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exiftool

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|wf|g[NUM]|d|x] ]

For specific examples, see the EXAMPLES sections below.

DESCRIPTION

A command-line interface to Image::ExifTool, used for reading and writing meta information in image, audio and video files. FILE is a source file name, directory name, or "-" for the standard input. Information is read from the source file and output in readable form to the console (or written to an output text file with the -w option).

To write or copy information, new values are specified with the -TAG=[VALUE] syntax or the -tagsFromFile option. This causes FILE to be rewritten, and by default the original file is preserved with "_original" appended to the file name. (Be sure to verify that the new file is OK before erasing the original.) Once in write mode, exiftool will ignore any read-specific options.

Below is a list of file types and meta information formats currently supported by ExifTool (r = read, w = write, c = create):

                 File Types                 |    Meta Information
   ---------------------------------------  |  --------------------
   3FR   r       HDP   r/w     PPM   r/w    |  EXIF           r/w/c
   ACR   r       HTML  r       PPT   r      |  GPS            r/w/c
   AI    r       ICC   r/w/c   PS    r/w    |  IPTC           r/w/c
   AIFF  r       ITC   r       PSD   r/w    |  XMP            r/w/c
   APE   r       JNG   r/w     QTIF  r      |  MakerNotes     r/w/c
   ARW   r       JP2   r/w     RA    r      |  Photoshop IRB  r/w/c
   ASF   r       JPEG  r/w     RAF   r/w    |  ICC Profile    r/w/c
   AVI   r       K25   r       RAM   r      |  MIE            r/w/c
   BMP   r       KDC   r       RAW   r/w    |  JFIF           r/w/c
   BTF   r       M4A   r       RIFF  r      |  Ducky APP12    r/w/c
   CR2   r/w     MEF   r/w     RW2   r      |  PDF            r/w/c
   CRW   r/w     MIE   r/w/c   RWZ   r      |  CIFF           r/w
   CS1   r/w     MIFF  r       RM    r      |  AFCP           r/w
   DCM   r       MNG   r/w     SO    r      |  JPEG 2000      r
   DCP   r/w     MOS   r/w     SR2   r      |  DICOM          r
   DCR   r       MOV   r       SRF   r      |  Flash          r
   DIVX  r       MP3   r       SVG   r      |  FlashPix       r
   DJVU  r       MP4   r       SWF   r      |  QuickTime      r
   DLL   r       MPC   r       THM   r/w    |  GeoTIFF        r
   DNG   r/w     MPG   r       TIFF  r/w    |  PrintIM        r
   DOC   r       MRW   r/w     VRD   r/w/c  |  ID3            r
   DYLIB r       NEF   r/w     WAV   r      |  Kodak Meta     r
   EPS   r/w     OGG   r       WDP   r/w    |  Ricoh RMETA    r
   ERF   r/w     ORF   r/w     WMA   r      |  Picture Info   r
   EXE   r       PBM   r/w     WMV   r      |  Adobe APP14    r
   EXIF  r/w/c   PDF   r/w     X3F   r      |  APE            r
   FLAC  r       PEF   r/w     XLS   r      |  Vorbis         r
   FLV   r       PGM   r/w     XMP   r/w/c  |  SPIFF          r
   FPX   r       PICT  r       ZIP   r      |  (and more)
   GIF   r/w     PNG   r/w
 
 

Note: If FILE is a directory name, then only file types with recognized extensions are processed when reading, and only writable types are processed when any tag is written. However, a filename may be specified or the -ext option may be used to force processing of files with any extension.

OPTIONS

Case is not significant for any command-line option (including tag and group names), except for single-character options when the corresponding upper-case option is defined. Many single-character options have equivalent long-name versions (shown in brackets), and some options have inverses which are invoked with a leading double-dash. Note that multiple single-character options may NOT be combined into one argument because this would be interpreted as a tag name.

Option Summary

   -TAG or --TAG                     Extract or exclude specified tag
   -TAG[+-]=[VALUE]                  Write new value for tag
   -TAG[+-]<=DATFILE                 Write tag value from contents of file
   -TAG[+-]<SRCTAG                   Copy tag value (see -tagsFromFile)
 
