Provided by: libimage-exiftool-perl_9.46-1_all 
NAME
exiftool - Read and write meta information in files
SYNOPSIS
exiftool [OPTIONS] [-TAG...] [--TAG...] FILE...
exiftool [OPTIONS] -TAG[+-<]=[VALUE]... FILE...
exiftool [OPTIONS] -tagsFromFile SRCFILE [-SRCTAG[>DSTTAG]...] FILE...
exiftool [ -ver | -list[w|f|r|wf|g[NUM]|d|x] ]
For specific examples, see the EXAMPLES sections below.
This documentation is displayed if exiftool is run without an input FILE when one is expected.
DESCRIPTION
A command-line interface to Image::ExifTool, used for reading and writing meta information in a variety
of file types. FILE is one or more source file names, directory names, or "-" for the standard input.
Information is read from source files and printed in readable form to the console (or written to output
text files with -w).
To write or delete information, tag values are assigned using the -TAG=[VALUE] syntax, or the -geotag
option. To copy or move information, the -tagsFromFile feature is used. By default the original files
are preserved with "_original" appended to their names -- be sure to verify that the new files are OK
before erasing the originals. Once in write mode, exiftool will ignore any read-specific options.
Note: If FILE is a directory name then only supported file types in the directory are processed (in
write mode only writable types are processed). However, files may be specified by name, 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 | EIP r | LNK r | PAC r | RWL r/w
3G2 r/w | EPS r/w | M2TS r | PAGES r | RWZ r
3GP r/w | ERF r/w | M4A/V r/w | PBM r/w | RM r
ACR r | EXE r | MEF r/w | PCD r | SO r
AFM r | EXIF r/w/c | MIE r/w/c | PDF r/w | SR2 r/w
AI r/w | EXR r | MIFF r | PEF r/w | SRF r
AIFF r | F4A/V r/w | MKA r | PFA r | SRW r/w
APE r | FFF r/w | MKS r | PFB r | SVG r
ARW r/w | FLA r | MKV r | PFM r | SWF r
ASF r | FLAC r | MNG r/w | PGF r | THM r/w
AVI r | FLV r | MODD r | PGM r/w | TIFF r/w
BMP r | FPF r | MOS r/w | PLIST r | TORRENT r
BTF r | FPX r | MOV r/w | PICT r | TTC r
CHM r | GIF r/w | MP3 r | PMP r | TTF r
COS r | GZ r | MP4 r/w | PNG r/w | VRD r/w/c
CR2 r/w | HDP r/w | MPC r | PPM r/w | VSD r
CRW r/w | HDR r | MPG r | PPT r | WAV r
CS1 r/w | HTML r | MPO r/w | PPTX r | WDP r/w
DCM r | ICC r/w/c | MQV r/w | PS r/w | WEBP r
DCP r/w | IDML r | MRW r/w | PSB r/w | WEBM r
DCR r | IIQ r/w | MXF r | PSD r/w | WMA r
DFONT r | IND r/w | NEF r/w | PSP r | WMV r
DIVX r | INX r | NRW r/w | QTIF r/w | WV r
DJVU r | ITC r | NUMBERS r | RA r | X3F r/w
DLL r | J2C r | ODP r | RAF r/w | XCF r
DNG r/w | JNG r/w | ODS r | RAM r | XLS r
DOC r | JP2 r/w | ODT r | RAR r | XLSX r
DOCX r | JPEG r/w | OFR r | RAW r/w | XMP r/w/c
DPX r | K25 r | OGG r | RIFF r | ZIP r
DV r | KDC r | OGV r | RSRC r |
DVB r/w | KEY r | ORF r/w | RTF r |
DYLIB r | LA r | OTF r | RW2 r/w |
Meta Information
----------------------+----------------------+---------------------
EXIF r/w/c | CIFF r/w | Ricoh RMETA r
GPS r/w/c | AFCP r/w | Picture Info r
IPTC r/w/c | Kodak Meta r/w | Adobe APP14 r
XMP r/w/c | FotoStation r/w | MPF r
MakerNotes r/w/c | PhotoMechanic r/w | Stim r
Photoshop IRB r/w/c | JPEG 2000 r | APE r
ICC Profile r/w/c | DICOM r | Vorbis r
MIE r/w/c | Flash r | SPIFF r
JFIF r/w/c | FlashPix r | DjVu r
Ducky APP12 r/w/c | QuickTime r | M2TS r
PDF r/w/c | Matroska r | PE/COFF r
PNG r/w/c | GeoTIFF r | AVCHD r
Canon VRD r/w/c | PrintIM r | ZIP r
Nikon Capture r/w/c | ID3 r | (and more)
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 exists. 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. Unrecognized options are interpreted as tag names (for this reason, multiple
single-character options may NOT be combined into one argument). Contrary to standard practice, options
may appear after source file names on the exiftool command line.
