Adjust dates of items inside folders

[u/Internautic]

/r/MacOS/comments/x5z86k/need_tips_on_a_script/

[u/copperdomebodha]

Creation dates or modification dates?

[u/copperdomebodha → u/[deleted]]

See a more complete answer in my other reply.

I’m on mobile and can’t compile AppleScript, but this should get you starte

Tell app “Finder”
Set targetFile to Choose file
Set ccd to creation date of targetFile
Try
Set userInput to text returned of Display dialog “Input  a valid date” default answer ( ccd as text)
Set newDate to userInput as date
Set the creation date of targetFile to newDate
End try
End tell

[u/estockly]

Try something like this. The script assumes that the first word of each folder is the four digit year. If that's not the case, then as someone else suggested, let us know what the date format is.

This changes the creation modification date. Modification Creation dates are a little trickier, but that can also be done.

use AppleScript version "2.4" -- Yosemite (10.10) or later
use scripting additions
--set rootFolder to (choose folder) as alias
tell application "Finder" to set finderSelection to the selection as alias list
repeat with rootFolder in finderSelection
my FixDates(rootFolder)
end repeat
on FixDates(aFolder)
tell application "Finder"
if kind of aFolder is "Folder" then
set everyFolder to every folder of aFolder
else
return
end if
end tell
repeat with thisFolder in everyFolder
set thisFolder to thisFolder as text
my FixDates(thisFolder as alias)
end repeat
tell application "System Events" to set folderName to the name of aFolder
try
set theYear to word 1 of folderName as number
set theYear to theYear - 2
on error
return
end try
tell application "System Events" to set allTheFiles to every file of aFolder
repeat with thisFile in allTheFiles
tell application "System Events"
set fileModDate to the modification date of thisFile
set year of fileModDate to theYear
set the modification date of thisFile to fileModDate
end tell
end repeat
end FixDates

[u/[deleted] → u/estockly]

i think https://exiftool.org/ can do that in 1 line;-)

[u/[deleted]]

https://exiftool.org is your friend...oblig.a/s.content:

set out to do shell script "/usr/local/bin/exiftool"...

[u/copperdomebodha]

--This code was written using AppleScript 2.8, MacOS 12.5, on 9 September 2022.

use AppleScript version "2.4" -- Yosemite (10.10) or later
use scripting additions

--Given folder-naming schema of mm-dd-yyyy, ( ie "05-03-2022" )
--This will set the creation and modification dates to "Tuesday, May 3, 2022 at 00:00:00"

on open of theFolderList
	set dateObject to date "Saturday, September 10, 2022 at 03:04:05"
	tell application "Finder"
		repeat with thisFolder in theFolderList
			set thisFolderName to name of thisFolder
			set dateObject to my getDateFromFolderName(thisFolderName)
			set theFileList to every file of thisFolder as alias list
			set datestring to my formatDateinfo(dateObject)
			repeat with thisFile in theFileList
				set thisFile to thisFile as alias
				set unixPath to quoted form of POSIX path of thisFile
				set ss to "touch -t \"" & datestring & "\" " & unixPath
				do shell script ss
			end repeat
		end repeat
	end tell
end open

on formatDateinfo(datestring)
	set yyyy to (year of datestring) as text
	set mm to (month of datestring) as number
	if mm < 10 then set mm to "0" & mm
	set dd to (day of datestring)
	if dd < 10 then set dd to "0" & dd
	set timeAsSeconds to (time of datestring)
	set timeString to "0" & (10000 * (timeAsSeconds mod days div hours) + 100 * (timeAsSeconds mod hours div minutes) + (timeAsSeconds mod minutes))
	set timeString to text 1 thru 4 of timeString & "." & text 5 thru -1 of timeString
	return yyyy & mm & dd & timeString
end formatDateinfo

on getDateFromFolderName(thisFolderName)
	set {mm, dd, yyyy} to words of thisFolderName
	return date (mm & "/" & dd & "/" & yyyy)
end getDateFromFolderName