   -@ ARGFILE                        Read command-line arguments from file
   -a          (-duplicates)         Allow duplicate tag names in output
   -b          (-binary)             Output data in binary format
   -c FMT      (-coordFormat)        Set format for GPS coordinates
   -d FMT      (-dateFormat)         Set format for date/time values
   -D          (-decimal)            Show tag ID numbers in decimal
   -e          (--composite)         Do not calculate composite tags
   -E          (-escapeHTML)         Escape special characters for HTML
   -ee         (-extractEmbedded)    Extract information from embedded files
   -ext EXT    (-extension)          Process files with specified extension
   -f          (-forcePrint)         Force printing of all specified tags
   -F[OFFSET]  (-fixBase)            Fix the base for maker notes offsets
   -fast                             Increase speed for slow devices
   -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
   -i DIR      (-ignore)             Ignore specified directory name
   -if EXPR                          Conditionally process files
   -j          (-json)               Use JSON output format
   -k          (-pause)              Pause before terminating
   -l          (-long)               Use long 2-line output format
   -L          (-latin)              Use Windows Latin1 encoding
   -lang [LANG]                      Set current language
   -list [-GROUP:all]                List all tag names
   -listw [-GROUP:all]               List writable tag names
   -listf                            List recognized file extensions
   -listwf                           List writable file extensions
   -listg[NUM]                       List groups in specified family
   -listd                            List deletable groups
   -listx [-GROUP:all]               List tag database in XML format
   -m          (-ignoreMinorErrors)  Ignore minor errors
   -n          (--printConv)         Disable print conversion
   -o OUTFILE  (-out)                Set output file or directory name
   -overwrite_original               Overwrite original by renaming tmp file
   -overwrite_original_in_place      Overwrite original by copying tmp file
   -p FMTFILE  (-printFormat)        Print output in specified format
   -P          (-preserve)           Preserve date/time of original file
   -q          (-quiet)              Quiet processing
   -r          (-recurse)            Recursively process subdirectories
   -s          (-short)              Short output format
   -S          (-veryShort)          Very short output format
   -scanForXMP                       Brute force XMP scan
   -sep STR    (-separator)          Set separator string for list items
   -t          (-tab)                Output in tab-delimited list format
   -T          (-table)              Output in tabular format
   -tagsFromFile SRCFILE             Copy tag values from file
   -u          (-unknown)            Extract unknown tags
   -U          (-unknown2)           Extract unknown binary tags too
   -v[NUM]     (-verbose)            Print verbose messages
   -ver                              Print version number and exit
   -w EXT      (-textOut)            Write console output to file
   -x TAG      (-exclude)            Exclude specified tag
   -X          (-xmlFormat)          Use RDF/XML output format
   -z          (-zip)                Read/write compressed information
 
   -common_args                      Define common arguments
   -execute                          Execute multiple commands on one line
   -srcfile FMT                      Set different source file name
 
 

Option Details

-TAG

Extract information for specified tag (ie. "-CreateDate"). See Image::ExifTool::TagNames for documentation on available tag names. A tag name may include leading group names separated by colons (ie. "-EXIF:CreateDate", or "-Doc1:XMP:Creator"), and each group name may be prefixed by a digit to specify family number (ie. "-1IPTC:City"). Use the -listg option to list available group names by family.

A special tag name of "All" may be used to indicate all meta information. This is particularly useful when a group name is specified to extract all information in a group. ("*" is a synonym for "All", but must be quoted if used on the command line to prevent shell globbing.)

If no tags are specified, all available information is extracted.

Note: Descriptions, not tag names, are shown by default when extracting information. Use the -s option to see the tag names instead.

--TAG

Exclude specified tag from extracted information. Same as the -x option. May also be used following a -tagsFromFile option to exclude tags from being copied, or to exclude groups from being deleted when deleting all information (ie. "-all= --exif:all" deletes all but EXIF information).

Note that this will not exclude individual tags from a group delete. Instead, the tags must be recovered using the -tagsFromFile option.

-TAG[+-]=[VALUE]

Write a new value for the specified tag (ie. "-comment=wow"), or delete the tag if no VALUE is given (ie. "-comment="). "+=" and "-=" are used to add or remove existing entries from a list, or to shift date/time values (see Image::ExifTool::Shift.pl for details), and "-=" may be used to conditionally remove or replace a tag (see ``WRITING EXAMPLES'' for examples).

TAG may contain a leading family 0 or 1 group name separated by a colon. If no group name is specified, the tag is created in the preferred group, and updated in any other location where the tag already exists. The preferred group is the first group in the following list where TAG is valid: 1) EXIF, 2) IPTC, 3) XMP.

The special "All" tag may be used in this syntax only if a VALUE is NOT given. This causes all meta information to be deleted (or all information in a group if "-GROUP:All=" is used). Note that not all groups are deletable. Use the -listd option for a complete list of deletable groups. Also, within an image some groups may be contained within others, and these groups are removed if the containing group is deleted:

   JPEG Image:
   - Deleting EXIF or IFD0 also deletes ExifIFD, GlobParamIFD,
     GPS, IFD1, InteropIFD, MakerNotes, PrintIM and SubIFD.
   - Deleting ExifIFD also deletes InteropIFD and MakerNotes.
   - Deleting Photoshop also deletes IPTC.
 
   TIFF Image:
   - Deleting EXIF only removes ExifIFD which also deletes
     InteropIFD and MakerNotes.
 
 

-TAG<=DATFILE or -TAG<=FMT

Set the value of a tag from the contents of file DATFILE. The file name may also be given by a FMT string where %d, %f and %e represent the directory, file name and extension of the original FILE (see the -w option for more details). Note that quotes are required around this argument to prevent shell redirection since it contains a "<" symbol. "+<=" or "-<=" may also be used to add or delete specific list entries, or to shift date/time values.

-@ ARGFILE

Read command-line arguments from the specified file. The file contains one argument per line (NOT one option per line --- some options require additional arguments which must be placed on separate lines). Blank lines and lines beginning with "#" and are ignored. Normal shell processing of arguments is not performed, which among other things means that arguments should not be quoted. ARGFILE may exist relative to either the current directory or the exiftool directory unless an absolute pathname is given.

