EXIFTOOL(1) User Contributed Perl Documentation EXIFTOOL(1)NAMEexiftool - Read and write meta information in files
SYNOPSISexiftool [OPTIONS] [-TAG...] [--TAG...] FILE...
exiftool [OPTIONS] -TAG[+-<]=[VALUE]... FILE...
exiftool [OPTIONS] -tagsFromFile SRCFILE [-SRCTAG[>DSTTAG]...] FILE...
exiftool [ -ver | -list[w|f|wf|g[NUM]|d|x] ]
For specific examples, see the EXAMPLES sections below.
DESCRIPTION
A command-line interface to Image::ExifTool, used for reading and
writing meta information in image, audio and video files. FILE is a
source file name, directory name, or "-" for the standard input.
Information is read from the source file and output in readable form to
the console (or written to an output text file with the -w option).
To write or copy information, new tag values are specified with the
-TAG=[VALUE] syntax or the -tagsFromFile or -geotag options. This
causes FILE to be rewritten, and by default the original file is
preserved with "_original" appended to the file name. (Be sure to
verify that the new file is OK before erasing the original.) Once in
write mode, exiftool will ignore any read-specific options.
Note: If FILE is a directory name, then only file types with
recognized extensions are processed when reading, and only writable
types are processed when any tag is written. However, a filename may
be specified or the -ext option may be used to force processing of
files with any extension.
Below is a list of file types and meta information formats currently
supported by ExifTool (r = read, w = write, c = create):
File Types
------------+-------------+-------------+-------------+------------
3FR r | DOC r | K25 r | PAGES r | RWZ r
3G2 r | DOCX r | KDC r | PBM r/w | RM r
3GP r | DVB r | KEY r | PDF r/w | SO r
ACR r | DYLIB r | LNK r | PEF r/w | SR2 r/w
AFM r | EIP r | M2TS r | PFA r | SRF r
AI r/w | EPS r/w | M4A/V r | PFB r | SRW r/w
AIFF r | ERF r/w | MEF r/w | PFM r | SVG r
APE r | EXE r | MIE r/w/c | PGM r/w | SWF r
ARW r/w | EXIF r/w/c | MIFF r | PICT r | THM r/w
ASF r | F4A/V r | MNG r/w | PNG r/w | TIFF r/w
AVI r | FLA r | MOS r/w | PPM r/w | TTC r
BMP r | FLAC r | MOV r | PPT r | TTF r
BTF r | FLV r | MP3 r | PPTX r | VRD r/w/c
COS r | FPX r | MP4 r | PS r/w | WAV r
CR2 r/w | GIF r/w | MPC r | PSB r/w | WDP r/w
CRW r/w | GZ r | MPG r | PSD r/w | WMA r
CS1 r/w | HDP r/w | MPO r/w | PSP r | WMV r
DCM r | HTML r | MQV r | QTIF r | X3F r
DCP r/w | ICC r/w/c | MRW r/w | RA r | XLS r
DCR r | IIQ r | NEF r/w | RAF r/w | XLSX r
DFONT r | IND r/w | NRW r/w | RAM r | XMP r/w/c
DIVX r | ITC r | NUMBERS r | RAW r/w | ZIP r
DJVU r | JNG r/w | OGG r | RIFF r |
DLL r | JP2 r/w | ORF r/w | RW2 r/w |
DNG r/w | JPEG r/w | OTF r | RWL r/w |
Meta Information
----------------------+----------------------+---------------------
EXIF r/w/c | JPEG 2000 r | APE r
GPS r/w/c | DICOM r | Vorbis r
IPTC r/w/c | Flash r | SPIFF r
XMP r/w/c | FlashPix r | DjVu r
MakerNotes r/w/c | QuickTime r | M2TS r
Photoshop IRB r/w/c | GeoTIFF r | PE/COFF r
ICC Profile r/w/c | PrintIM r | AVCHD r
MIE r/w/c | ID3 r | ZIP r
JFIF r/w/c | Kodak Meta r | (and more)
Ducky APP12 r/w/c | Ricoh RMETA r |
PDF r/w/c | Picture Info r |
CIFF r/w | Adobe APP14 r |
AFCP r/w | MPF r |
PhotoMechanic r/w | Stim r |
OPTIONS
Case is not significant for any command-line option (including tag and
group names), except for single-character options when the
corresponding upper-case option is defined. Many single-character
options have equivalent long-name versions (shown in brackets), and
some options have inverses which are invoked with a leading double-
dash. Note that multiple single-character options may NOT be combined
into one argument because this would be interpreted as a tag name.
Option Summary
-TAG or --TAG Extract or exclude specified tag
-TAG[+-]=[VALUE] Write new value for tag
-TAG[+-]<=DATFILE Write tag value from contents of file
-TAG[+-]<SRCTAG Copy tag value (see -tagsFromFile)
-@ ARGFILE Read command-line arguments from file
-a (-duplicates) Allow duplicate tag names in output
-b (-binary) Output data in binary format
-c FMT (-coordFormat) Set format for GPS coordinates
-charset [[TYPE=]CHARSET] Specify encoding for special characters
-d FMT (-dateFormat) Set format for date/time values
-D (-decimal) Show tag ID numbers in decimal
-e (--composite) Do not calculate composite tags
-E, -ex (-escape(HTML|XML)) Escape values for HTML (-E) or XML (-ex)
-ee (-extractEmbedded) Extract information from embedded files
-ext EXT (-extension) Process files with specified extension
-f (-forcePrint) Force printing of all specified tags
-F[OFFSET] (-fixBase) Fix the base for maker notes offsets
-fast[NUM] Increase speed for slow devices
-fileOrder [-]TAG Set file processing order
-g[NUM...] (-groupHeadings) Organize output by tag group
-G[NUM...] (-groupNames) Print group name for each tag
-geotag TRKFILE Geotag images from specified GPS log
-h (-htmlFormat) Use HMTL formatting for output
-H (-hex) Show tag ID number in hexadecimal
-htmlDump[OFFSET] Generate HTML-format binary dump
-i DIR (-ignore) Ignore specified directory name
-if EXPR Conditionally process files
-j (-json) Use JSON output format
-k (-pause) Pause before terminating
-l (-long) Use long 2-line output format
-L (-latin) Use Windows Latin1 encoding
-lang [LANG] Set current language
-list[w|f|wf|g[NUM]|d|x] List various exiftool attributes
-m (-ignoreMinorErrors) Ignore minor errors and warnings
-n (--printConv) Disable print conversion
-o OUTFILE (-out) Set output file or directory name
-overwrite_original Overwrite original by renaming tmp file
-overwrite_original_in_place Overwrite original by copying tmp file
-p FMTFILE (-printFormat) Print output in specified format
-P (-preserve) Preserve date/time of original file
-q (-quiet) Quiet processing
-r (-recurse) Recursively process subdirectories
-s (-short) Short output format
-S (-veryShort) Very short output format
-scanForXMP Brute force XMP scan
-sep STR (-separator) Set separator string for list items
-struct Use structured XML or JSON output
-t (-tab) Output in tab-delimited list format
-T (-table) Output in tabular format
-tagsFromFile SRCFILE Copy tag values from file
-u (-unknown) Extract unknown tags
-U (-unknown2) Extract unknown binary tags too
-use MODULE Add features from plug-in module
-v[NUM] (-verbose) Print verbose messages
-ver Print exiftool version number
-w EXT (-textOut) Write console output to file
-x TAG (-exclude) Exclude specified tag
-X (-xmlFormat) Use RDF/XML output format
-z (-zip) Read/write compressed information
-common_args Define common arguments
-config CFGFILE Specify configuration file name
-execute Execute multiple commands on one line
-srcfile FMT Set different source file name
Option Details
-TAG Extract information for specified tag (ie. "-CreateDate"). A tag
name is the handle by which a piece of information is referenced.
