Rename photos by date taken

Q: How do I rename photos by the date they were taken?

Drop them here, pick how the names should look, and press Rename by date. Each photo is named from the date and time stored inside it, like 2026-07-14 18.42.07.jpg, and two photos from the same second become -2, -3 in order. Then save them all to a folder or as one ZIP.

Drop a batch of photos and each is renamed by the moment it was taken, read from inside the file — so photos from different phones and cameras finally sort in the order they happened.

I have Choose files or drop them here, Photos: JPG, HEIC, PNG, WebP — a whole folder at once Hundreds at a time. Only the dates are read; the pictures are never re-saved.

I want Rename by date

Settings appear once you add a photo.

New names look like

Keep the old name after the date 2026-07-14 18.42.07 IMG_4821.jpg — handy for finding a photo by its old name later.

Advanced 1

Photos with no date inside

Done on your device No upload, no queue, no sign-up.

Bytes sent anywhere: 0 B Bytes of your files sent anywhere: 0 B · nothing leaves this tab

Works offline after you’ve used it once.

How to use it

Your photos go into this browser tab, have their dates read on your device, and come back renamed in date order with the pictures untouched. 0 bytes uploaded

Add your files

Drop the photos — a whole folder from different phones and cameras is fine.
Check the settings

Choose how the names should look. Each photo’s capture date is read from its EXIF data, right here.
Save the result

Press Rename by date and save them to a folder or as a ZIP. Same photos, same bytes: only the names change.

Why it doesn’t upload

A folder of personal photos is the last thing that should go to a server just to change some names. Renaming only needs the few bytes that hold each date, and those are read in this tab. The pictures themselves are never opened, re-saved or sent.

How to check for yourself

Worth knowing

Browsers can’t rename files where they are. You get renamed copies: Save all to a folder (Chrome and Edge on a computer) writes them into a folder you pick; elsewhere they download as a ZIP.
Photo dates carry no time zone: they’re the time the camera’s clock showed. A camera still set to home time on a trip will name photos in home time.
Screenshots, downloads and photos saved from chat apps usually have no date inside; they fall back to the file’s modified date, and the report marks them.
Videos aren’t renamed yet: this reads the date stored in photos.

Why date names beat IMG_4821

Every phone and camera numbers its photos its own way — IMG_, PXL_, DSC_, 20260714_ — and the counters restart, clash and wrap around. Put two phones’ photos in one folder and sorting by name mixes them up; sorting by file date sorts them by when they were copied. A name that starts with the capture date, year first, sorts correctly everywhere: in any folder, on any computer, in any cloud drive.

The year-month-day order is the international standard (ISO 8601). It’s the only date format that sorts correctly as plain text, which is exactly what file names are.

Questions

How do I rename photos by the date they were taken?

Drop them here, pick how the names should look, and press Rename by date. Each photo is named from the date and time stored inside it, like 2026-07-14 18.42.07.jpg, and two photos from the same second become -2, -3 in order. Then save them all to a folder or as one ZIP.

Where does the date come from?

From the EXIF data the phone or camera writes into each photo at the moment it is taken (DateTimeOriginal). That’s different from the file’s created or modified date, which changes whenever a photo is copied, downloaded or backed up — which is why sorting by those dates so often gets the order wrong.

Why were some photos named by the file date?

Because they have no capture date inside. Screenshots, photos saved from WhatsApp and other chat apps, images downloaded from the web and some edited pictures lose or never had it. Those are named by the file’s modified date instead, and marked in the report; choose Keep their name under Advanced to leave them as they are.

Can I rename photos by date on Windows or a Mac without software?

Not by the date taken. Windows’ F2 batch rename and the Mac’s Rename command add numbers or today’s date, not the capture date inside each photo, and the Photos apps only rename on export. This page does it in any browser, with nothing to install.

Does renaming change the photos?

No. The renamed files are byte-for-byte the originals: the same pixels, the same quality, and the same metadata, including the location if there is one. To remove that before sharing, use Remove Metadata afterwards; to see what each photo carries, the photo metadata viewer.

Next steps

Often used before or after Rename Photos by Date. These run on your device too.