For example, the following ARGFILE will set the value of Copyright to ``Copyright YYYY, Phil Harvey'', where ``YYYY'' is the year of CreateDate:

     -d
     %Y
     -copyright<Copyright $createdate, Phil Harvey
 
 

-a, --a (-duplicates, --duplicates)

Allow (-a) or supress (--a) duplicate tag names in the output. By default, duplicate tags are suppressed unless the -X or -ee options are used.

-b (-binary)

Output requested data in binary format without tag names or descriptions. This option is mainly used for extracting embedded images or other binary data, but it may also be useful for some text strings since control characters (such as newlines) are not replaced by '.' as they are in the default output. Also valid in combination with the "-X" option.

-c FMT (-coordFormat)

Set the print format for GPS coordinates. FMT uses the same syntax as the "printf" format string. The specifiers correspond to degrees, minutes and seconds in that order, but minutes and seconds are optional. For example, the following table gives the output for the same coordinate using various formats:

             FMT                  Output
     -------------------    ------------------
     "%d deg %d' %.2f"\"    54 deg 59' 22.80"   (the default)
     "%d deg %.4f min"      54 deg 59.3800 min
     "%.6f degrees"         54.989667 degrees
 
 

-d FMT (-dateFormat)

Set the format for date/time tag values. Consult "strftime" man page for FMT syntax. The default format is equivalent to ``%Y:%m:%d %H:%M:%S''. This option has no effect on date-only or time-only tags and ignores timezone information if present. 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.

-e (--composite)

Print existing tags only --- don't calculate composite tags.

-E (-escapeHTML)

Escape characters in output values for HTML. Implied with the -h option.

-ee (-extractEmbedded)

Extract information from embedded documents in EPS and PDF files. Implies the -a option. Use -g3 or -G3 to identify the originating document for extracted information. Embedded documents containing sub-documents are indicated with dashes in the family 3 group name. (ie. "Doc2-3" is the 3rd sub-document of the 2nd embedded document.)

-ext EXT, --ext EXT (-extension)

Process only files with (-ext) or without (--ext) a specified extension. There may be multiple -ext and --ext options. Extensions may begin with a leading '.', and case is not significant. For example:

     exiftool -ext .JPG DIR            # process only JPG files
     exiftool --ext crw --ext dng DIR  # process all but CRW and DNG
     exiftool --ext . DIR              # ignore if no extension
 
 

-f (-forcePrint)

Force printing of tags even if their values are not found. This option only applies when tag names are specified.

-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

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. The speed benefits are small when reading images directly from disk, but can be substantial if piping images through a network connection.

-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) or 3 (document number). Multiple families may be specified by separating them with colons. By default the resulting group name is simplified by removing any leading "Main:" and collapsing adjacent identical group names, but this can avoided by placing a colon before the first family number (ie. -g:3:1). If NUM is not specified, -g0 is assumed. Use the -listg option to list group names for a specified family.

-G[NUM][:NUM...] (-groupNames)

Same as -g but print group name for each tag.

-h (-htmlFormat)

Use HTML formatting for output. Implies -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.

-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 and TIFF information is dumped, but the -u option can be used to give a raw hex dump of other file formats.

-i DIR (-ignore)

Ignore specified directory name. May be multiple -i options.

-if EXPR

Specify a condition to be evaluated before processing each FILE. EXPR is a Perl-like expression containing tag names prefixed by "$" symbols. It is evaluated with the tags from each FILE in turn, and processing proceeds only if the expression returns true. Unlike Perl variable names, tag names are not case sensitive and may contain a hyphen or a leading group name separated by a colon. When multiple -if options are used, all conditions must be satisfied to process the file. 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
 
 

-j (-json)

Use JSON (JavaScript Object Notation) formatting for console output. This option may be combined with -g to organize the output into objects by group, or -G to add group names to each tag. List-type tags with multiple items are output as JSON arrays unless -sep is used. The -a option is implied if the -g or -G options are used, otherwise it is ignored and duplicate tags are suppressed.

-k (-pause)

Pause with the message "-- press any key --" before terminating. This option is used to prevent the command window from closing when run as a Windows drag and drop application.

-l (-long)

Use long 2-line Canon-style output format. Adds a description to the XML output when -X is used.

-L (-latin)

Convert Unicode characters in output to Windows Latin1 (cp1252) instead of the default UTF-8. When writing, -L is used to specify that input text values are Latin1 instead of UTF-8.

-lang [LANG]

Set current language for tag descriptions and converted values. LANG is "de", "fr", "jp", 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. The -L option should be used to switch to the Windows Latin1 character set on consoles using this encoding.

Currently, the language support is not complete, but I welcome any translations submitted by users. 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 the next ExifTool release.

-list, -listw, -listf, -listwf, -listg[NUM], -listd, -listx

Print a list of all valid tag names (-list), all writable tag names (-listw), all recognized file extensions (-listf), all writable file extensions (-listwf), all tag groups [in a specified family] (-listg[NUM]), all deletable tag groups (-listd), or an XML database of tag details (-listx). The -list, -listw and -listx options may be followed by an additional argument of the form "-GROUP:All" to list all tags in a specific group, where "GROUP" is one or more family 0-2 group names (excepting EXIF IFD groups) separated by colons. With -listg, NUM may be given to specify the group family, otherwise family 0 is assumed. The -s option may be used before -listx to shorten the output by omitting the descriptions and values. Here are some examples:

     -list               # list all tag names
     -list -EXIF:All     # list all EXIF tags
     -list -xmp:time:all # list all XMP tags relating to time
     -listw -XMP-dc:All  # list all writable XMP-dc tags
     -listf              # list all recognized file extensions
     -listwf             # list all writable file extensions
     -listg1             # list all groups in family 1
     -listd              # list all deletable groups
     -listx -EXIF:All    # list database of EXIF tags in XML format
     -s -listx           # list short XML database of all tags
 
 

Note that none of the -list options require an input FILE.