See Image::ExifTool::TagNames for documentation on available tag
names. A tag name may include leading group names separated by
colons (ie. "-EXIF:CreateDate", or "-Doc1:XMP:Creator"), and each
group name may be prefixed by a digit to specify family number
(ie. "-1IPTC:City"). Use the -listg option to list available
group names by family.
A special tag name of "All" may be used to indicate all meta
information. This is particularly useful when a group name is
specified to extract all information in a group. ("*" is a
synonym for "All", but must be quoted if used on the command line
to prevent shell globbing.)
A "#" may be appended to the tag name to disable the print
conversion on a per-tag basis (see the -n option). This may also
be used when writing or copying tags.
If no tags are specified, all available information is extracted.
Note: Descriptions, not tag names, are shown by default when
extracting information. Use the -s option to see the tag names
instead.
--TAG
Exclude specified tag from extracted information. Same as the -x
option. May also be used following a -tagsFromFile option to
exclude tags from being copied, or to exclude groups from being
deleted when deleting all information (ie. "-all= --exif:all"
deletes all but EXIF information). But note that this will not
exclude individual tags from a group delete. Instead, the tags
must be recovered using the -tagsFromFile option (ie. "-all=
-tagsfromfile @ -artist").
-TAG[+-]=[VALUE]
Write a new value for the specified tag (ie. "-comment=wow"), or
delete the tag if no VALUE is given (ie. "-comment="). "+=" and
"-=" are used to add or remove existing entries from a list, or to
shift date/time values (see Image::ExifTool::Shift.pl for
details), and "-=" may be used to conditionally remove or replace
a tag (see "WRITING EXAMPLES" for examples).
TAG may contain a leading family 0 or 1 group name separated by a
colon. If no group name is specified, the tag is created in the
preferred group, and updated in any other location where a same-
named tag already exists. The preferred group is the first group
in the following list where TAG is valid: 1) EXIF, 2) IPTC, 3)
XMP.
The special "All" tag may be used in this syntax only if a VALUE
is NOT given. This causes all meta information to be deleted (or
all information in a group if "-GROUP:All=" is used). Note that
not all groups are deletable. Use the -listd option for a
complete list of deletable groups. Also, within an image some
groups may be contained within others, and these groups are
removed if the containing group is deleted:
JPEG Image:
- Deleting EXIF or IFD0 also deletes ExifIFD, GlobParamIFD,
GPS, IFD1, InteropIFD, MakerNotes, PrintIM and SubIFD.
- Deleting ExifIFD also deletes InteropIFD and MakerNotes.
- Deleting Photoshop also deletes IPTC.
TIFF Image:
- Deleting EXIF only removes ExifIFD which also deletes
InteropIFD and MakerNotes.
Note: MakerNotes tags may be edited, but not created or deleted
individually. This avoids many potential problems including the
inevitable compatibility problems with OEM software which may be
very inflexible about the information it expects to find in the
maker notes.
-TAG<=DATFILE or -TAG<=FMT
Set the value of a tag from the contents of file DATFILE. The
file name may also be given by a FMT string where %d, %f and %e
represent the directory, file name and extension of the original
FILE (see the -w option for more details). Note that quotes are
required around this argument to prevent shell redirection since
it contains a "<" symbol. "+<=" or "-<=" may also be used to add
or delete specific list entries, or to shift date/time values.
-@ ARGFILE
Read command-line arguments from the specified file. The file
contains one argument per line (NOT one option per line -- some
options require additional arguments which must be placed on
separate lines). Blank lines and lines beginning with "#" and are
ignored. Normal shell processing of arguments is not performed,
which among other things means that arguments should not be
quoted. ARGFILE may exist relative to either the current
directory or the exiftool directory unless an absolute pathname is
given.
For example, the following ARGFILE will set the value of Copyright
to "Copyright YYYY, Phil Harvey", where "YYYY" is the year of
CreateDate:
-d
%Y
-copyright<Copyright $createdate, Phil Harvey
-a, --a (-duplicates, --duplicates)
Allow (-a) or suppress (--a) duplicate tag names in the output.
By default, duplicate tags are suppressed unless the -ee or -X
options are used or the Duplicates option is enabled in the
configuration file.
-b (-binary)
Output requested data in binary format without tag names or
descriptions. This option is mainly used for extracting embedded
images or other binary data, but it may also be useful for some
text strings since control characters (such as newlines) are not
replaced by '.' as they are in the default output. Also valid in
combination with the "-X" option.
-c FMT (-coordFormat)
Set the print format for GPS coordinates. FMT uses the same
syntax as the "printf" format string. The specifiers correspond
to degrees, minutes and seconds in that order, but minutes and
seconds are optional. For example, the following table gives the
output for the same coordinate using various formats:
FMT Output
-------------------------------------
"%d deg %d' %.2f"\" 54 deg 59' 22.80" (default for reading)
"%d %d %.8f" 54 59 22.80000000 (default for copying)
"%d deg %.4f min" 54 deg 59.3800 min
"%.6f degrees" 54.989667 degrees
Note: To avoid loss of precision, the default coordinate format
is different when copying tags using the -tagsFromFile option.
-charset [[TYPE=]CHARSET]
If TYPE is "ExifTool" or not specified, this option sets the
ExifTool character encoding for output tag values when reading and
input values when writing. The default ExifTool encoding is
"UTF8". TYPE may also be "ID3" to specify the internal encoding
of ID3v1 information, or "IPTC" to set the internal IPTC encoding
when IPTC:CodedCharacterSet is not defined. The default ID3 and
IPTC charsets are "Latin". If no CHARSET is given, a list of
available character sets is returned. See
<http://owl.phy.queensu.ca/~phil/exiftool/faq.html#Q10> for more
information about character sets. Valid CHARSET values are:
CHARSET Alias(es) Description
-----------------------------------------------------------
UTF8 cp65001, UTF-8 UTF-8 characters
Latin cp1252, Latin1 Windows Latin1 (West European)
Latin2 cp1250 Windows Latin2 (Central European)
Cyrillic cp1251, Russian Windows Cyrillic
Greek cp1253 Windows Greek
Turkish cp1254 Windows Turkish
Hebrew cp1255 Windows Hebrew
Arabic cp1256 Windows Arabic
Baltic cp1257 Windows Baltic
Vietnam cp1258 Windows Vietnamese
Thai cp874 Windows Thai
MacRoman cp10000, Roman Macintosh Roman
MacLatin2 cp10029 Macintosh Latin2 (Central Europe)
MacCyrillic cp10007 Macintosh Cyrillic
MacGreek cp10006 Macintosh Greek
MacTurkish cp10081 Macintosh Turkish
MacRomanian cp10010 Macintosh Romanian
MacIceland cp10079 Macintosh Icelandic
MacCroatian cp10082 Macintosh Croatian
-d FMT (-dateFormat)
Set the format for date/time tag values. Consult "strftime" man
page for FMT syntax. The default format is equivalent to "%Y:%m:%d
%H:%M:%S". This option has no effect on date-only or time-only
tags and ignores timezone information if present. Only one -d
option may be used per command. The inverse operation (ie. un-
formatting a date/time value) is currently not applied when
writing a date/time tag.
-D (-decimal)
Show tag ID number in decimal when extracting information.
-e (--composite)
Print existing tags only -- don't calculate composite tags.
-E, -ex (-escapeHTML, -escapeXML)
Escape characters in output values for HTML (-E) or XML (-ex).
For HTML, all characters with Unicode code points above U+007F are
escaped as well as the following 5 characters: & (&) ' (')
" (") > (>) and < (<). For XML, only these 5
characters are escaped. The -E option is implied with -h, and -ex
is implied with -X. The inverse conversion is applied when
writing tags.
