Ales Ales's Profile

Here is the fix. I had the same problem tonight (heterogeneous networked operating systems and the need to organize by YYYY-MM-DD). Here is the fix to get your "iPhoto Album" folder issue (i.e., getting the folder structure to be named "2009-01-05").



It is a bit ugly because you have to change a global setting on the Mac, but does not harm other settings and can be changed as many times as you like.



Note: After the change is made and you've selected all the photos/events you iPhoto, use iPhoto menu "Event" -> "Autosplit Selected Events", your folder structure will be updated, BUT iPhoto will still display the Event in its format (e.g., "Jan 5, 2009").



1. Open "System Preferences" -> "International" -> "Formats"



2. In the "Dates" section, select the "Customize..." button



3. In "Show:" select "Medium" (iPhoto uses this format to build the folder structure it uses.)



4. Edit this field as you like. I did the following: Click and drag "2009" to the left most location. Select the Month drop-down and choose "01", not "1". Select the Day drop-down and choose "05", not "5". Add "-" between each element. The result should look like this: 2009-01-05 (i.e., YYYY-MM-DD).

For those of you who might be asking why; the goal is to have a folder structure that is self organizing regardless of the tools or operating system and it will look like this:



Folder Names

2009-01-05

2009-01-06

2009-01-07

2009-01-10

2009-01-12

2009-01-13

2009-01-14

2009-01-20

5. Select "OK"



6. Close System Preferences.



7. Select all the events (photos) in iPhoto and select menu items "Event" -> "Autosplit Selected Events", your folder structure will be updated to the YYYY-MM-DD format, BUT iPhoto will still display the Event in its format (e.g., "Jan 5, 2009"). I only have 10,041 photos, but mine took quite a while to Autosplit.



Hope this helps. This is exactly what I need to upload to SmugMug.com and have my Events ordered in a usable way (not to mention making my photos usable on my Microsoft Windows and Linux based platforms).



Please let me know if you have any questions.