# Rename Photos by Date Taken: Free Batch Renamer - [Home](/) - - - [Tools](/tools/) - - - Rename Photos by Date # Rename Photos by Date Taken Turn IMG_4821.HEIC and PXL_20240501.jpg into names that sort by when you took them. The tool reads the capture date stored inside each photo or video and gives you a zip of the originals under their new names. Drop photos, videos or a folder JPEG - HEIC - PNG - WebP - TIFF - RAW - MP4 - MOV - up to 5,000 files Choose photos Browsers can't rename files where they sit on your disk, so you get a renamed copy: a zip of the original files under their new names. Your originals stay as they are. Free to UseNo hidden chargesNo Software InstallationRuns in your browserNo Sign UpStart instantly ## Work privately, then store privately with DragBin Processing a file in your browser keeps it private in the moment. The files you keep and share need that same guarantee for the long run. DragBin protects files with [client side](/client-side-encryption/), [quantum resistant encryption](/post-quantum-encryption/) (ML-KEM + AES-256) keeping sensitive data private with a [zero knowledge](/zero-knowledge-encryption/) security architecture. - Get 5GB quantum resistant storage forever - Unlimited sharing, unlimited bandwidth and unlimited file size uploads - Integrated Global CDN and preview media in 4k/8k [Try DragBin Today](https://dragbin.com) ## How to Rename Photos by Date Three steps, in your browser, with no account: Step 1 Drop photos and videos, or choose a whole folder, up to 5,000 files at a time. Step 2 Pick a date format and an optional prefix, then check the old and new names side by side. Step 3 Download a zip of your untouched originals under their new names, with an optional CSV of the changes. ## Why Name Photos by Date? Camera and phone names restart, repeat and mean nothing a year later. A date-first name keeps every folder in shooting order on any computer, cloud drive or USB stick. ### The Date the Shot Was Taken Uses the camera's own capture time from EXIF, not the date a file was copied or downloaded. ### Photos and Videos Together Reads JPEG, HEIC, PNG, WebP, TIFF and RAW photos plus MP4 and MOV clips from phones, so one trip sorts as one timeline. ### Merge Several Cameras Shots from two phones and a camera interleave by time. Identical timestamps get -2, -3 so nothing is overwritten. ## Private and Fast by Design Everything happens in your browser tab. Only the small part of each file that holds the date is read, so thousands of files are scanned in seconds. ### Nothing Uploaded Your photos are read locally and never sent to a server. ### Header-Only Reading No image is decoded. The tool reads the first 256 KB of each file, plus the metadata block of videos that store it at the end. ### Originals Untouched The zip holds the exact original bytes. No re-compression, and EXIF, GPS and other metadata stay as they were. ## Try DragBin Today Pair private, in-browser file tools with zero-knowledge, quantum-resistant cloud storage. 5GB free, forever. [Claim 5GB free storage (opens in new tab)](https://app.dragbin.com/signup) ## Frequently Asked Questions ### Where does the date come from? For photos it uses the EXIF DateTimeOriginal tag, the moment the shutter fired, and falls back to the digitized date or the general DateTime tag if that is missing. It reads this from JPEG, HEIC/HEIF, PNG, WebP, TIFF and TIFF-based RAW files such as DNG, CR2, NEF and ARW. For MP4 and MOV videos it uses the creation time in the movie header. If a file has none of these, the file's last-modified date is used and the row is marked "File date" so you can spot it. ### Why do I get a zip instead of renamed files? Web pages aren't allowed to rename files on your disk. Instead the tool puts the original files, byte for byte, into a zip under their new names. Unzip it wherever you like and delete the old copies once you're happy. ### Are my photos uploaded or changed? No. Everything runs in your browser tab and nothing is sent to a server. Only the small part of each file that holds the date is read while scanning, and the zip contains the exact original bytes, so quality, EXIF, GPS and other metadata are unchanged. ### Why are my video times a few hours off? Cameras save photo times as the local clock time, and the tool uses them exactly as stored. Phone videos store their time in UTC instead, so by default the tool converts video times to your device's current time zone. If you shot the videos in another time zone, or your camera wrote local time into the video, turn the conversion off to keep the stored time. ### What happens when two photos have the same timestamp? Burst shots and photos from two cameras can share the same second. The first one, in date then original-name order, keeps the plain name and the rest get -2, -3 and so on, so no file is overwritten and the same set of files always gets the same names. ### How many files can I rename at once? Up to 5,000 files per list. Scanning reads only file headers, so it's quick, but the zip holds full copies of your files, so very large batches need enough free memory and disk space. If a zip fails to build, split the batch. More free tools ## Keep going with the DragBin toolbox [ ### EXIF Remover Strip location and camera details from photos before you share them. ](/tools/exif-remover-tool/)[ ### Image Converter Turn HEIC, PNG or WebP into JPG and other formats in your browser. ](/tools/image-converter/)[ ### File Type Checker Find out what a file really is when its extension looks wrong. ](/tools/file-type-checker/) --- Canonical: https://www.dragbin.com/tools/rename-photos-by-date