Option Summary
Tag operations
-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)
-tagsFromFile SRCFILE Copy tag values from file
-x TAG (-exclude) Exclude specified tag
Input-output text formatting
-args (-argFormat) Format metadata as exiftool arguments
-b (-binary) Output metadata in binary format
-c FMT (-coordFormat) Set format for GPS coordinates
-charset [[TYPE=]CHARSET] Specify encoding for special characters
-csv[=CSVFILE] Export/import tags in CSV format
-d FMT (-dateFormat) Set format for date/time values
-D (-decimal) Show tag ID numbers in decimal
-E, -ex (-escape(HTML|XML)) Escape values for HTML (-E) or XML (-ex)
-f (-forcePrint) Force printing of all specified tags
-g[NUM...] (-groupHeadings) Organize output by tag group
-G[NUM...] (-groupNames) Print group name for each tag
-h (-htmlFormat) Use HMTL formatting for output
-H (-hex) Show tag ID number in hexadecimal
-htmlDump[OFFSET] Generate HTML-format binary dump
-j[=JSONFILE] (-json) Export/import tags in JSON format
-l (-long) Use long 2-line output format
-L (-latin) Use Windows Latin1 encoding
-lang [LANG] Set current language
-listItem INDEX Extract specific item from a list
-n (--printConv) Read/write numerical tag values
-p FMTFILE (-printFormat) Print output in specified format
-php Export tags as a PHP Array
-s[NUM] (-short) Short output format
-S (-veryShort) Very short output format
-sep STR (-separator) Set separator string for list items
-sort Sort output alphabetically
-struct Enable output of structured information
-t (-tab) Output in tab-delimited list format
-T (-table) Output in tabular format
-v[NUM] (-verbose) Print verbose messages
-w[+|!] EXT (-textOut) Write (or overwrite!) output text files
-W[+|!] FMT (-tagOut) Write output text file for each tag
-Wext EXT (-tagOutExt) Write only specified file types with -W
-X (-xmlFormat) Use RDF/XML output format
Processing control
-a (-duplicates) Allow duplicate tags to be extracted
-e (--composite) Do not calculate composite tags
-ee (-extractEmbedded) Extract information from embedded files
-ext EXT (-extension) Process files with specified extension
-F[OFFSET] (-fixBase) Fix the base for maker notes offsets
-fast[NUM] Increase speed for slow devices
-fileOrder [-]TAG Set file processing order
-i DIR (-ignore) Ignore specified directory name
-if EXPR Conditionally process files
-m (-ignoreMinorErrors) Ignore minor errors and warnings
-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 (-preserve) Preserve date/time of original file
-password PASSWD Password for processing protected files
-progress Show file progress count
-q (-quiet) Quiet processing
-r (-recurse) Recursively process subdirectories
-scanForXMP Brute force XMP scan
-u (-unknown) Extract unknown tags
-U (-unknown2) Extract unknown binary tags too
-wm MODE (-writeMode) Set tag write/create mode
-z (-zip) Read/write compressed information
Special features
-geotag TRKFILE Geotag images from specified GPS log
-globalTimeShift SHIFT Shift all formatted date/time values
-use MODULE Add features from plug-in module
Utilities
-delete_original[!] Delete "_original" backups
-restore_original Restore from "_original" backups
Other options
-@ ARGFILE Read command-line arguments from file
-k (-pause) Pause before terminating
-list[w|f|wf|g[NUM]|d|x] List various exiftool capabilities
-ver Print exiftool version number
Advanced options
-api OPT[=VAL] Set ExifTool API option
-common_args Define common arguments
-config CFGFILE Specify configuration file name
-echo[NUM] TEXT Echo text to stdout or stderr
-execute[NUM] Execute multiple commands on one line
-srcfile FMT Set different source file name
-stay_open FLAG Keep reading -@ argfile even after EOF
Option Details
Tag operations
-TAG Extract information for the specified tag (ie. "-CreateDate"). Multiple tags may be specified in a
single command. 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 (but beware that unless
the -a option is also used, some tags in the group may be suppressed by same-named tags in other
groups). The wildcard characters "?" and "*" may be used in a tag name to match any single
character and zero or more characters respectively. These may not be used in a group name, with the
exception that a group name of "*" (or "All") may be used to extract all instances of a tag (as if
-a was used). Note that arguments containing wildcards must be quoted on the command line of most
systems 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 (as if "-All" had been specified).
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. Once excluded from the
output, a tag may not be re-included by a subsequent option. May also be used following a
-tagsFromFile option to exclude tags from being copied (when redirecting to another tag, it is the
source tag that should be excluded), 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 (unless a family 2 group is specified, see note 4
below). Instead, individual tags may be recovered using the -tagsFromFile option (ie. "-all=
-tagsfromfile @ -artist"). Wildcards are permitted as described above for -TAG.
-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). "+=" may also be used to
increment numerical values, and "-=" may be used to conditionally delete or replace a tag (see
"WRITING EXAMPLES" for examples).
TAG may contain one or more leading family 0, 1 or 2 group names, prefixed by optional family
numbers, and separated colons. 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 wildcards "*" and "?" may be used in tag names to assign the same value to multiple tags. When
specified with wildcards, "unsafe" tags are not written. A tag name of "All" is eqivalent to "*"
(except that it doesn't require quoting, while arguments with wildcards do on systems with shell
globbing), and is often used when deleting all metadata (ie. "-All=") or an entire group (ie.
"-GROUP:All=", see note 4 below). Note that not all groups are deletable, and that the JPEG APP14
"Adobe" group is not removed by default with "-All=" because it may affect the appearance of the
image. Use the -listd option for a complete list of deletable groups, and see note 5 below
regarding the "APP" 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.
Notes:
1) Many tag values may be assigned in a single command. If two assignments affect the same tag, the
latter takes precedence (except for list-type tags, where both values are written).
2) In general, MakerNotes tags are considered "Permanent", and 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.
3) Changes to PDF files are reversible because the original information is never actually deleted
from the file. So ExifTool alone may not be used to securely edit metadata in PDF files.
4) Specifying "-GROUP:all=" deletes the entire group as a block only if a single family 0 or 1 group
is specified. Otherwise all deletable tags in the specified group(s) are removed individually, and
in this case is it possible to exclude individual tags from a mass delete. For example, "-time:all
--Exif:Time:All" removes all deletable Time tags except those in the EXIF. This difference also
applies if family 2 is specified when deleting all groups. For example, "-2all:all=" deletes tags
individually, while "-all:all=" deletes entire blocks.