-ee (-extractEmbedded)
Extract information from embedded documents in EPS and PDF files,
embedded MPF images in JPEG and MPO files, streaming metadata from
AVCHD videos, and the resource fork of Macintosh files. Implies
the -a option. Use -g3 or -G3 to identify the originating
document for extracted information. Embedded documents containing
sub-documents are indicated with dashes in the family 3 group
name. (ie. "Doc2-3" is the 3rd sub-document of the 2nd embedded
document.)
-ext EXT, --ext EXT (-extension)
Process only files with (-ext) or without (--ext) a specified
extension. There may be multiple -ext and --ext options.
Extensions may begin with a leading '.', and case is not
significant. For example:
exiftool-ext .JPG DIR # process only JPG files
exiftool--ext crw --ext dng DIR # process all but CRW and DNG
exiftool--ext . DIR # ignore if no extension
-f (-forcePrint)
Force printing of tags even if their values are not found. This
option only applies when tag names are specified. May also be
used to add a 'flags' attribute to the -listx output.
-F[OFFSET] (-fixBase)
Fix the base for maker notes offsets. A common problem with some
image editors is that offsets in the maker notes are not adjusted
properly when the file is modified. This may cause the wrong
values to be extracted for some maker note entries when reading
the edited file. This option allows an integer OFFSET to be
specified for adjusting the maker notes base offset. If no OFFSET
is given, ExifTool takes its best guess at the correct base. Note
that exiftool will automatically fix the offsets for images which
store original offset information (ie. newer Canon models).
Offsets are fixed permanently if -F is used when writing EXIF to
an image. ie)
exiftool-F -exif:resolutionunit=inches image.jpg
-fast[NUM]
Increase speed of extracting information from JPEG images. With
this option, ExifTool will not scan to the end of a JPEG image to
check for an AFCP or PreviewImage trailer, or past the first
comment in GIF images or the audio/video data in WAV/AVI files to
search for additional metadata. These speed benefits are small
when reading images directly from disk, but can be substantial if
piping images through a network connection. For more substantial
speed benefits, -fast2 also causes exiftool to avoid extracting
any EXIF MakerNote information.
-fileOrder [-]TAG
Set file processing order according to the sorted value of the
specified TAG. For example, to process files in order of date:
exiftool-fileOrder DateTimeOriginal DIR
Additional -fileOrder options may be added as secondary sort keys.
Floating point values are sorted numerically, and all other values
are sorted alphabetically. The sort order may be reversed by
prefixing the tag name with a "-" (ie. "-fileOrder -createdate").
Note that this option has a large performance impact since it
involves an additional processing pass of each file.
-g[NUM][:NUM...] (-groupHeadings)
Organize output by tag group. NUM specifies a group family
number, and may be 0 (general location), 1 (specific location), 2
(category), 3 (document number) or 4 (instance number). Multiple
families may be specified by separating them with colons. By
default the resulting group name is simplified by removing any
leading "Main:" and collapsing adjacent identical group names, but
this can avoided by placing a colon before the first family number
(ie. -g:3:1). If NUM is not specified, -g0 is assumed. Use the
-listg option to list group names for a specified family.
-G[NUM][:NUM...] (-groupNames)
Same as -g but print group name for each tag.
-geotag TRKFILE
Geotag images from the specified GPS track log file. Using the
-geotag option is equivalent to writing a value to the "Geotag"
tag. After the -geotag option has been specified, the value of
the "Geotime" tag is written to define a date/time for the
position interpolation. If "Geotime" is not specified, the value
is copied from "DateTimeOriginal". For example, the following two
commands are equivalent:
exiftool-geotag track.log image.jpg
exiftool-geotag "-Geotime<DateTimeOriginal" image.jpg
When the "Geotime" value is converted to UTC, the local system
timezone is assumed unless the date/time value contains a
timezone. Writing "Geotime" causes the following 8 EXIF tags to
be created: GPSLatitude, GPSLatitudeRef, GPSLongitude,
GPSLongitudeRef, GPSAltitude, GPSAltitudeRef, GPSDateStamp and
GPSTimeStamp. Alternately "XMP:Geotime" may be written to create
the following 5 XMP tags: GPSLatitude, GPSLongitude, GPSAltitude,
GPSAltitudeRef and GPSDateTime.
The "Geosync" tag may be used to specify a time correction which
is applied to each "Geotime" value for synchronization with GPS
time. For example, the following command compensates for image
times which are 1 minute and 20 seconds behind GPS:
exiftool -geosync=+1:20 -geotag a.log DIR
Multiple -geotag options may be used to concatinate GPS track log
data. Also, a single -geotag option may be used to load multiple
track log files by using wildcards in the TRKFILE name, but note
that in this case TRKFILE must be quoted on most systems (with the
notable exception of Windows) to prevent filename expansion. For
example:
exiftool-geotag "TRACKDIR/*.log" IMAGEDIR
Currently supported track file formats are GPX, NMEA RMC/GGA/GLL,
KML, IGC, Garmin XML and TCX, and Magellan PMGNTRK. See
"GEOTAGGING EXAMPLES" for examples. Also see "geotag.html" in the
full ExifTool distribution and the Image::ExifTool Options for
more details and for information about geotag configuration
options.
-h (-htmlFormat)
Use HTML table formatting for output. Implies the -E option. The
formatting options -D, -H, -g, -G, -l and -s may be used in
combination with -h to influence the HTML format.
-H (-hex)
Show tag ID number in hexadecimal when extracting information.
-htmlDump[OFFSET]
Generate a dynamic web page containing a hex dump of the EXIF
information. This can be a very powerful tool for low-level
analysis of EXIF information. The -htmlDump option is also
invoked if the -v and -h options are used together. The verbose
level controls the maximum length of the blocks dumped. An OFFSET
may be given to specify the base for displayed offsets. If not
provided, the EXIF/TIFF base offset is used. Use -htmlDump0 for
absolute offsets. Currently only EXIF/TIFF and JPEG information
is dumped, but the -u option can be used to give a raw hex dump of
other file formats.
-i DIR (-ignore)
Ignore specified directory name. May be multiple -i options.
-if EXPR
Specify a condition to be evaluated before processing each FILE.
EXPR is a Perl-like expression containing tag names prefixed by
"$" symbols. It is evaluated with the tags from each FILE in
turn, and the file is processed only if the expression returns
true. Unlike Perl variable names, tag names are not case
sensitive and may contain a hyphen. As well, tag names may have a
leading group name separated by a colon, and/or a trailing "#"
character to disable print conversion. When multiple -if options
are used, all conditions must be satisfied to process the file.
Returns an exit status of 1 if all files fail the condition.
Below are a few examples:
# extract shutterspeed from all Canon images in a directory
exiftool-shutterspeed -if '$make eq "Canon"' dir
# add one hour to all images created on or after Apr. 2, 2006
exiftool -alldates+=1 -if '$CreateDate ge "2006:04:02"' dir
# set EXIF ISO value if possible, unless it is set already
exiftool '-exif:iso<iso' -if 'not $exif:iso' dir
# find images containing a specific keyword (case insensitive)
exiftool-if '$keywords =~ /harvey/i' -filename dir
-j (-json)
Use JSON (JavaScript Object Notation) formatting for console
output. This option may be combined with -g to organize the
output into objects by group, or -G to add group names to each
tag. List-type tags with multiple items are output as JSON arrays
unless -sep is used. By default XMP structures are flattened into
individual tags in the JSON output, but the original structure may
be preserved with the -struct option (this also causes all List-
type XMP tags to be output as JSON arrays, while without this
option single-item lists are output as simple strings). The -a
option is implied if the -g or -G options are used, otherwise it
is ignored and duplicate tags are suppressed. The -b, -L and
-charset options have no effect on the JSON output.
