Extract/display Exif Metadata for Rack Images

[jcollie]

I just started adding images for all of our racks and it would be nice if Netbox would extract the Exif metadata (particularly the date/time). Displaying the images in reverse date/time order would be great so that we can see the evolution of the racks.

[mathieumd]

I don't think that extracting metadata from images would be worst the work. Images are already sorted alphabetically by name. If you name them consistently (for example 2025-09-05-23-59-59.jpg), half of the job is already done!

All we really need is a button to change the ordering (A→Z or Z→A) of images. (Of course, in order to not having to click it again each time, it's state should be saved in the profile (or cookie?))

[jcollie]

I don't think that extracting metadata from images would be worst the work. Images are already sorted alphabetically by name. If you name them consistently (for example 2025-09-05-23-59-59.jpg), half of the job is already done!

Cameras of different makes and models don't name images consistently, nor do they always include the date in the name. So basically you're asking humans to do the work of (consistently) naming every file uploaded with the date, or write a program outside of Netbox to handle renaming the file. That seems pretty silly when there are several excellent Python libraries for extracting metadata from images that could be easily integrated into Netbox.

This is especially silly when considering that many people will be uploading images from mobile devices where doing this naming would be particularly annoying.

[mathieumd]

It would be easier, sure, I don't disagree with that.

[jcollie]

And digging around, netbox already requires Pillow, which includes routines for getting an image's metadata so no additional dependency is needed.