5) The "APP" group names ("APP0" through "APP15") are used to delete JPEG application segments which
are not associated with another deletable group. For example, specifying "-APP14:All=" will NOT
delete the APP14 "Adobe" segment because this is accomplished with "-Adobe:All".
Special feature: Integer values may be specified in hexadecimal with a leading "0x", and simple
rational values may be specified as fractions.
-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.
-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. Wildcards are permitted in these tag names. If no
tags are specified, then all possible tags (see note 1 below) from the source file are copied to
same-named tags in the preferred location of the output file (the same as specifying "-all"). More
than one -tagsFromFile option may be used to copy tags from multiple files.
By default, this option will update any existing and writable same-named tags in the output FILE,
but will create new tags only in their preferred groups. This allows some information to be
automatically transferred to the appropriate group when copying between images of different formats.
However, if a group name is specified for a tag then the information is written only to this group
(unless redirected to another group, see below). If "All" is used as a group name, then each tag is
written to the same family 1 group it had in the source file (ie. the same specific location in the
metadata), but a different family may be specified by adding a leading family number to the group
name (ie. "-0All:all").
SRCFILE may be the same as FILE to move information around within a single 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. 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 copied tag. With
this feature, information may be written to a tag with a different name or group. This is done
using "'-SRCTAG>DSTTAG'" or "'-DSTTAG<SRCTAG'" on the command line after -tagsFromFile, and causes
the value of SRCTAG to be copied from SRCFILE and written to DSTTAG in FILE. Note that this
argument must be quoted to prevent shell redirection, and there is no "=" sign as when assigning new
values. Source and/or destination tags may be prefixed by a group name and/or suffixed by "#".
Wildcards are allowed in both the source and destination tag names. A destination group and/or tag
name of "All" or "*" writes to the same family 1 group and/or tag name as the source. If no
destination group is specified, the information is written to the preferred group. Whitespace
around the ">" or "<" is ignored. 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 "<=" operator which
sets 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 in the string is preserved.
See "COPYING EXAMPLES" for examples using -tagsFromFile.
Notes:
1) Some tags (generally tags which may affect the appearance of the image) are considered "unsafe"
to write, and are only copied if specified explicitly (ie. no wildcards). See the tag name
documentation for more details about "unsafe" tags.
2) 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.
3) 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.
4) The order of operations is to copy all specified tags at the point of the -tagsFromFile option in
the command line. Any tag assignment to the right of the -tagsFromFile option is made after all
tags are copied. For example, new tag values are set in the order One, Two, Three then Four with
this command:
exiftool -One=1 -tagsFromFile s.jpg -Two -Four=4 -Three d.jpg
This is significant in the case where an overlap exists between the copied and assigned tags because
later operations may override earlier ones.
5) 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.
6) The -a option (allow duplicate tags) is always in effect when reading tags from SRCFILE.
7) Structured tags are copied by default when copying tags. See the -struct option for details.
-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.
Input-output text formatting
Note that trailing spaces are removed from extracted values for most output text formats. The exceptions
are "-b", "-csv", "-j" and "-X".
-args (-argFormat)
Output information in the form of exiftool arguments, suitable for use with the -@ option when
writing. May be combined with the -G option to include group names. This feature may be used to
effectively copy tags between images, but allows the metadata to be altered by editing the
intermediate file ("out.args" in this example):
exiftool -args -G1 --filename --directory src.jpg > out.args
exiftool -@ out.args dst.jpg
Note: Be careful when copying information with this technique since it is easy to write tags which
are normally considered "unsafe". For instance, the FileName and Directory tags are excluded in the
example above to avoid renaming and moving the destination file. Also note that the second command
above will produce warning messages for any tags which are not writable.
-b (-binary)
Output requested metadata 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. List items are separated by a newline when extracted with the -b option. May be
combined with "-php" or "-X" to extract binary data in PHP or XML format.
-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
Notes:
1) To avoid loss of precision, the default coordinate format is different when copying tags using
the -tagsFromFile option.
2) If the hemisphere is known, a reference direction (N, S, E or W) is appended to each printed
coordinate, but adding a "+" to the format specifier (ie. "%+.6f") prints a signed coordinate
instead.
3) This print formatting may be disabled with the -n option to extract coordinates as signed decimal
degrees.
-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". If
no CHARSET is given, a list of available character sets is returned. Valid CHARSET values are:
CHARSET Alias(es) Description
---------- --------------- ----------------------------------
UTF8 cp65001, UTF-8 UTF-8 characters (default)
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
Other values of TYPE listed below are used to specify the internal encoding of various meta
information formats.
TYPE Description Default
--------- ------------------------------------------- -------
EXIF Internal encoding of EXIF "ASCII" strings (none)
ID3 Internal encoding of ID3v1 information Latin
IPTC Internal IPTC encoding to assume when Latin
IPTC:CodedCharacterSet is not defined
Photoshop Internal encoding of Photoshop IRB strings Latin
QuickTime Internal encoding of QuickTime strings MacRoman
See <http://owl.phy.queensu.ca/~phil/exiftool/faq.html#Q10> for more information about coded
character sets.
-csv[=CSVFILE]
Export information in as a CSV file, or import information if CSVFILE is specified. When importing,
the CSV file must be in exactly the same format as the exported file. The first row of the CSVFILE
must be the ExifTool tag names (with optional group names) for each column of the file, and values
must be separated by commas. A special "SourceFile" column specifies the files associated with each
row of information (a SourceFile of "*" may be used to apply the information to all target images).
