

end repeat

-- retrive the date

set capture_date to (the date of next_image)

set short_capture_date_string to the short date string of capture_date

-- set capture_time_string to the time string of capture_date

set new_title to short_capture_date_string & "-" & input & "-" & ntext as text

tell next_image

set the name to new_title as text

set counter to counter + 1

end tell

end repeat

-- return new_title

end if

end tell

return input

end run

The Automator app window looks like this:

When run the first window that appears, to enter the description, is:

The next window, to set the number of digits in the sequential number, is:

This results in:

The date is expressed by the System's Short date as setup in the System/Language & Region/Advanced/Dates preference pane:

I preferred to go with the Year-Month-Day format as it sorts better in the Finder. The default in the US is Month-Day-Year.

The Script menu was activated via the Applescript Editor General preference pane

so that the app is easily available from all windows:

NOTE: for scanned images the date used will the the file creation date which the Finder users and applies to new files.

A copy of the app can be downloaded from P01 - Applescripts from Photos’ User Tips Compiled as Applications.

Again, thanks to léonie for most of the input for this app.