How to search for photo files using camera model in PowerShell

Question

I need to find if files taken by a certain camera have been backed up to my photos library. There are 1000s of photos in the library taken by multiple cameras and I need to build a PowerShell script to find all those photos taken by a specific camera model

Answer 1

Here is script that looks through a folder structure and outputs the model both to the console and to a csv file. Modify it to suit your needs.

$folder = 'c:\multimedia\pictures\2010'
cls
$shell = New-Object -COMObject Shell.Application
$files = Get-ChildItem -Path $folder -File -recurse 
$pics = @()
foreach ($f in $files) {
    $model = "" 
    $shellfolder = $shell.Namespace($f.Directory.FullName)
    $shellfile = $shellfolder.ParseName($f.name)
    # To find the ID of the extended attribute you're interested in:
    0..50 | ForEach-Object {
        $prop = $shellfolder.GetDetailsOf($null, $_)
        $propvalue = $shellfolder.GetDetailsOf($shellfile, $_)
       
        if ($prop -eq "Camera model") {
            $model = $propvalue
        }             
    }
    $pics += [PSCustomObject]@{
        Model = $model
        Picture = $f.FullName
    }
}
$pics    # show all files 
$pics | Where-Object -Property Model -match "canon"   # show only pics taken by a canon 
$pics | Export-Csv -Path "C:\temp\report.csv" -NoTypeInformation 

Answer 2

Hi Pushkar,

The Get-FileMetaData module needs to be built and installed, it does not ship with pwsh, the script repo listed in the blog is no longer in use.

See this git repo for the script to build and export the module path:

https://gist.github.com/woehrl01/5f50cb311f3ec711f6c776b2cb09c34e

Rerun your script from the blog
https://devblogs.microsoft.com/scripting/use-powershell-to-find-metadata-from-photograph-files/

$picMetadata = Get-FileMetaData -folder (Get-childitem <YOUR DIRECTORY HERE> -Recurse -Directory).FullName

You may need to import/install the module.... If it doesn't work relaunch pwsh after the import/install and try again.

For more info; see this learning page on Modules, specifically the subsections on building/importing/installing.

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/powershell/scripting/developer/module/writing-a-windows-powershell-module?view=powershell-7.4

Thanks,

Paul