The following examples demonstrate basic use of this option:
# generate CSV file with common tags from all images in a directory
exiftool -common -csv dir > out.csv
# update metadata for all images in a directory from CSV file
exiftool -csv=a.csv dir
Empty values are ignored when importing. Also, FileName and Directory columns are ignored if they
exist (ie. ExifTool will not attempt to write these tags with a CSV import). To force a tag to be
deleted, use the -f option and set the value to "-" in the CSV file (or to the MissingTagValue if
this API option was used).
When exporting a CSV file, the -g or -G option to add group names to the tag headings. If the -a
option is used to allow duplicate tag names, the duplicate tags are only included in the CSV output
if the column headings are unique. Adding the -G4 option ensures a unique column heading for each
tag.
List-type tags are stored as simple strings in a CSV file, but the -sep option may be used to split
them back into separate items when importing.
Special feature: -csv+=CSVFILE may be used to add items to existing lists. This affects only list-
type tags. Also applies to the -j option.
Note that this option is fundamentally different than all other output format options because it
requires information from all input files to be buffered in memory before the output is written.
This may result in excessive memory usage when processing a very large number of files with a single
command. Also, it makes this option incompatible with the -w option.
-d FMT (-dateFormat)
Set the format for date/time tag values. The specifics of the FMT syntax are system dependent --
consult the "strftime" man page on your system for details. 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, -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.
-f (-forcePrint)
Force printing of tags even if their values are not found. This option only applies when tag names
are specified. With this option, a dash ("-") is printed for the value of any missing tag (but this
may be configured via the API MissingTagValue option). May also be used to add a 'flags' attribute
to the -listx output, or to allow tags to be deleted when writing with the -csv=CSVFILE feature.
-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 be
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.
-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.
-j[=JSONFILE] (-json)
Use JSON (JavaScript Object Notation) formatting for console output, or import JSON file if JSONFILE
is specified. 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, otherwise 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. Adding the -D or -H option changes tag values to JSON objects with
"val" and "id" fields, and adding -l adds a "desc" field, and a "num" field if the numerical value
is different from the converted "val". The -b, -L and -charset options have no effect on the JSON
output.
If JSONFILE is specified, the file is imported and the tag definitions from the file are used to set
tag values on a per-file basis. The special "SourceFile" entry in each JSON object associates the
information with a specific target file (see the -csv option for details). The imported JSON file
must have the same format as the exported JSON files with the exception that the -g option is not
compatible with the import file format (use -G instead). Additionally, tag names in the input JSON
file may be suffixed with a "#" to disable print conversion.
-l (-long)
Use long 2-line Canon-style output format. Adds a description and unconverted value (if it is
different from the converted value) to the XML, JSON or PHP output when -X, -j or -php 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.
-listItem INDEX
For list-type tags, this causes only the item with the specified index to be extracted. INDEX is 0
for the first item in the list. Has no effect when writing or copying tags, in a -if condition, or
in combination with structured output options.
-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
-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 names
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 9.46 --
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 '-' (but this
may be configured via the MissingTagValue API option), or the -m option may be used to ignore minor
warnings and leave the missing values empty.
An advanced formatting feature allows an arbitrary Perl expression to be applied to the value of any
tag by placing it inside the braces after a semicolon following the tag name. The expression has
access to the value of this tag through the default input variable ($_), and the full API through
the current ExifTool object ($self). It may contain any valid Perl code, including translation
("tr///") and substitution ("s///") operations, but note that braces within the expression must be
balanced. The example below prints the camera Make with spaces translated to underlines, and
multiple consecutive underlines replaced by a single underline:
exiftool -p '${make;tr/ /_/;s/__+/_/g}' image.jpg
A default expression of "tr(/\\?*:|"<>\0)()d" is assumed if the expression is empty, which removes
the characters / \ ? * : | < > and null from the printed value.
-php Format output as a PHP Array. The -g, -G, -D, -H, -l, -sep and -struct options combine with -php,
and duplicate tags are handled in the same way as with the -json option. As well, the -b option may
be added to output binary data. Here is a simple example showing how this could be used in a PHP
script:
<?php
eval('$array=' . `exiftool -php -q image.jpg`);
print_r($array);
?>
-s[NUM] (-short)
Short output format. Prints tag names instead of descriptions. Add NUM or up to 3 -s options for
even shorter formats:
-s1 or -s - print tag names instead of descriptions
-s2 or -s -s - no extra spaces to column-align values
-s3 or -s -s -s - print values only (no tag names)
Also effective when combined with -t, -h, -X or -listx options.
-S (-veryShort)
Very short format. The same as -s2 (or two -s options). Tag names are printed instead of
descriptions, and no extra spaces are added to column-align values.
-sep STR (-separator)
Specify separator string for items in list-type tags. When reading, the default is to join list
items with ", ". When writing, this option causes values assigned to list-type tags to be split
into individual items at each substring matching STR (otherwise they are not split by default).
Space characters in STR match zero or more whitespace characters in the value.
Note that an empty separator ("") is allowed, and will join items with no separator when reading, or
split the value into individual characters when writing.
-sort
Sort output by tag description, or by tag name if the -s option is used. Tags are sorted within
each group when combined with the -g or -G option. When sorting by description, the sort order will
depend on the -lang option setting. Without the -sort option, tags appear in the order they were
specified on the command line, or if not specified, the order they were extracted from the file.