-k (-pause)
Pause with the message "-- press any key --" before terminating.
This option is used to prevent the command window from closing
when run as a Windows drag and drop application.
-l (-long)
Use long 2-line Canon-style output format. Adds a description and
unconverted value to the XML output when -X is used.
-L (-latin)
Use Windows Latin1 encoding (cp1252) for output tag values instead
of the default UTF-8. When writing, -L specifies that input text
values are Latin1 instead of UTF-8. Equivalent to "-charset
latin".
-lang [LANG]
Set current language for tag descriptions and converted values.
LANG is "de", "fr", "ja", etc. Use -lang with no other arguments
to get a list of available languages. The default language is
"en" if -lang is not specified. Note that tag/group names are
always English, independent of the -lang setting, and translation
of warning/error messages has not yet been implemented.
By default, ExifTool uses UTF-8 encoding for special characters,
but the the -L or -charset option may be used to invoke other
encodings.
Currently, the language support is not complete, but users are
welcome to help improve this by submitting their own translations.
To submit a set of translations, first use the -listx option and
redirect the output to a file to generate an XML tag database,
then add entries for other languages, zip this file, and email it
to phil at owl.phy.queensu.ca for inclusion in ExifTool.
-list, -listw, -listf, -listwf, -listg[NUM], -listd, -listx
Print a list of all valid tag names (-list), all writable tag
names (-listw), all recognized file extensions (-listf), all
writable file extensions (-listwf), all tag groups [in a specified
family] (-listg[NUM]), all deletable tag groups (-listd), or an
XML database of tag details (-listx). The -list, -listw and
-listx options may be followed by an additional argument of the
form "-GROUP:All" to list all tags in a specific group, where
"GROUP" is one or more family 0-2 group names (excepting EXIF IFD
groups) separated by colons. With -listg, NUM may be given to
specify the group family, otherwise family 0 is assumed. The -s
and -f options may be used with -listx to shorten the output by
omitting the descriptions and values, and to add a 'flags'
attribute. Here are some examples:
-list # list all tag names
-list -EXIF:All # list all EXIF tags
-list -xmp:time:all # list all XMP tags relating to time
-listw -XMP-dc:All # list all writable XMP-dc tags
-listf # list all recognized file extensions
-listwf # list all writable file extensions
-listg1 # list all groups in family 1
-listd # list all deletable groups
-listx -EXIF:All # list database of EXIF tags in XML format
-listx -XMP:All -s # list short XML database of XMP tags
Note that none of the -list options require an input FILE.
-m (-ignoreMinorErrors)
Ignore minor errors and warnings. This enables writing to files
with minor errors and disables some validation checks which could
result in minor warnings.
-n (--printConv)
Read and write values as numbers instead of words. By default,
extracted values are converted to a more human-readable format for
printing, but the -n option disables this print conversion for all
tags. For example:
> exiftool-Orientation -S a.jpg
Orientation: Rotate 90 CW
> exiftool-Orientation -S -n a.jpg
Orientation: 6
The print conversion may also be disabled on a per-tag basis by
suffixing the tag name with a "#" character:
> exiftool -Orientation# -Orientation -S a.jpg
Orientation: 6
Orientation: Rotate 90 CW
These techniques may also be used to disable the inverse print
conversion when writing. For example, the following commands all
have the same effect:
> exiftool -Orientation='Rotate 90 CW' a.jpg
> exiftool -Orientation=6 -n a.jpg
> exiftool -Orientation#=6 a.jpg
-o OUTFILE or FMT (-out)
Set the output file or directory name when writing information.
(Without this option, the original file is renamed to
"FILE_original" and output is sent to FILE.) The output file name
may also be specified using a FMT string in which %d, %f and %e
represent the directory, file name and extension of FILE. Also,
%c may be used to add a copy number. See the -w option for FMT
string examples.
The output file is taken to be a directory name if it already
exists as a directory or if the name ends with '/'. Output
directories are created if necessary. Existing files will not be
overwritten. Combining the -overwrite_original option with -o
causes the original source file to be erased after the output file
is successfully written.
A special feature of this option allows it to be used to create
certain types of files from scratch. Currently, this can only be
done with XMP, ICC/ICM, MIE, VRD and EXIF files by specifying the
appropriate extension for OUTFILE. The file is created from a
combination of information in FILE (as if the -tagsFromFile option
was used), and tag values assigned on the command line. If no
FILE is specified, the output file may be created from scratch
using only tags assigned on the command line.
-overwrite_original
Overwrite the original FILE (instead of preserving it by adding
"_original" to the file name) when writing information to an
image. Caution: This option should only be used if you already
have separate backup copies of your image files. The overwrite is
implemented by renaming a temporary file to replace the original.
This deletes the original file and replaces it with the edited
version in a single operation. When combined with -o, this option
causes the original file to be deleted if the output file was
successfully written.
-overwrite_original_in_place
Similar to -overwrite_original except that an extra step is added
to allow the original file attributes to be preserved. For
example, on a Mac this causes the original file creation date,
ownership, permissions, type, creator, icon and resource fork to
be preserved. This is implemented by opening the original file in
update mode and replacing its data with a copy of a temporary file
before deleting the temporary. The extra step results in slower
performance, so the -overwrite_original option should be used
instead unless necessary.
-p FMTFILE or STR (-printFormat)
Print output in the format specified by the given file or string
(and ignore other format options). Tag names in the format file
or string begin with a "$" symbol and may contain a leading group
name and/or a trailing "#". Case is not significant. Braces "{}"
may be used around the tag name to separate it from subsequent
text. Use $$ to represent a "$" symbol, and $/ for a newline.
Multiple -p options may be used, each contributing a line of text
to the output. Lines beginning with "#[HEAD]" and "#[TAIL]" are
output only for the first and last processed files respectively.
Lines beginning with "#[BODY]" and lines not beginning with "#"
are output for each processed file. Other lines beginning with
"#" are ignored. For example, this format file:
# this is a comment line
#[HEAD]# Generated by ExifTool $exifToolVersion
File: $FileName - $DateTimeOriginal
(f/$Aperture, ${ShutterSpeed}s, ISO $EXIF:ISO)
#[TAIL]# end
with this command:
exiftool-p test.fmt a.jpg b.jpg
produces output like this:
# Generated by ExifTool 8.10
File: a.jpg - 2003:10:31 15:44:19
(f/5.6, 1/60s, ISO 100)
File: b.jpg - 2006:05:23 11:57:38
(f/8.0, 1/13s, ISO 100)
# end
When -ee (-extractEmbedded) is combined with -p, embedded
documents are effectively processed as separate input files.
If a specified tag does not exist, a minor warning is issued and
the line with the missing tag is not printed. However, the -f
option may be used to set the value of missing tags to '-', or the
-m option may be used to ignore minor warnings and leave the
missing values empty.
-P (-preserve)
Preserve the filesystem modification date/time of the original
file ("FileModifyDate") when writing. Note that some filesystems
(ie. Mac and Windows) store a creation date which is not preserved
by this option. For these systems, the
-overwrite_original_in_place option may be used to preserve the
creation date.
-q (-quiet)
Quiet processing. One -q suppresses normal informational
messages, and a second -q suppresses warnings as well. Error
messages can not be suppressed, although minor errors may be
downgraded to warnings with the -m option.
-r (-recurse)
Recursively process files in subdirectories. Only meaningful if
FILE is a directory name.
-s (-short)
Short output format. Prints tag names instead of descriptions.
Add up to 3 -s options for even shorter formats:
-s - print tag names instead of descriptions
-s -s - no extra spaces to column-align values
-s -s -s - print values only
Also effective when combined with -t, -h, -X or -listx options.
-S (-veryShort)
Very short format. The same as two -s options. Extra spaces used
to column-align values are not printed.