-m (-ignoreMinorErrors)

Ignore minor errors. This enables writing to a file with minor errors, or extraction of embedded images that aren't in standard JPG format.

-n (--printConv)

Read and write values as numbers instead of words. This option disables the print conversion that is applied when extracting values to make them more readable. For example:

     > exiftool -Orientation -S a.jpg
     Orientation: Rotate 90 CW
     > exiftool -Orientation -S -n a.jpg
     Orientation: 6
 
 

This option also disables the inverse print conversion when writing, so the following two commands have the same effect:

     > exiftool -Orientation='Rotate 90 CW' a.jpg
     > exiftool -Orientation=6 -n a.jpg
 
 

-o OUTFILE or FMT (-out)

Set the output file or directory name when writing information. (Without this option, the original file is renamed to "FILE_original" and output is sent to FILE.) The output file name may also be specified using a FMT string in which %d, %f and %e represent the directory, file name and extension of FILE. Also, %c may be used to add a copy number. See the -w option for FMT string examples.

The output file is taken to be a directory name if it already exists as a directory or if the name ends with '/'. Output directories are created if necessary. Existing files will not be overwritten. Combining the -overwrite_original option with -o causes the original source file to be erased after the output file is successfully written.

A special feature of this option allows it to be used to create certain types of files from scratch. Currently, this can only be done with XMP and ICC/ICM files. The file is created from a combination of information in FILE and tag values assigned on the command line. This is done by specifying a file extension of '.XMP', '.ICC' or '.ICM' for OUTFILE. The output file may be created even if no FILE is specified, provided some appropriate tag values are specified 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.

-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 type, creator and icon to be preserved. This is implemented by copying the contents of a temporary file over the original, then deleting the temporary file. The extra step results in slower performance, so the -overwrite_original option should be used instead unless necessary.

-p FMTFILE or STR (-printFormat)

Print output in the format specified by the given file or string (and ignore other format options). Tag names in the format file or string begin with a "$" symbol and may contain an optional group name. Case is not significant. Braces "{}" may be used around the tag name to separate it from subsequent text. Use $$ to represent a "$" symbol. $/ may be used for a newline. In the file, lines beginning with "#" are ignored. For example, this format file:

     # this is a comment line
     File $FileName was created on $DateTimeOriginal
     (f/$Aperture, ${ShutterSpeed}s, ISO $EXIF:ISO)
 
 

produces output like this:

     File test.jpg was created on 2003:10:31 15:44:19
     (f/5.6, 1/60s, ISO 100)
 
 

If a tag does not exist, the output value is set to '-' if the -f option is used. Otherwise a minor warning is issued and the line with the missing tag is not printed. However, if the -m option is used, minor warnings are ignored and the line is printed with an empty tag value.

-P (-preserve)

Preserve date/time of original file ("FileModifyDate") when writing.

-q (-quiet)

Quiet processing. One -q suppresses normal informational messages, and a second -q suppresses warnings as well. Error messages can not be suppressed, although minor errors may be downgraded to warnings with the -m option.

-r (-recurse)

Recursively process files in subdirectories. Only meaningful if FILE is a directory name.

-s (-short)

Short output format. Prints tag names instead of descriptions. Add up to 3 -s options for even shorter formats:

     -s        - print tag names instead of descriptions
     -s -s     - no extra spaces to column-align values
     -s -s -s  - print values only
 
 

Also effective when combined with -t, -h or -X options.

-S (-veryShort)

Very short format. The same as two -s options. Extra spaces used to column-align values are not printed.

-scanForXMP

Scan all files (even unrecognized formats) for XMP information unless found already. When combined with the -fast option, only unrecognized file types are scanned. Warning: It can be time consuming to scan large files.

-sep STR (-separator)

Specify separator string for items in List-type tags. When reading, the default is ``, ''. When writing, this option causes values assigned to list-type tags to be split into individual items at each substring matching specified separator. Space characters in the separator string match zero or more whitespace characters.

-t (-tab)

Output a tab-delimited list of description/values (useful for database import). May be combined with -s to print tag names instead of descriptions, or -S to print tag values only, tab-delimited on a single line. The -t option may also be used to add tag table information to the -X option output.

-T (-table)

Output tag values in table form. (Equivalent to -t -S -q -f.)

-tagsFromFile SRCFILE or FMT

Copy tag values from SRCFILE to FILE. Tag names on the command line after this option specify the tags to be copied, or excluded from the copy. If no tags are specified, then all tags from the source file are copied. More than one -tagsFromFile option may be used to copy tags from multiple files.

By default, this option will commute information between same-named tags in different groups and write each tag to the preferred group. This allows information to be automatically translated when copying between images of different formats. However, if a group name is specified for a tag then the information is written to the original group (unless redirected to another group, see below). This works even if "All" is used as a group name, so "-All:All" is used to specify that all information be copied to the same group in the destination file.