-struct, --struct
Output structured XMP information instead of flattening to individual tags. This option works well
when combined with the XML (-X) and JSON (-j) output formats. For other output formats, the
structures are serialized into the same format as when writing structured information (see
<http://owl.phy.queensu.ca/~phil/exiftool/struct.html> for details). When copying, structured tags
are copied by default unless --struct is used to disable this feature (although flattened tags may
still be copied by specifying them individually unless -struct is used). These options have no
effect when assigning new values since both flattened and structured tags may always be used when
writing.
-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.
-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. Also see the -progress option.
-w[+|!] EXT or FMT (-textOut)
Write console output to files with names ending in EXT, one 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 unless an exclamation point is added to the option name (ie.
-w! or -textOut!), or a plus sign to append to the existing file (ie. -w+ or -textOut+). Both may
be used (ie. -w+! or -textOut+!) to overwrite output files that didn't exist before the command was
run, and append the output from multiple source files. For example, to write one output file for
all source files in each directory:
exiftool -filename -createdate -T -w+! %d/out.txt -r DIR
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) If the argument for -w does not contain a format code (%d, %f or %e), then it is interpreted as a
file extension. Therefore it is not possible to specify a simple filename as an argument, so
creating a single output file from multiple source files is typically done by shell redirection, ie)
exiftool FILE1 FILE2 ... > out.txt
But if necessary, an empty format code may be used to force the argument to be interpreted as a
format string, and the same result may be obtained without the use of shell redirection:
exiftool -w+! %0fout.txt FILE1 FILE2 ...
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 %d, the field width/position specifiers may be applied to the directory levels instead of
substring position by using a colon instead of a decimal point in the format specifier. For
example:
Source Dir Format Result Notes
------------ ------ ---------- ------------------
pics/2012/02 %2:d pics/2012/ take top 2 levels
pics/2012/02 %-:1d pics/2012/ up one directory level
pics/2012/02 %:1d 2012/02/ ignore top level
pics/2012/02 %1:1d 2012/ take 1 level after top
/Users/phil %:2d phil/ ignore top 2 levels
(Note that the root directory counts as one level when an absolute path is used as in the last
example above.)
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, the copy number is omitted from the first file of a given name,
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, a copy number of zero is not omitted as it is with %c. The
number before the decimal place gives the starting index, 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 above).
This same FMT syntax is used with the -o and -tagsFromFile options, although %c is only valid for
output file names.
-W[!|+] FMT (-tagOut)
This enhanced version of the -w option allows a separate output file to be created for each
extracted tag. The differences between -W and -w are as follows:
1) With -W, a new output file is created for each extracted tag.
2) -W supports three additional format codes: %t, %g and %s represent the tag name, group name, and
suggested extension for the output file (based on the format of the data). The %g code may be
followed by a single digit to specify the group family number (ie. %g1), otherwise family 0 is
assumed. The substring width/position/case specifiers may be used with these format codes in
exactly the same way as with %f and %e.
3) The argument for -W is interpreted as a file name if it contains no format codes. (For -w, this
would be a file extension.) This change allows a simple file name to be specified, which, when
combined with the append feature, provides a method to write metadata from multiple source files to
a single output file without the need for shell redirection.
4) Adding the -v option to -W generates a list of the tags and output file names instead of giving a
verbose dump of the entire file. (Unless appending all output to one file for each source file by
using -W+ with an output file FMT that does not contain %t, $g or %s.)
5) Individual list items are stored in separate files when -W is combined with -b, but note that for
separate files to be created %c must be used in FMT to give the files unique names.
-Wext EXT, --Wext EXT (-tagOutExt)
This option is used to specify the type of output file(s) written by the -W option. An output file
is written only if the suggested extension matches EXT. Multiple -Wext options may be used to write
more than one type of file. Use --Wext to write all but the specified type(s).
-X (-xmlFormat)
Use ExifTool-specific 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).
Note: This output is NOT the same as XMP because it uses dynamically-generated property names
corresponding to the ExifTool tag names, and not the standard XMP properties. To write XMP instead,
use the -o option with an XMP extension for the output file.
Processing control
-a, --a (-duplicates, --duplicates)
Allow (-a) or suppress (--a) duplicate tag names to be extracted. By default, duplicate tags are
suppressed unless the -ee or -X options are used or the Duplicates option is enabled in the
configuration file.
-e (--composite)
Extract existing tags only -- don't calculate composite tags.
-ee (-extractEmbedded)
Extract information from embedded documents in EPS files, embedded EPS information and JPEG and
Jpeg2000 images in PDF files, embedded MPF images in JPEG and MPO files, streaming metadata in AVCHD
videos, and the resource fork of Mac OS 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.) Note that this option may increase processing time substantially, especially for
PDF files with many embedded images.
-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 cr2 --ext dng DIR # supported files but CR2/DNG
exiftool --ext . DIR # ignore if no extension
exiftool -ext "*" DIR # process all files
exiftool -ext "*" --ext xml DIR # process all but XML files
The extension may be "*" as in the last two examples above to force processing files with any
extension (not just supported files).
Using this option has two main advantages over specifying "*.EXT" on the command line: 1) It
applies to files in subdirectories when combined with the -r option. 2) The -ext option is case-
insensitive, which is useful when processing files on case-sensitive filesystems.
-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 for 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"). A "#" may be appended to the
tag name to disable print conversion for the sorted values. Note that the -fileOrder option has a
large performance impact since it involves an additional processing pass of each file.
-i DIR (-ignore)
Ignore specified directory name. Use multiple -i options to ignore more than one directory name. A
special DIR value of "SYMLINKS" (case sensitive) may be specified to ignore symbolic links when the
-r option is used.