-scanForXMP
Scan all files (even unrecognized formats) for XMP information
unless found already. When combined with the -fast option, only
unrecognized file types are scanned. Warning: It can be time
consuming to scan large files.
-sep STR (-separator)
Specify separator string for items in List-type tags. When
reading, the default is ", ". When writing, this option causes
values assigned to list-type tags to be split into individual
items at each substring matching specified separator. Space
characters in the separator string match zero or more whitespace
characters.
-struct
Output structured information instead of flattening to individual
tags. Effective only for XML and JSON output formats (-X and -j)
when extracting XMP information.
-t (-tab)
Output a tab-delimited list of description/values (useful for
database import). May be combined with -s to print tag names
instead of descriptions, or -S to print tag values only, tab-
delimited on a single line. The -t option may also be used to add
tag table information to the -X option output.
-T (-table)
Output tag values in table form. (Equivalent to -t -S -q -f.)
-tagsFromFile SRCFILE or FMT
Copy tag values from SRCFILE to FILE. Tag names on the command
line after this option specify the tags to be copied, or excluded
from the copy. If no tags are specified, then all tags from the
source file are copied. More than one -tagsFromFile option may be
used to copy tags from multiple files.
By default, this option will commute information between same-
named tags in different groups and write each tag to the preferred
group. This allows some information to be automatically
translated when copying between images of different formats.
However, if a group name is specified for a tag then the
information is written to the original group (unless redirected to
another group, see below). This works even if "All" is used as a
group name, so "-All:All" is used to specify that all information
be copied to the same group in the destination file.
SRCFILE may be the same as FILE to move information around within
a file. In this case, "@" may be used to represent the source
file (ie. "-tagsFromFile @"), permitting this feature to be used
for batch processing multiple files (see note 3 below). Specified
tags are then copied from each file in turn as it is rewritten.
For advanced batch use, the source file name may also be specified
using a FMT string in which %d, %f and %e represent the directory,
file name and extension of FILE. See -w option for FMT string
examples.
A powerful redirection feature allows a destination tag to be
specified for each extracted tag. With this feature, information
may be written to a tag with a different name or group. This is
done using "'-SRCTAG>DSTTAG'" on the command line after
-tagsFromFile ("'-DSTTAG<SRCTAG'" also works). Note that this
argument must be quoted to prevent shell redirection, and there is
no "=" sign as when assigning new values. Both source and
destination tags may be prefixed by a group name, and "All" or "*"
may be used as a tag or group name. If no destination group is
specified, the information is written to the preferred group. As
a convenience, "-tagsFromFile @" is assumed for any redirected
tags which are specified without a prior -tagsFromFile option.
Copied tags may also be added or deleted from a list with
arguments of the form "'-SRCTAG+>DSTTAG'" or "'-SRCTAG->DSTTAG'".
An extension of the redirection feature allows strings involving
tag names to be used on the right hand side of the "<" symbol with
the syntax "'-DSTTAG<STR'", where tag names in STR are prefixed
with a "$" symbol. See the -p option for more details about this
syntax. Strings starting with a "=" sign must insert a single
space after the "<" to avoid confusion with the "<=" syntax which
would otherwise attempt to set the tag value from the contents of
a file. A single space at the start of the string is removed if
it exists, but all other whitespace is preserved.
See "COPYING EXAMPLES" for examples using -tagsFromFile.
Notes:
1) Be aware of the difference between excluding a tag from being
copied (--TAG), and deleting a tag (-TAG=). Excluding a tag
prevents it from being copied to the destination image, but
deleting will remove a pre-existing tag from the image.
2) The maker note information is copied as a block, so it isn't
affected like other information by subsequent tag assignments on
the command line. Also, since the PreviewImage referenced from
the maker notes may be rather large, it is not copied, and must be
transferred separately if desired.
3) When performing complex batch processing, it is important to
note that the order of operations is different for tags copied in
batch mode. In general, tags are copied from batch-mode files
after all other command-line arguments have been applied. For
example, the following two commands are not equivalent:
# (not batch mode): Sets xmp:title to 'NEW'
exiftool-tagsfromfile a.jpg -xmp:title -xmp:title=NEW a.jpg
# (batch mode): Preserves original title if it exists
exiftool-tagsfromfile @ -xmp:title -xmp:title=NEW a.jpg
4) The normal behaviour of copied tags differs subtly from that of
assigned tags for List-type tags. When copying to a list, each
copied tag overrides any previous operations on the list. While
this avoids duplicate list items when copying groups of tags from
a file containing redundant information, it also prevents values
of different tags from being copied into the same list when this
is the intent. So a -addTagsFromFile option is provided which
allows copying of multiple tags into the same list. ie)
exiftool-addtagsfromfile @ '-subject<make' '-subject<model' ...
Other than this difference, the -tagsFromFile and -addTagsFromFile
options are equivalent.
-u (-unknown)
Extract values of unknown tags. Add another -u to also extract
unknown information from binary data blocks. This option applies
to tags with numerical tag ID's, and causes tag names like
"Exif_0xc5d9" to be generated for unknown information. It has no
effect on information types which have human-readable tag ID's
(such as XMP), since unknown tags are extracted automatically from
these formats.
-U (-unknown2)
Extract values of unknown tags as well as unknown information from
some binary data blocks. This is the same as two -u options.
-use MODULE
Add features from specified plug-in MODULE. Currently, the MWG
module is the only plug-in module distributed with exiftool. This
module adds read/write support for tags as recommended by the
Metadata Working Group. To save typing, "-use MWG" is assumed if
the "MWG" group is specified for any tag on the command line. See
the MWG Tags documentation for more details.
-v[NUM] (-verbose)
Print verbose messages. NUM specifies the level of verbosity in
the range 0-5, with higher numbers being more verbose. If NUM is
not given, then each -v option increases the level of verbosity by
1. With any level greater than 0, most other options are ignored
and normal console output is suppressed unless specific tags are
extracted. Using -v0 causes the console output buffer to be
flushed after each line (which may be useful to avoid delays when
piping exiftool output), and prints the name of each processed
file when writing.
-ver Print exiftool version number.
-w EXT or FMT (-textOut)
Write console output to a file with name ending in EXT for each
source file. The output file name is obtained by replacing the
source file extension (including the '.') with the specified
extension (and a '.' is added to the start of EXT if it doesn't
already contain one). Alternatively, a FMT string may be used to
give more control over the output file name and directory. In the
format string, %d, %f and %e represent the directory, filename and
extension of the source file, and %c represents a copy number
which is automatically incremented if the file already exists. %d
includes the trailing '/' if necessary, but %e does not include
the leading '.'. For example:
-w %d%f.txt # same effect as "-w txt"
-w dir/%f_%e.out # write files to "dir" as "FILE_EXT.out"
-w dir2/%d%f.txt # write to "dir2", keeping dir structure
-w a%c.txt # write to "a.txt" or "a1.txt" or "a2.txt"...
Existing files will not be overwritten, and output directories are
created automatically if necessary.
Notes:
1) In a Windows BAT file the "%" character is represented by "%%",
so an argument like "%d%f.txt" is written as "%%d%%f.txt".
2) It is not possible to specify a simple filename as an argument
for -w. Instead, this simple case is accomplished using shell
redirection:
exiftool FILE > out.txt
Advanced features: A substring of the original file name,
directory or extension may be taken by specifying a field width
immediately following the '%' character. If the width is
negative, the substring is taken from the end. The substring
position (characters to ignore at the start or end of the string)
may be given by a second optional value after a decimal point.