SRCFILE may be the same as FILE to move information around within a file. In this case, "@" may be used to represent the source file (ie. "-tagsFromFile @"), permitting this feature to be used for batch processing multiple files (see note 3 below). Specified tags are then copied from each file in turn as it is rewritten. For advanced batch use, the source file name may also be specified using a FMT string in which %d, %f and %e represent the directory, file name and extension of FILE. See -w option for FMT string examples.

A powerful redirection feature allows a destination tag to be specified for each extracted tag. With this feature, information may be written to a tag with a different name or group. This is done using "'-SRCTAG>DSTTAG'" on the command line after -tagsFromFile ("'-DSTTAG<SRCTAG'" also works). Note that this argument must be quoted to prevent shell redirection, and there is no "=" sign as when assigning new values. Both source and destination tags may be prefixed by a group name, and "All" or "*" may be used as a tag or group name. If no destination group is specified, the information is written to the preferred group. As a convenience, "-tagsFromFile @" is assumed for any redirected tags which are specified without a prior -tagsFromFile option. Copied tags may also be added or deleted from a list with arguments of the form "'-SRCTAG+>DSTTAG'`` or '''-SRCTAG->DSTTAG'".

An extension of the redirection feature allows strings involving tag names to be used on the right hand side of the "<" symbol with the syntax "'-DSTTAG<STR'", where tag names in STR are prefixed with a "$" symbol. See the -p option for more details about this syntax. Strings starting with a "=" sign must insert a single space after the "<" to avoid confusion with the "<=" syntax which would otherwise attempt to set the tag value from the contents of a file. A single space at the start of the string is removed if it exists, but all other whitespace is preserved.

See ``COPYING EXAMPLES'' for examples using -tagsFromFile.

Notes:

1) Be aware of the difference between excluding a tag from being copied (--TAG), and deleting a tag (-TAG=). Excluding a tag prevents it from being copied to the destination image, but deleting will remove a pre-existing tag from the image.

2) The maker note information is copied as a block, so it isn't affected like other information by subsequent tag assignments on the command line. Also, since the PreviewImage referenced from the maker notes may be rather large, it is not copied, and must be transferred separately if desired.

3) When performing complex batch processing, it is important to note that the order of operations is different for tags copied in batch mode. In general, tags are copied from batch-mode files after all other command-line arguments have been applied. (The exception is that a group delete is always performed last if there are no subsequent tag assignments on the command line.) For example, the following two commands are not equivalent:

     # (not batch mode):  Sets xmp:title to 'NEW'
     exiftool -tagsfromfile a.jpg -xmp:title -xmp:title=NEW a.jpg
 
     # (batch mode):  Preserves original title if it exists
     exiftool -tagsfromfile @ -xmp:title -xmp:title=NEW a.jpg
 
 

4) The normal behaviour of copied tags differs subtly from that of assigned tags for List-type tags. When copying to a list, each copied tag overrides any previous operations on the list. While this avoids duplicate list items when copying groups of tags from a file containing redundant information, it also prevents values of different tags from being copied into the same list when this is the intent. So a -addTagsFromFile option is provided which allows copying of multiple tags into the same list. ie)

     exiftool -addtagsfromfile @ '-subject<make' '-subject<model' ...
 
 

Other than this difference, the -tagsFromFile and -addTagsFromFile options are equivalent.

-u (-unknown)

Extract values of unknown tags. Add another -u to also extract unknown information from binary data blocks.

-U (-unknown2)

Extract values of unknown tags as well as unknown information from binary data blocks. This is the same as two -u options.

-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. This option suppresses normal console output unless specific tags are being extracted. -v0 is used when writing to print only the processed file names, and the ``Nothing changed'' message for files that were not modified.

-ver

Print version number and exit.

-w EXT or FMT (-textOut)

Write console output to a file with name ending in EXT for each source file. The output file name is obtained by replacing the source file extension (including the '.') with the specified extension (and a '.' is added to the start of EXT if it didn't contain one). Alternatively, a FMT string may be used to give more control over the output file name and directory. In the format string, %d, %f and %e represent the directory, filename and extension of the source file, and %c represents a copy number which is automatically incremented if the file already exists. %d includes the trailing '/' if necessary, but %e does not include the leading '.'. For example:

     -w %d%f.txt       # same effect as "-w txt"
     -w dir/%f_%e.out  # write files to "dir" as "FILE_EXT.out"
     -w dir2/%d%f.txt  # write to "dir2", keeping dir structure
     -w a%c.txt        # write to "a.txt" or "a1.txt" or "a2.txt"...
 
 

Existing files will not be overwritten, and output directories are created automatically if necessary.

Note: In a Windows BAT file the '%' character is represented by ``%%'', so an argument like ``%d%f.txt'' is written as ``%%d%%f.txt''.