-if EXPR
Specify a condition to be evaluated before processing each FILE. EXPR is a Perl-like logic
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 names separated by colons, and/or a trailing "#" character to disable print
conversion. The expression $GROUP:all evaluates to 1 if any tag exists in the specified "GROUP", or
0 otherwise (see note 2 below). 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
Notes:
1) The -n and -b options also apply to tags used in EXPR.
2) Some binary data blocks are not extracted unless specified explicitly. These tags are not
available for use in the -if condition unless they are also specified on the command line. The
alternative is to use the $GROUP:all syntax. (ie. Use $exif:all instead of $exif in EXPR to test for
the existence of EXIF tags.)
3) Tags in the string are interpolated the same way as with -p before the expression is evaluated.
In this interpolation, $/ is converted to a newline and $$ represents a single "$" symbol (so Perl
variables, if used, require a double "$").
4) The condition may only test tags from the file being processed. To process one file based on
tags from another, two steps are required. For example, to process XMP sidecar files in directory
"DIR" based on tags from the associated NEF:
exiftool -if EXPR -p '$directory/$filename' -ext nef DIR > nef.txt
exiftool -@ nef.txt -srcfile %d%f.xmp ...
-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. Generally, minor errors/warnings indicate a
problem which usually won't result in loss of metadata if ignored. However, there are exceptions,
so ExifTool leaves it up to you to make the final decision. Minor errors and warnings are indicated
by "[minor]" at the start of the message. Warnings which affect processing when ignored are
indicated by "[Minor]" (with a capital "M").
-o OUTFILE or FMT (-out)
Set the output file or directory name when writing information. Without this option, when any
"real" tags are written the original file is renamed to "FILE_original" and output is written to
FILE. When writing only FileName and/or Directory "pseudo" tags, -o causes the file to be copied
instead of moved, but directories specified for either of these tags take precedence over that
specified by the -o option.
OUTFILE may be "-" to write to stdout. 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 the creation of certain types of files from scratch, or with
the metadata from another type of file. The following file types may be created using this
technique:
XMP, ICC/ICM, MIE, VRD, EXIF
The output file type is determined by the extension of OUTFILE (specified as "-.EXT" when writing to
stdout). The output file is then 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 (ie. the file is moved instead of copied).
-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,
type, creator, label color, icon, Finder tags and hard links to the file to be preserved (but note
that the Mac OS resource fork is always preserved unless specifically deleted with "-rsrc:all=").
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 (-preserve)
Preserve the filesystem modification date/time of the original file ("FileModifyDate") when writing.
Note that some filesystems store a creation date which is not preserved by this option, with the
exception of Windows systems where Win32API::File::Time is available. For other systems, the
-overwrite_original_in_place option may be used if necessary to preserve the creation date.
-password PASSWD
Specify password to allow processing of password-protected PDF documents. If a password is required
but not given, a warning is issued and the document is not processed. Ignored if a password is not
required.
-progress
Show file progress count in messages. The progress count appears in brackets after then name of
each processed file, and gives the current file number and the total number of files to be
processed. Implies the -v0 option, which prints the name of each processed file when writing. When
combined with the [tt]-if[/tt] option, the total count includes all files before the condition is
applied, but files that fail the condition will not have their names printed.
-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. By
default, exiftool will also follow symbolic links to directories if supported by the system, but
this may be disabled with "-i SYMLINKS" (see the -i option for details).
-scanForXMP
Scan all files (even unsupported formats) for XMP information unless found already. When combined
with the -fast option, only unsupported file types are scanned. Warning: It can be time consuming
to scan large files.
-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.
-wm MODE (-writeMode)
Set mode for writing/creating tags. MODE is a string of one or more characters from the list below.
Write mode is "wcg" unless otherwise specified.
w - Write existing tags
c - Create new tags
g - create new Groups as necessary
The level of the group is the SubDirectory level in the metadata structure. For XMP or IPTC this is
the full XMP/IPTC block (the family 0 group), but for EXIF this is the individual IFD (the family 1
group).
-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.) This option also disables the recommended padding in embedded XMP, saving 2424
bytes when writing XMP in a file.
Special features
-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 tags to be written
(provided they can be calculated from the track log, and they are supported by the destination
metadata format): GPSLatitude, GPSLatitudeRef, GPSLongitude, GPSLongitudeRef, GPSAltitude,
GPSAltitudeRef, GPSDateStamp, GPSTimeStamp, GPSDateTime, GPSTrack, GPSTrackRef, GPSSpeed,
GPSSpeedRef, GPSImgDirection, GPSImgDirectionRef, GPSPitch and GPSRoll. By default, tags are
created in EXIF, and updated in XMP only if they already exist. However, "EXIF:Geotime" or
"XMP:Geotime" may be specified to write only EXIF or XMP tags respectively. Note that GPSPitch and
GPSRoll are non-standard, and require user-defined tags in order to be written.
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
"Geosync" must be set before "Geotime" (if specified) to be effective. Advanced "Geosync" features
allow a linear time drift correction and synchronization from previously geotagged images. See
"geotag.html" in the full ExifTool distribution for more information.
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,
Magellan PMGNTRK, Honeywell PTNTHPR, and Winplus Beacon text files. 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.
-globalTimeShift SHIFT
Shift all formatted date/time values by the specified amount when reading. Does not apply to
unformatted (-n) output. SHIFT takes the same form as the date/time shift when writing (see
Image::ExifTool::Shift.pl for details), with a negative shift being indicated with a minus sign
("-") at the start of the SHIFT string. For example:
# return all date/times, shifted back by 1 hour
exiftool -globalTimeShift -1 -time:all a.jpg
# set the file name from the shifted CreateDate (-1 day) for
# all images in a directory
exiftool "-filename<createdate" -globaltimeshift "-0:0:1 0:0:0" \
-d %Y%m%d-%H%M%S.%%e dir
-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. Note that this
option is not reversible, and remains in effect until the application terminates, even across the
"-execute" option.