For example:
Input File Name Format Specifier Output File Name
-------------------------------- ----------------
Picture-123.jpg %7f.txt Picture.txt
Picture-123.jpg %-.4f.out Picture.out
Picture-123.jpg %7f.%-3f Picture.123
Picture-123a.jpg Meta%-3.1f.txt Meta123.txt
For %c, these modifiers have a different effects. If a field
width is given, the copy number is padded with zeros to the
specified width. A leading '-' adds a dash before the copy
number, and a '+' adds an underline. By default, a copy number of
zero is omitted, but this can be changed by adding a decimal point
to the modifier. For example:
-w A%-cZ.txt # AZ.txt, A-1Z.txt, A-2Z.txt ...
-w B%5c.txt # B.txt, B00001.txt, B00002.txt ...
-w C%.c.txt # C0.txt, C1.txt, C2.txt ...
-w D%-.c.txt # D-0.txt, D-1.txt, D-2.txt ...
-w E%-.4c.txt # E-0000.txt, E-0001.txt, E-0002.txt ...
-w F%-.4nc.txt # F-0001.txt, F-0002.txt, F-0003.txt ...
-w G%+c.txt # G.txt, G_1.txt G_2.txt ...
-w H%-lc.txt # H.txt, H-b.txt, H-c.txt ...
A special feature allows the copy number to be incremented for
each processed file by using %C (upper case) instead of %c. This
allows a sequential number to be added to output file names, even
if the names are different. For %C, the number before the decimal
place gives the starting index, and the number after the decimal
place gives the field width. The following examples show the
output filenames when used with the command "exiftool rose.jpg
star.jpg jet.jpg ...":
-w %C%f.txt # 0rose.txt, 1star.txt, 2jet.txt
-w %f-%10C.txt # rose-10.txt, star-11.txt, jet-12.txt
-w %.3C-%f.txt # 000-rose.txt, 001-star.txt, 002-jet.txt
-w %57.4C%f.txt # 0057rose.txt, 0058star.txt, 0059jet.txt
All format codes may be modified by 'l' or 'u' to specify lower or
upper case respectively (ie. %le for a lower case file extension).
When used to modify %c or %C, the numbers are changed to an
alphabetical base (see example H above). Also, %c may be modified
by 'n' to count using natural numbers starting from 1, instead of
0 (see example F).
This same FMT syntax is used with the -o and -tagsFromFile
options, although %c is only valid for output file names.
-x TAG (-exclude)
Exclude the specified tag. There may be multiple -x options.
This has the same effect as --TAG on the command line. May also
be used following a -tagsFromFile option to exclude tags from
being copied.
-X (-xmlFormat)
Use RDF/XML formatting for console output. Implies the -a option,
so duplicate tags are extracted. The formatting options -b, -D,
-H, -l, -s, -sep, -struct and -t may be used in combination with
-X to affect the output, but note that the tag ID (-D, -H and -t),
binary data (-b) and structured output (-struct) options are not
effective for the short output (-s). Another restriction of -s is
that only one tag with a given group and name may appear in the
output. Note that the tag ID options (-D, -H and -t) will produce
non-standard RDF/XML unless the -l option is also used. By
default, list-type tags with multiple values are formatted as an
RDF Bag, but they are combined into a single string when -s or
-sep is used. Using -L changes the XML encoding from "UTF-8" to
"windows-1252". Other -charset settings change the encoding only
if there is a corresponding standard XML character set. The -b
option causes binary data values to be written, encoded in base64
if necessary. The -t option adds tag table information to the
output (table "name", decimal tag "id", and "index" for cases
where multiple conditional tags exist with the same ID).
-z (-zip)
When reading, causes information to be extracted from .gz and .bz2
compressed images. (Only one image per archive. Requires gzip and
bzip2 to be installed on the system.) When writing, causes
compressed information to be written if supported by the image
format. (ie. The PNG format supports compressed text.)
Advanced Options
Among other things, the advanced options allow complex processing to be
performed from a single command without the need for additional
scripting. This may be particularly useful for implementations such as
Windows drag-and-drop applications. These options may also be used to
improve performance in multi-pass processing by reducing the overhead
required to load exiftool for each invocation.
-common_args
Specifies that all arguments following this option are common to
all executed commands when -execute is used. This and the -config
option are the only options that may not be used inside a -@
ARGFILE.
-config CFGFILE
Load specified configuration file instead of the default
".ExifTool_config". If used, this option must come before all
other arguments on the command line. The CFGFILE name must
include the full path specification, or may be set to an empty
string ("") to disable loading of the config file. See the sample
configuration file and "config.html" in the full ExifTool
distribution for more information about the ExifTool configuration
file.
-execute
Execute command for all arguments up to this point on the command
line. Allows multiple commands to be executed from a single
command line.
-srcfile FMT
Specify a different source file to be processed based on the name
of the original file. This may be useful in some special
situations for processing related preview images or sidecar files.
See the -w option for a description of the FMT syntax. Note that
file name FMT strings for all options are based on the original
file name specified on the command line, not the name of the
source file specified by -srcfile.
READING EXAMPLES
Note: Beware when cutting and pasting these examples into your
terminal! Some characters such as single and double quotes and hyphens
may have been changed into similar-looking but functionally-different
characters by the text formatter used to display this documentation.
exiftool-a -u -g1 a.jpg
Print all meta information in an image, including duplicate and
unknown tags, sorted by group (for family 1).
exiftool-common dir
Print common meta information for all images in "dir".
exiftool-T -createdate -aperture -shutterspeed -iso dir > out.txt
List meta information in tab-delimited column form for all images
in "dir" to an output text file named "out.txt".
exiftool-s -ImageSize -ExposureTime b.jpg
Print ImageSize and ExposureTime tag names and values.
exiftool-l -canon c.jpg d.jpg
Print standard Canon information from two image files.
exiftool-r -w .txt -common pictures
Recursively extract common meta information from files in
"pictures" directory, writing text output into files with the same
names but with a ".txt" extension.
exiftool-b -ThumbnailImage image.jpg > thumbnail.jpg
Save thumbnail image from "image.jpg" to a file called
"thumbnail.jpg".
exiftool-b -PreviewImage 118_1834.JPG > preview.jpg
Extract preview image from JPG file and write it to "preview.jpg".
exiftool-b -JpgFromRaw -w _JFR.JPG -ext CRW -r .
Recursively extract JPG image from all Canon CRW files in the
current directory, adding "_JFR.JPG" for the name of the output
JPG files.
exiftool-d '%r %a, %B %e, %Y' -DateTimeOriginal -S -s *.jpg
Print formatted date/time for all JPG files in a directory.
exiftool -IFD1:XResolution -IFD1:YResolution image.jpg
Extract image resolution from EXIF IFD1 information (thumbnail
image IFD).
exiftool -xmp:author:all -a image.jpg
Extract all author-related XMP information from an image.
exiftool-xmp -b a.jpg > out.xmp
Extract complete XMP data record intact from "a.jpg" and write it
to "out.xmp" using the special "XMP" tag (see the Extra tags in
Image::ExifTool::TagNames).
exiftool-p '$filename has date $dateTimeOriginal' -q -f dir
Print one line of output containing the file name and
DateTimeOriginal for each image in directory "dir".
exiftool-ee -p '$gpslatitude, $gpslongitude, $gpstimestamp' a.m2ts
Extract all GPS positions from an AVCHD video.
exiftool-icc_profile -b -w icc image.jpg
Save complete ICC_Profile from an image to an output file with the
same name and an extension of ".icc".
exiftool-htmldump -w tmp/%f_%e.html t/images
Generate HTML pages from a hex dump of EXIF information in all
images from the "t/images" directory. The output HTML files are
written to the "tmp" directory (which is created if it didn't
exist), with names of the form 'FILENAME_EXT.html'.