Advanced features: A substring of the original file name, directory or extension may be taken by specifying a field width immediately following the '%' character. If the width is negative, the substring is taken from the end. The substring position (characters to ignore at the start or end of the string) may be given by a second optional value after a decimal point. For example:

     Input File Name     Format Specifier    Output File Name
     ----------------    ----------------    ----------------
     Picture-123.jpg     %7f.txt             Picture.txt
     Picture-123.jpg     %-.4f.out           Picture.out
     Picture-123.jpg     %7f.%-3f            Picture.123
     Picture-123a.jpg    Meta%-3.1f.txt      Meta123.txt
 
 

For %c, these modifiers have a different effects. If a field width is given, the copy number is padded with zeros to the specified width. A leading '-' adds a dash before the copy number, and a '+' adds an underline. By default, a copy number of zero is omitted, but this can be changed by adding a decimal point to the modifier. For example:

     -w A%-cZ.txt      # AZ.txt, A-1Z.txt, A-2Z.txt ...
     -w B%5c.txt       # B.txt, B00001.txt, B00002.txt ...
     -w C%.c.txt       # C0.txt, C1.txt, C2.txt ...
     -w D%-.c.txt      # D-0.txt, D-1.txt, D-2.txt ...
     -w E%-.4c.txt     # E-0000.txt, E-0001.txt, E-0002.txt ...
     -w F%-.4nc.txt    # F-0001.txt, F-0002.txt, F-0003.txt ...
     -w G%+c.txt       # G.txt, G_1.txt G_2.txt ...
     -w H%-lc.txt      # H.txt, H-b.txt, H-c.txt ...
 
 

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 the copy number (%c), the numbers are changed to an alphabetical base (see example H above). Also, %c may be modified by 'n' to count using natural numbers starting from 1, instead of 0 (see example F).

This same FMT syntax is used with the -o and -tagsFromFile options, although %c is only valid for output file names.

-x TAG (-exclude)

Exclude the specified tag. There may be multiple -x options. This has the same effect as --TAG on the command line. May also be used following a -tagsFromFile option to exclude tags from being copied.

-X (-xmlFormat)

Use RDF/XML formatting for console output. Implies the -a option so duplicate tags are extracted. The formatting options -b, -D, -H, -l, -s, -sep and -t may be used in combination with -X to affect the output, but note that the tag ID (-D, -H and -t) and binary data (-b) 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. By default, list-type tags with multiple values are formatted as an RDF Bag, but they are combined into a single string when -sep or -s is used. Using -L changes the XML encoding from ``UTF-8'' to ``windows-1252''. The -b option causes binary data values to be written, encoded in base64 if necessary. The -t option has a different meaning when used with -X --- it causes tag table information (table "name", decimal tag "id", and "index" for cases where multiple conditional tags exist with the same ID) to be included in the output.

-z (-zip)

When reading, causes information to be extracted from .gz and .bz2 compressed images. (Only one image per archive.) When writing, causes compressed information to be written if supported by the image format. (ie. The PNG format supports compressed text.)

Advanced Options

The following options allow complex processing to be performed with a single command without the need for additional scripting. This may be particularly useful for implementations such as Windows drag-and-drop applications. These options may also be used to improve performance in multi-pass processing by reducing the overhead required to load exiftool for each invocation.

-common_args

Specifies that all arguments following this option are common to all executed commands when -execute is used. This is the only option that may not be used inside a -@ ARGFILE.

-execute

Execute command for all arguments up to this point on the command line. Allows multiple commands to be executed from a single command line.

-srcfile FMT

Specify a different source file to be processed based on the name of the original file. This may be useful in some special situations for processing related preview images or sidecar files. See the -w option for a description of the FMT syntax. Note that file name FMT strings for all options are based on the original file name specified on the command line, not the name of the source file specified by -srcfile.

READING EXAMPLES

exiftool -a -u -g1 a.jpg

Print all meta information in an image, including duplicate and unknown tags, sorted by group (for family 1).

exiftool -common dir

Print common meta information for all images in "dir".

exiftool -T -createdate -aperture -shutterspeed -iso dir > out.txt

List meta information in tab-delimited column form for all images in ``dir'' to an output text file named ``out.txt''.

exiftool -s -ImageSize -ExposureTime b.jpg

Print ImageSize and ExposureTime tag names and values.

exiftool -l -canon c.jpg d.jpg

Print standard Canon information from two image files.

exiftool -r -w .txt -common pictures

Recursively extract common meta information from files in "pictures" directory, writing text output into files with the same names but with a ".txt" extension.

exiftool -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 -b -ThumbnailImage image.jpg > thumbnail.jpg

Save thumbnail image from "image.jpg" to a file called "thumbnail.jpg".

exiftool -b -PreviewImage 118_1834.JPG > preview.jpg

Extract preview image from JPG file and write it to "preview.jpg".

exiftool -b -JpgFromRaw -w _JFR.JPG -ext CRW -r .

Recursively extract JPG image from all Canon CRW files in the current directory, adding "_JFR.JPG" for the name of the output JPG files.

exiftool -d '%r %a, %B %e, %Y' -DateTimeOriginal -S -s *.jpg

Print formatted date/time for all JPG files in a directory.

exiftool -IFD1:XResolution -IFD1:YResolution image.jpg

Extract image resolution from EXIF IFD1 information (thumbnail image IFD).

exiftool -xmp:author:all -a image.jpg

Extract all author-related XMP information from an image.

exiftool -xmp -b a.jpg > out.xmp

Extract complete XMP data record intact from "a.jpg" and write it to "out.xmp" using the special "XMP" tag (see the Extra tags in Image::ExifTool::TagNames).

exiftool -icc_profile -b -w icc image.jpg

Save complete ICC_Profile from an image to an output file with the same name and an extension of ".icc".

exiftool -htmldump -w tmp/%f_%e.html t/images

Generate HTML pages from a hex dump of EXIF information in all images from the "t/images" directory. The output HTML files are written to the "tmp" directory (which is created if it didn't exist), with names of the form 'FILENAME_EXT.html'.