Utilities
-restore_original
-delete_original[!]
These utility options automate the maintenance of the "_original" files created by exiftool. They
have no effect on files without an "_original" copy. The -restore_original option restores the
specified files from their original copies by renaming the "_original" files to replace the edited
versions. For example, the following command restores the originals of all JPG images in directory
"DIR":
exiftool -restore_original -ext jpg DIR
The -delete_original option deletes the "_original" copies of all files specified on the command
line. Without a trailing "!" this option prompts for confirmation before continuing. For example,
the following command deletes "a.jpg_original" if it exists, after asking "Are you sure?":
exiftool -delete_original a.jpg
These options may not be used with other options to read or write tag values in the same command,
but may be combined with options such -ext, -if, -r, -q and -v.
Other options
-@ 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, and all arguments 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 and spaces are treated as any other character. 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
-k (-pause)
Pause with the message "-- press any key --" or "-- press RETURN --" (depending on your system)
before terminating. This option is used to prevent the command window from closing when run as a
Windows drag and drop application.
-list, -listw, -listf, -listr, -listwf, -listg[NUM], -listd, -listx
Print a list of all valid tag names (-list), all writable tag names (-listw), all supported file
extensions (-listff), all recognized file extensions (-listr), 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 including language translations (-listx). The -list, -listw and
-listx options may be followed by an additional argument of the form "-GROUP:All" to list only 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. 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 supported file extensions
-listr # 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
When combined with -listx, the -s option shortens the output by omitting the descriptions and values
(as in the last example above), and -f adds a 'flags' attribute if applicable. The flags are
formatted as a comma-separated list of the following possible values: Avoid, Binary, List,
Mandatory, Permanent, Protected, Unknown and Unsafe (see the Tag Name documentation). For XMP List
tags, the list type (Alt, Bag or Seq) is added to the flags, and flattened structure tags are
indicated by a Flattened flag.
Note that none of the -list options require an input FILE.
-ver Print exiftool version number.
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.
-api OPT[=VAL]
Set ExifTool API option. OPT is a case-sensitive API option name. The option value is set to 1 if
=VAL is omitted. See Image::ExifTool Options for a list of available API options. This overrides
API options set via the config file.
-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.
Note that by definition this option and its arguments MUST come after all other options on the
command line.
-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 may contain a directory
specification (otherwise the file must exist in the current directory), 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.
-echo[NUM] TEXT
Echo text to stdout (-echo or -echo1) or stderr (-echo2). Text is output as the command line is
parsed, before the processing of any input files. NUM may also be 3 or 4 to output text (to stdout
or stderr respectively) after processing is complete.
-execute[NUM]
Execute command for all arguments up to this point on the command line. Allows multiple commands to
be executed from a single command line. NUM is an optional number that is echoed in the "{ready}"
message when using the -stay_open feature.
-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 specified from the command line, not the name of the source file
specified by -srcfile.
If than one -srcfile option is specified, the files are tested in order and the first existing
source file is processed. If none of the source files already exist, then exiftool uses the first
-srcfile specified.
A FMT of "@" may be used to represent the original FILE, which may be useful when specifying
multiple -srcfile options (ie. to fall back to processing the original FILE if no sidecar exists).
-stay_open FLAG
If FLAG is 1 or "True", causes exiftool keep reading from the -@ ARGFILE even after reaching the end
of file. This feature allows calling applications to pre-load exiftool, thus avoiding the overhead
of loading exiftool for each command. The procedure is as follows:
1) Execute "exiftool -stay_open True -@ ARGFILE", where ARGFILE is the name of an existing (possibly
empty) argument file or "-" to pipe arguments from the standard input.
2) Write exiftool command-line arguments to ARGFILE, one argument per line (see the -@ option for
details).
3) Write "-execute\n" to ARGFILE, where "\n" represents a newline sequence. (Note: You may need to
flush your write buffers here if using buffered output.) Exiftool will then execute the command
with the arguments received up to this point, send a "{ready}" message to stdout when done (unless
the -q or -T option is used), and continue trying to read arguments for the next command from
ARGFILE. To aid in command/response synchronization, any number appended to the "-execute" option
is echoed in the "{ready}" message. For example, "-execute613" results in "{ready613}".
4) Repeat steps 2 and 3 for each command.
5) Write "-stay_open\nFalse\n" to ARGFILE when done. This will cause exiftool to process any
remaining command-line arguments then exit normally.
The input ARGFILE may be changed at any time before step 5 above by writing the following lines to
the currently open ARGFILE:
-stay_open
True
-@
NEWARGFILE
This causes ARGFILE to be closed, and NEWARGFILE to be kept open. (Without the -stay_open here,
exiftool would have returned to reading arguments from ARGFILE after reaching the end of
NEWARGFILE.)
Note: When writing arguments to a disk file there is a delay of up to 0.01 seconds after writing
"-execute\n" before exiftool starts processing the command. This delay may be avoided by sending a
CONT signal to the exiftool process immediately after writing "-execute\n". (There is no associated
delay when writing arguments via a pipe with "-@ -", so the signal is not necessary when using this
technique.)
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 yet functionally-different
characters by the text formatter used to display this documentation. Also note that Windows users must
use double quotes instead of single quotes as below around arguments containing special characters.
