Video

[organize]
strategy = "video"
template = "{resolution}/{year}"

Two backends

Always available: a pure-Rust MP4/MOV container parser reads width, height, codec, and creation time directly — no external tool needed. Understands MP4/MOV only, and never populates {duration}/{fps}.

Optional, tried first if present: if ffprobe is on your PATH, Sift uses it for broader container/format support and richer metadata. If ffprobe is missing, or present but fails for any reason, Sift silently falls back to the built-in parser rather than erroring out.

The fields both backends share ({width}, {height}, {resolution}, {codec}, {year}) are identical for the same file regardless of which backend answered — a template you’ve already configured never points somewhere different just because you installed ffmpeg later.

Placeholders

{resolution}
{width}
{height}
{codec}
{year}
{duration}   ffprobe only
{fps}        ffprobe only

If a template uses {duration} or {fps} and ffprobe isn’t installed, those fields are unavailable — the file is skipped with a clear reason, never given a guessed value.

Installing ffprobe

install.sh checks for ffprobe and offers to install it — see Installation. It’s entirely optional; video works without it.

Recursion

video does not support --recursive — see Recursive Organization for why (shared by all four metadata strategies).

Related

• Audio, Photos, Documents — the other metadata-driven strategies.