WRITING EXAMPLES

Note that quotes are necessary around arguments which contain certain special characters such as ">", "<" or any white space. These quoting techniques are shell dependent, but the examples below will work for most Unix shells. With the Windows cmd shell however, double quotes should be used (ie. -Comment=``This is a new comment'').

exiftool -Comment='This is a new comment' dst.jpg

Write new comment to a JPG image (replaces any existing comment).

exiftool -comment= -o newdir *.jpg

Remove comment from all JPG images in the current directory, writing the modified images to a new directory.

exiftool -keywords=EXIF -keywords=editor dst.jpg

Replace existing keyword list with two new keywords ("EXIF" and "editor").

exiftool -Keywords+=word -o newfile.jpg src.jpg

Copy a source image to a new file, and add a keyword ("word") to the current list of keywords.

exiftool -credit-=xxx dir

Delete Credit information from all files in a directory where the Credit value was ("xxx").

exiftool -all= dst.jpg

Delete all meta information from an image.

exiftool -all= -comment='lonely' dst.jpg

Delete all meta information from an image and add a comment back in. (Note that the order is important: "-comment='lonely' -all=" would also delete the new comment.)

exiftool -all= --jfif:all dst.jpg

Delete all meta information except JFIF group from an image.

exiftool -Photoshop:All= dst.jpg

Delete Photoshop meta information from an image (note that the Photoshop information also includes IPTC).

exiftool -r -XMP-crss:all= DIR

Recursively delete all XMP-crss information from images in a directory.

exiftool '-ThumbnailImage<=thumb.jpg' dst.jpg

Set the thumbnail image from specified file (Note: The quotes are neccessary to prevent shell redirection).

exiftool '-JpgFromRaw<=%d%f_JFR.JPG' -ext CRW -r .

Recursively write JPEG images with filenames ending in "_JFR.JPG" to the JpgFromRaw tag of like-named files with extension ".CRW" in the current directory. (This is the inverse of the "-JpgFromRaw" command of the ``READING EXAMPLES'' section above.)

exiftool -DateTimeOriginal-='0:0:0 1:30:0' dir

Adjust original date/time of all images in directory "dir" by subtracting one hour and 30 minutes. (This is equivalent to "-DateTimeOriginal-=1.5". See Image::ExifTool::Shift.pl for details.)

exiftool -createdate+=3 -modifydate+=3 a.jpg b.jpg

Add 3 hours to the CreateDate and ModifyDate timestamps of two images.

exiftool -AllDates+=1:30 -if '$make eq "Canon"' dir

Shift the values of DateTimeOriginal, CreateDate and ModifyDate forward by 1 hour and 30 minutes for all Canon images in a directory. (The AllDates tag is provided as a shortcut for these three tags, allowing them to be accessed via a single tag.)

exiftool -xmp:city=Kingston image1.jpg image2.nef

Write a tag to the XMP group of two images. (Without the "xmp:" this tag would get written to the IPTC group since "City" exists in both, and IPTC is preferred by default.)

exiftool -LightSource-='Unknown (0)' dst.tiff

Delete "LightSource" tag only if it is unknown with a value of 0.

exiftool -whitebalance-=auto -WhiteBalance=tung dst.jpg

Set "WhiteBalance" to "Tungsten" only if it was previously "Auto".

exiftool -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.

COPYING EXAMPLES

These examples demonstrate the ability to copy tag values between files.

exiftool -tagsFromFile src.crw dst.jpg

Copy the values of all writable tags from "src.crw" to "dst.jpg", writing the information to the preferred groups.

exiftool -TagsFromFile src.jpg -all:all dst.jpg

Copy the values of all writable tags from "src.jpg" to "dst.jpg", preserving the original tag groups.

exiftool -all= -tagsfromfile src.jpg -exif:all dst.jpg

Erase all meta information from "dst.jpg" image, then copy EXIF tags from "src.jpg".

exiftool -Tagsfromfile a.jpg out.xmp

Copy meta information "a.jpg" to an XMP data file. If the XMP data file "out.xmp" already exists, it will be updated with the new information. Otherwise the XMP data file will be created. Only XMP, ICC and MIE files may be created like this (other file types may be edited but not created). See ``WRITING EXAMPLES'' above for another technique to generate XMP files.

exiftool -tagsFromFile a.jpg -XMP:All= -ThumbnailImage= -m b.jpg

Copy all meta information from "a.jpg" to "b.jpg", deleting all XMP information and the thumbnail image from the destination.

exiftool -TagsFromFile src.jpg -title -author=Phil dst.jpg

Copy title from one image to another and set a new author name.

exiftool -TagsFromFile a.jpg -ISO -TagsFromFile b.jpg -comment dst.jpg

Copy ISO from one image and Comment from another image to a destination image.

exiftool -tagsfromfile src.jpg -exif:all --subifd:all dst.jpg

Copy only the EXIF information from one image to another, excluding SubIFD tags.