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". "-common" is a shortcut tag representing
common EXIF meta information.
exiftool -T -createdate -aperture -shutterspeed -iso dir > out.txt
List specified 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
to ".txt" files with the same names.
exiftool -b -ThumbnailImage image.jpg > thumbnail.jpg
Save thumbnail image from "image.jpg" to a file called "thumbnail.jpg".
exiftool -b -JpgFromRaw -w _JFR.JPG -ext NEF -r .
Recursively extract JPG image from all Nikon NEF 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 -ext jpg .
Print formatted date/time for all JPG files in the current directory.
exiftool -IFD1:XResolution -IFD1:YResolution image.jpg
Extract image resolution from EXIF IFD1 information (thumbnail image IFD).
exiftool '-*resolution*' image.jpg
Extract all tags with names containing the word "Resolution" from an image.
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'.
exiftool -a -b -ee -embeddedimage -W Image_%.3g3.%s file.pdf
Extract embedded JPG and JP2 images from a PDF file. The output images will have file names like
"Image_#.jpg" or "Image_#.jp2", where "#" is the ExifTool family 3 embedded document number for the
image.
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 -ext 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 -exposurecompensation+=-0.5 a.jpg
Decrement the value of ExposureCompensation by 0.5 EV. Note that += with a negative value is used
for decrementing because the -= operator is used for conditional deletion (see next example).
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 necessary to prevent shell
redirection).
exiftool '-JpgFromRaw<=%d%f_JFR.JPG' -ext NEF -r .
Recursively write JPEG images with filenames ending in "_JFR.JPG" to the JpgFromRaw tag of like-
named files with extension ".NEF" 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 -hierarchicalkeywords='{keyword=one,children={keyword=B}}'
Write structured XMP information. See <http://owl.phy.queensu.ca/~phil/exiftool/struct.html> for
more details.
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.cr2 dst.jpg
Copy the values of all writable tags from "src.cr2" to "dst.jpg", writing the information to same-
named tags in 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 '-FileModifyDate<DateTimeOriginal' 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 '-xmp:all<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 are xmp2iptc.args (which performs the inverse
conversion) and a few more .args files for other conversions between EXIF, IPTC and XMP.
exiftool -tagsfromfile %d%f.CR2 -r -ext JPG dir
Recursively rewrite all "JPG" images in "dir" with information copied from the corresponding "CR2"
images in the same directories.
exiftool '-keywords+<make' 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_${model;}.%e' dir
Rename all files in "dir" by adding the camera model name to the file name. The semicolon after the
tag name inside the braces causes characters which are invalid in Windows file names to be deleted
from the tag value (see the -p option documentation for an explanation).
exiftool '-FileName<CreateDate' -d %Y%m%d_%H%M%S%%-c.%%e dir
Rename all images in "dir" according to the "CreateDate" date and time, adding a copy number with
leading '-' if the file already exists ("%-c"), and preserving the original file extension (%e).
Note the extra '%' necessary to escape the filename codes (%c and %e) in the date format string.
exiftool -r '-FileName<CreateDate' -d %Y-%m-%d/%H%M_%%f.%%e dir
Both the directory and the filename may be changed together via the "FileName" tag if the new
"FileName" contains a '/'. The example above recursively renames all images in a directory by
adding a "CreateDate" timestamp to the start of the filename, then moves them into new directories
named by date.
exiftool '-FileName<${CreateDate}_$filenumber.jpg' -d %Y%m%d -ext jpg .
Set the filename of all JPG images in the current directory from the CreateDate and FileNumber tags,
in the form "20060507_118-1861.jpg".
GEOTAGGING EXAMPLES
ExifTool implements geotagging via 3 special tags: Geotag (which for convenience is also implemented as
an exiftool option), Geosync and Geotime. The examples below highlight some geotagging features. See
<http://owl.phy.queensu.ca/~phil/exiftool/geotag.html> for additional documentation.
exiftool -geotag track.log a.jpg
Geotag an image ("a.jpg") from position information in a GPS track log ("track.log"). Since the
"Geotime" tag is not specified, the value of DateTimeOriginal is used for geotagging. Local system
time is assumed unless DateTimeOriginal contains a timezone.
exiftool -geotag t.log -geotime='2009:04:02 13:41:12-05:00' a.jpg
Geotag an image with the GPS position for a specific time. (Note that the "Geotag" tag must be
assigned before "Geotime" for the GPS data to be available when "Geotime" is set.)
exiftool -geotag log.gpx '-xmp:geotime<createdate' dir
Geotag all images in directory "dir" with XMP tags instead of EXIF tags, based on the image
CreateDate. (In this case, the order of the arguments doesn't matter because tags with values
copied from other tags are always set after constant values.)
exiftool -geotag a.log -geosync=-20 dir
Geotag images in directory "dir", accounting for image timestamps which were 20 seconds ahead of
GPS.
exiftool -geotag a.log -geosync=1.jpg -geosync=2.jpg dir
Geotag images using time synchronization from two previously geotagged images (1.jpg and 2.jpg),
synchronizing the image and GPS times using a linear time drift correction.
exiftool -geotag a.log '-geotime<${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.
curl -s http://a.domain.com/bigfile.jpg | exiftool -fast -
Extract information from an image over the internet using the cURL 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.
AUTHOR
Copyright 2003-2014, Phil Harvey
This is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl itself.
SEE ALSO
Image::ExifTool(3pm), Image::ExifTool::TagNames(3pm), Image::ExifTool::Shortcuts(3pm),
Image::ExifTool::Shift.pl
perl v5.18.1 2014-01-02 EXIFTOOL(1p)