WRITING EXAMPLES
Note that quotes are necessary around arguments which contain certain
special characters such as ">", "<" or any white space. These quoting
techniques are shell dependent, but the examples below will work for
most Unix shells. With the Windows cmd shell however, double quotes
should be used (ie. -Comment="This is a new comment").
exiftool -Comment='This is a new comment' dst.jpg
Write new comment to a JPG image (replaces any existing comment).
exiftool -comment= -o newdir *.jpg
Remove comment from all JPG images in the current directory,
writing the modified images to a new directory.
exiftool -keywords=EXIF -keywords=editor dst.jpg
Replace existing keyword list with two new keywords ("EXIF" and
"editor").
exiftool -Keywords+=word -o newfile.jpg src.jpg
Copy a source image to a new file, and add a keyword ("word") to
the current list of keywords.
exiftool -credit-=xxx dir
Delete Credit information from all files in a directory where the
Credit value was ("xxx").
exiftool -xmp:description-de='kühl' -E dst.jpg
Write alternate language for XMP:Description, using HTML character
escaping to input special characters.
exiftool -all= dst.jpg
Delete all meta information from an image. Note: You should NOT
do this to RAW images (except DNG) since proprietary RAW image
formats often contain information in the makernotes that is
necessary for converting the image.
exiftool -all= -comment='lonely' dst.jpg
Delete all meta information from an image and add a comment back
in. (Note that the order is important: "-comment='lonely' -all="
would also delete the new comment.)
exiftool -all= --jfif:all dst.jpg
Delete all meta information except JFIF group from an image.
exiftool -Photoshop:All= dst.jpg
Delete Photoshop meta information from an image (note that the
Photoshop information also includes IPTC).
exiftool-r -XMP-crss:all= DIR
Recursively delete all XMP-crss information from images in a
directory.
exiftool '-ThumbnailImage<=thumb.jpg' dst.jpg
Set the thumbnail image from specified file (Note: The quotes are
neccessary to prevent shell redirection).
exiftool '-JpgFromRaw<=%d%f_JFR.JPG' -ext CRW -r .
Recursively write JPEG images with filenames ending in "_JFR.JPG"
to the JpgFromRaw tag of like-named files with extension ".CRW" in
the current directory. (This is the inverse of the "-JpgFromRaw"
command of the "READING EXAMPLES" section above.)
exiftool -DateTimeOriginal-='0:0:0 1:30:0' dir
Adjust original date/time of all images in directory "dir" by
subtracting one hour and 30 minutes. (This is equivalent to
"-DateTimeOriginal-=1.5". See Image::ExifTool::Shift.pl for
details.)
exiftool -createdate+=3 -modifydate+=3 a.jpg b.jpg
Add 3 hours to the CreateDate and ModifyDate timestamps of two
images.
exiftool -AllDates+=1:30 -if '$make eq "Canon"' dir
Shift the values of DateTimeOriginal, CreateDate and ModifyDate
forward by 1 hour and 30 minutes for all Canon images in a
directory. (The AllDates tag is provided as a shortcut for these
three tags, allowing them to be accessed via a single tag.)
exiftool -xmp:city=Kingston image1.jpg image2.nef
Write a tag to the XMP group of two images. (Without the "xmp:"
this tag would get written to the IPTC group since "City" exists
in both, and IPTC is preferred by default.)
exiftool -LightSource-='Unknown (0)' dst.tiff
Delete "LightSource" tag only if it is unknown with a value of 0.
exiftool -whitebalance-=auto -WhiteBalance=tung dst.jpg
Set "WhiteBalance" to "Tungsten" only if it was previously "Auto".
exiftool -comment-= -comment='new comment' a.jpg
Write a new comment only if the image doesn't have one already.
exiftool-o %d%f.xmp dir
Create XMP meta information data files for all images in "dir".
exiftool-o test.xmp -owner=Phil -title='XMP File'
Create an XMP data file only from tags defined on the command
line.
exiftool '-ICC_Profile<=%d%f.icc' image.jpg
Write ICC_Profile to an image from a ".icc" file of the same name.
exiftool -trailer:all= image.jpg
Delete any trailer found after the end of image (EOI) in a JPEG
file. A number of digital cameras store a large PreviewImage
after the JPEG EOI, and the file size may be reduced significantly
by deleting this trailer. See the JPEG Tags documentation for a
list of recognized JPEG trailers.
COPYING EXAMPLES
These examples demonstrate the ability to copy tag values between
files.
exiftool-tagsFromFile src.crw dst.jpg
Copy the values of all writable tags from "src.crw" to "dst.jpg",
writing the information to the preferred groups.
exiftool-TagsFromFile src.jpg -all:all dst.jpg
Copy the values of all writable tags from "src.jpg" to "dst.jpg",
preserving the original tag groups.
exiftool -all= -tagsfromfile src.jpg -exif:all dst.jpg
Erase all meta information from "dst.jpg" image, then copy EXIF
tags from "src.jpg".
exiftool -exif:all= -tagsfromfile @ -all:all -unsafe bad.jpg
Rebuild all EXIF meta information from scratch in an image. This
technique can be used in JPEG images to repair corrupted EXIF
information which otherwise could not be written due to errors.
The "Unsafe" tag is a shortcut for unsafe EXIF tags in JPEG images
which are not normally copied. See the tag name documentation for
more details about unsafe tags.
exiftool-Tagsfromfile a.jpg out.xmp
Copy meta information from "a.jpg" to an XMP data file. If the
XMP data file "out.xmp" already exists, it will be updated with
the new information. Otherwise the XMP data file will be created.
Only XMP, ICC and MIE files may be created like this (other file
types may be edited but not created). See "WRITING EXAMPLES"
above for another technique to generate XMP files.
exiftool-tagsFromFile a.jpg -XMP:All= -ThumbnailImage= -m b.jpg
Copy all meta information from "a.jpg" to "b.jpg", deleting all
XMP information and the thumbnail image from the destination.
exiftool-TagsFromFile src.jpg -title -author=Phil dst.jpg
Copy title from one image to another and set a new author name.
exiftool-TagsFromFile a.jpg -ISO -TagsFromFile b.jpg -comment dst.jpg
Copy ISO from one image and Comment from another image to a
destination image.
exiftool-tagsfromfile src.jpg -exif:all --subifd:all dst.jpg
Copy only the EXIF information from one image to another,
excluding SubIFD tags.
exiftool '-DateTimeOriginal>FileModifyDate' dir
Use the original date from the meta information to set the same
file's filesystem modification date for all images in a directory.
(Note that "-TagsFromFile @" is assumed if no other -TagsFromFile
is specified when redirecting information as in this example.)
exiftool-TagsFromFile src.jpg '-all>xmp:all' dst.jpg
Copy all possible information from "src.jpg" and write in XMP
format to "dst.jpg".
exiftool -@ iptc2xmp.args -iptc:all= a.jpg
Translate IPTC information to XMP with appropriate tag name
conversions, and delete the original IPTC information from an
image. This example uses iptc2xmp.args, which is a file included
with the ExifTool distribution that contains the required
arguments to convert IPTC information to XMP format. Also
included with the distribution is xmp2iptc.args, which performs
the inverse conversion.
exiftool-tagsfromfile %d%f.CRW -r -ext JPG dir
Recursively rewrite all "JPG" images in "dir" with information
copied from the corresponding "CRW" images in the same
directories.
exiftool '-make+>keywords' image.jpg
Add camera make to list of keywords.
exiftool '-comment<ISO=$exif:iso Exposure=${shutterspeed}' dir
Set the Comment tag of all images in "dir" from the values of the
EXIF:ISO and ShutterSpeed tags. The resulting comment will be in
the form "ISO=100 Exposure=1/60".
exiftool-TagsFromFile src.jpg -icc_profile dst.jpg
Copy ICC_Profile from one image to another.
exiftool-TagsFromFile src.jpg -all:all dst.mie
Copy all meta information in its original form from a JPEG image
to a MIE file. The MIE file will be created if it doesn't exist.