exiftool '-DateTimeOriginal>FileModifyDate' dir

Use the original date from the meta information to set the same file's filesystem modification date for all images in a directory. (Note that "-TagsFromFile @" is assumed if no other -TagsFromFile is specified when redirecting information as in this example.)

exiftool -TagsFromFile src.jpg '-all>xmp:all' dst.jpg

Copy all possible information from "src.jpg" and write in XMP format to "dst.jpg".

exiftool -@ iptc2xmp.args -iptc:all= a.jpg

Translate IPTC information to XMP with appropriate tag name conversions, and delete the original IPTC information from an image. This example uses iptc2xmp.args, which is a file included with the ExifTool distribution that contains the required arguments to convert IPTC information to XMP format. Also included with the distribution is xmp2iptc.args, which performs the inverse conversion.

exiftool -tagsfromfile %d%f.CRW -r -ext JPG dir

Recursively rewrite all "JPG" images in "dir" with information copied from the corresponding "CRW" images in the same directories.

exiftool '-make+>keywords' image.jpg

Add camera make to list of keywords.

exiftool '-comment<ISO=$exif:iso Exposure=${shutterspeed}' dir

Set the Comment tag of all images in "dir" from the values of the EXIF:ISO and ShutterSpeed tags. The resulting comment will be in the form ``ISO=100 Exposure=1/60''.

exiftool -TagsFromFile src.jpg -icc_profile dst.jpg

Copy ICC_Profile from one image to another.

exiftool -TagsFromFile src.jpg -all:all dst.mie

Copy all meta information in its original form from a JPEG image to a MIE file. The MIE file will be created if it doesn't exist. This technique can be used to store the metadata of an image so it can be inserted back into the image (with the inverse command) later in a workflow.

exiftool -o dst.mie -all:all src.jpg

This command performs exactly the same task as the command above, except that the "-o" option will not write to an output file that already exists.

exiftool -if '$jpgfromraw' -b -jpgfromraw -w %d%f_%ue.jpg -execute -if '$previewimage' -b -previewimage -w %d%f_%ue.jpg -execute -tagsfromfile @ -srcfile %d%f_%ue.jpg -overwrite_original -common_args --ext jpg DIR

[Advanced] Extract JpgFromRaw or PreviewImage from all but JPG files in DIR, saving them with file names like "image_EXT.jpg", then add all meta information from the original files to the extracted images. Here, the command line is broken into three sections (separated by -execute options), and each is executed as if it were a separate command. The -common_args option causes the "--ext jpg DIR" arguments to be applied to all three commands, and the -srcfile option allows the extracted JPG image to be the source file for the third command (whereas the RAW files are the source files for the other two commands).

RENAMING EXAMPLES

By writing the "FileName" and "Directory" tags, files are renamed and/or moved to new directories. This can be particularly useful and powerful for organizing files by date when combined with the -d option. New directories are created as necessary, but existing files will not be overwritten. The format codes %d, %f and %e may be used in the new file name to represent the directory, name and extension of the original file, and %c may be used to add a copy number if the file already exists (see the -w option for details). Note that if used within a date format string, an extra '%' must be added to pass these codes through the date/time parser. (And further note that in a Windows batch file, all '%' characters must also be escaped, so in this extreme case '%%%%f' is necessary to pass a simple '%f' through the two levels of parsing.)

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 '-filename<%f_${focallength}.%e' dir

Rename all files in "dir" by adding FocalLength to the file name.

exiftool '-FileName<CreateDate' -d %Y%m%d_%H%M%S%%-c.%%e dir

Rename all images in "dir" according to the "CreateDate" date and time, adding a copy number with leading '-' if the file already exists ("%-c"), and preserving the original file extension (%e). Note the extra '%' necessary to escape the filename codes (%c and %e) in the date format string.

exiftool -r '-FileName<CreateDate' -d %Y-%m-%d/%H%M_%%f.%%e dir

Both the directory and the filename may be changed together via the "FileName" tag if the new "FileName" contains a '/'. The example above recursively renames all images in a directory by adding a "CreateDate" timestamp to the start of the filename, then moves them into new directories named by date.

exiftool '-FileName<${CreateDate}_$filenumber.jpg' -d %Y%m%d *.jpg

Set the filename of all JPG images in the current directory from the CreateDate and FileNumber tags, in the form ``20060507_118-1861.jpg''.

PIPING EXAMPLES

cat a.jpg | exiftool -

Extract information from stdin.

exiftool image.jpg -thumbnailimage -b | exiftool -

Extract information from an embedded thumbnail image.

cat a.jpg | exiftool -iptc:keywords+=fantastic - > b.jpg

Add an IPTC keyword in a pipeline, saving output to a new file.

wget -qO - http://a.domain.com/bigfile.jpg | exiftool -fast -

Extract information from an image over the internet using the GNU wget utility. The -fast option prevents exiftool from scanning for trailer information, so only the meta information header is transferred.

exiftool a.jpg -thumbnailimage -b | exiftool -comment=wow - | exiftool a.jpg -thumbnailimage'<=-'

Add a comment to an embedded thumbnail image. (Why anyone would want to do this I don't know, but I've included this as an example to illustrate the flexibility of ExifTool.)

BUGS

ExifTool does not handle information stored in the resource fork on Macintosh filesystems.

AUTHOR

Copyright 2003-2009, 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