This technique can be used to store the metadata of an image so it
can be inserted back into the image (with the inverse command)
later in a workflow.
exiftool-o dst.mie -all:all src.jpg
This command performs exactly the same task as the command above,
except that the "-o" option will not write to an output file that
already exists.
exiftool-if '$jpgfromraw' -b -jpgfromraw -w %d%f_%ue.jpg -execute -if
'$previewimage' -b -previewimage -w %d%f_%ue.jpg -execute -tagsfromfile
@ -srcfile %d%f_%ue.jpg -overwrite_original -common_args --ext jpg DIR
[Advanced] Extract JpgFromRaw or PreviewImage from all but JPG
files in DIR, saving them with file names like "image_EXT.jpg",
then add all meta information from the original files to the
extracted images. Here, the command line is broken into three
sections (separated by -execute options), and each is executed as
if it were a separate command. The -common_args option causes the
"--ext jpg DIR" arguments to be applied to all three commands, and
the -srcfile option allows the extracted JPG image to be the
source file for the third command (whereas the RAW files are the
source files for the other two commands).
RENAMING EXAMPLES
By writing the "FileName" and "Directory" tags, files are renamed
and/or moved to new directories. This can be particularly useful and
powerful for organizing files by date when combined with the -d option.
New directories are created as necessary, but existing files will not
be overwritten. The format codes %d, %f and %e may be used in the new
file name to represent the directory, name and extension of the
original file, and %c may be used to add a copy number if the file
already exists (see the -w option for details). Note that if used
within a date format string, an extra '%' must be added to pass these
codes through the date/time parser. (And further note that in a
Windows batch file, all '%' characters must also be escaped, so in this
extreme case '%%%%f' is necessary to pass a simple '%f' through the two
levels of parsing.) See
<http://owl.phy.queensu.ca/~phil/exiftool/filename.html> for additional
documentation and examples.
exiftool -filename=new.jpg dir/old.jpg
Rename "old.jpg" to "new.jpg" in directory "dir".
exiftool -directory=%e dir
Move all files from directory "dir" into directories named by the
original file extensions.
exiftool '-Directory<DateTimeOriginal' -d %Y/%m/%d dir
Move all files in "dir" into a directory hierarchy based on year,
month and day of "DateTimeOriginal". ie) This command would move
the file "dir/image.jpg" with a "DateTimeOriginal" of "2005:10:12
16:05:56" to "2005/10/12/image.jpg".
exiftool-o . '-Directory<DateTimeOriginal' -d %Y/%m/%d dir
Same effect as above except files are copied instead of moved.
exiftool '-filename<%f_${focallength}.%e' dir
Rename all files in "dir" by adding FocalLength to the file name.
exiftool '-FileName<CreateDate' -d %Y%m%d_%H%M%S%%-c.%%e dir
Rename all images in "dir" according to the "CreateDate" date and
time, adding a copy number with leading '-' if the file already
exists ("%-c"), and preserving the original file extension (%e).
Note the extra '%' necessary to escape the filename codes (%c and
%e) in the date format string.
exiftool-r '-FileName<CreateDate' -d %Y-%m-%d/%H%M_%%f.%%e dir
Both the directory and the filename may be changed together via
the "FileName" tag if the new "FileName" contains a '/'. The
example above recursively renames all images in a directory by
adding a "CreateDate" timestamp to the start of the filename, then
moves them into new directories named by date.
exiftool '-FileName<${CreateDate}_$filenumber.jpg' -d %Y%m%d *.jpg
Set the filename of all JPG images in the current directory from
the CreateDate and FileNumber tags, in the form
"20060507_118-1861.jpg".
GEOTAGGING EXAMPLES
ExifTool implements geotagging via 3 special tags: Geotag (which for
convenience is also implemented as an exiftool option), Geosync and
Geotime. The examples below highlight some geotagging features. See
<http://owl.phy.queensu.ca/~phil/exiftool/geotag.html> for additional
documentation.
exiftool-geotag track.log a.jpg
Geotag an image ("a.jpg") from position information in a GPS track
log ("track.log"). Since the "Geotime" tag is not specified, the
value of DateTimeOriginal is used for geotagging. Local system
time is assumed unless DateTimeOriginal contains a timezone.
exiftool-geotag t.log -geotime='2009:04:02 13:41:12-05:00' a.jpg
Geotag an image with the GPS position for a specific time. (Note
that the "Geotag" tag must be assigned before "Geotime" for the
GPS data to be available when "Geotime" is set.)
exiftool-geotag log.gpx '-xmp:geotime<createdate' dir
Geotag all images in directory "dir" with XMP tags instead of EXIF
tags, based on the image CreateDate. (In this case, the order of
the arguments doesn't matter because tags with values copied from
other tags are always set after constant values.)
exiftool-geotag a.log -geosync=-20 dir
Geotag images in directory "dir", accounting for image timestamps
which were 20 seconds ahead of GPS.
exiftool-geotag a.log -geosync=1.jpg -geosync=2.jpg dir
Geotag images using time synchronization from two previously
geotagged images (1.jpg and 2.jpg), synchronizing the image and
GPS times using a linear time drift correction.
exiftool-geotag a.log '-geotime<${createdate}+01:00' dir
Geotag images in "dir" using CreateDate with the specified
timezone. If CreateDate already contained a timezone, then the
timezone specified on the command line is ignored.
exiftool -geotag= a.jpg
Delete GPS tags which may have been added by the geotag feature.
Note that this does not remove all GPS tags -- to do this instead
use "-gps:all=".
exiftool -xmp:geotag= a.jpg
Delete XMP GPS tags which were added by the geotag feature.
exiftool -xmp:geotag=track.log a.jpg
Geotag an image with XMP tags, using the time from
DateTimeOriginal.
exiftool-geotag a.log -geotag b.log -r dir
Combine multiple track logs and geotag an entire directory tree of
images.
exiftool-geotag 'tracks/*.log' -r dir
Read all track logs from the "tracks" directory.
exiftool-p gpx.fmt -d %Y-%m-%dT%H:%M:%SZ dir > out.gpx
Generate a GPX track log from all images in directory "dir". This
example uses the "gpx.fmt" file included in the full ExifTool
distribution package and assumes that the images in "dir" have all
been previously geotagged.
PIPING EXAMPLES
cat a.jpg | exiftool-
Extract information from stdin.
exiftool image.jpg -thumbnailimage -b | exiftool-
Extract information from an embedded thumbnail image.
cat a.jpg | exiftool -iptc:keywords+=fantastic - > b.jpg
Add an IPTC keyword in a pipeline, saving output to a new file.
wget -qO - http://a.domain.com/bigfile.jpg | exiftool-fast -
Extract information from an image over the internet using the GNU
wget utility. The -fast option prevents exiftool from scanning
for trailer information, so only the meta information header is
transferred.
exiftool a.jpg -thumbnailimage -b | exiftool -comment=wow - | exiftool
a.jpg -thumbnailimage'<=-'
Add a comment to an embedded thumbnail image. (Why anyone would
want to do this I don't know, but I've included this as an example
to illustrate the flexibility of ExifTool.)
DIAGNOSTICS
The exiftool application exits with a status of 0 on success, or 1 if
an error occured or if all files failed the -if condition.
BUGS
ExifTool does not handle information stored in the resource fork on
Macintosh filesystems.
AUTHOR
Copyright 2003-2010, Phil Harvey
This is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under
the same terms as Perl itself.
SEE ALSOImage::ExifTool(3pm), Image::ExifTool::TagNames(3pm),
Image::ExifTool::Shortcuts(3pm), Image::ExifTool::Shift.pl
perl v5.10.1 2010-03-17 EXIFTOOL(1)
