EXIFTOOL(1p) User Contributed Perl Documentation EXIFTOOL(1p)
NAME
exiftool - Read and write meta information in files
SYNOPSIS
Reading
exiftool [OPTIONS] [-TAG...] [--TAG...] FILE...
Writing
exiftool [OPTIONS] -TAG[+-<]=[VALUE]... FILE...
Copying
exiftool [OPTIONS] -tagsFromFile SRCFILE [-[DSTTAG<]SRCTAG...] FILE...
Other
exiftool [ -ver | -list[w|f|r|wf|g[NUM]|d|x|geo] ]
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.
Metadata 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 metadata, tag values are assigned using -TAG=[VALUE],
and/or the -geotag, -csv= or -json= options. To copy or move metadata,
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. Hidden
files in the directory are also processed. Adding the -r option causes
subdirectories to be processed recursively, but subdirectories with
names beginning with "." are skipped unless -r. is used.
Below is a list of file types and meta information formats currently
supported by ExifTool (r = read, w = write, c = create):
File Types
------------+-------------+-------------+-------------+------------
360 r/w | DOCX r | ITC r | NUMBERS r | RAM r
3FR r | DPX r | J2C r | NXD r | RAR r
3G2 r/w | DR4 r/w/c | JNG r/w | O r | RAW r/w
3GP r/w | DSS r | JP2 r/w | ODP r | RIFF r
7Z r | DV r | JPEG r/w | ODS r | RSRC r
A r | DVB r/w | JSON r | ODT r | RTF r
AA r | DVR-MS r | JXL r/w | OFR r | RW2 r/w
AAC r | DYLIB r | K25 r | OGG r | RWL r/w
AAE r | EIP r | KDC r | OGV r | RWZ r
AAX r/w | EPS r/w | KEY r | ONP r | RM r
ACR r | EPUB r | LA r | OPUS r | SEQ r
AFM r | ERF r/w | LFP r | ORF r/w | SKETCH r
AI r/w | EXE r | LIF r | ORI r/w | SO r
AIFF r | EXIF r/w/c | LNK r | OTF r | SR2 r/w
APE r | EXR r | LRV r/w | PAC r | SRF r
ARQ r/w | EXV r/w/c | M2TS r | PAGES r | SRW r/w
ARW r/w | F4A/V r/w | M4A/V r/w | PBM r/w | SVG r
ASF r | FFF r/w | MACOS r | PCAP r | SWF r
AVI r | FITS r | MAX r | PCAPNG r | THM r/w
AVIF r/w | FLA r | MEF r/w | PCD r | TIFF r/w
AZW r | FLAC r | MIE r/w/c | PCX r | TORRENT r
BMP r | FLIF r/w | MIFF r | PDB r | TTC r
BPG r | FLV r | MKA r | PDF r/w | TTF r
BTF r | FPF r | MKS r | PEF r/w | TXT r
C2PA r | FPX r | MKV r | PFA r | VCF r
CHM r | GIF r/w | MNG r/w | PFB r | VNT r
COS r | GLV r/w | MOBI r | PFM r | VRD r/w/c
CR2 r/w | GPR r/w | MODD r | PGF r | VSD r
CR3 r/w | GZ r | MOI r | PGM r/w | WAV r
CRM r/w | HDP r/w | MOS r/w | PLIST r | WDP r/w
CRW r/w | HDR r | MOV r/w | PICT r | WEBP r/w
CS1 r/w | HEIC r/w | MP3 r | PMP r | WEBM r
CSV r | HEIF r/w | MP4 r/w | PNG r/w | WMA r
CUR r | HTML r | MPC r | PPM r/w | WMV r
CZI r | ICC r/w/c | MPG r | PPT r | WPG r
DCM r | ICO r | MPO r/w | PPTX r | WTV r
DCP r/w | ICS r | MQV r/w | PS r/w | WV r
DCR r | IDML r | MRC r | PSB r/w | X3F r/w
DFONT r | IIQ r/w | MRW r/w | PSD r/w | XCF r
DIVX r | IND r/w | MXF r | PSP r | XISF r
DJVU r | INSP r/w | NEF r/w | QTIF r/w | XLS r
DLL r | INSV r | NKA r | R3D r | XLSX r
DNG r/w | INX r | NKSC r/w | RA r | XMP r/w/c
DOC r | ISO r | NRW r/w | RAF r/w | ZIP r
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 | DPX r
ICC Profile r/w/c | DICOM r | APE r
MIE r/w/c | Flash r | Vorbis r
JFIF r/w/c | FlashPix r | SPIFF r
Ducky APP12 r/w/c | QuickTime r | DjVu r
PDF r/w/c | Matroska r | M2TS r
PNG r/w/c | MXF r | PE/COFF r
Canon VRD r/w/c | PrintIM r | AVCHD r
Nikon Capture r/w/c | FLAC r | ZIP r
GeoTIFF 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 Overview
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
-csvDelim STR Set delimiter for CSV file
-d FMT (-dateFormat) Set format for date/time values
-D (-decimal) Show tag ID numbers in decimal
-E,-ex,-ec (-escape(HTML|XML|C))Escape tag values for HTML, XML or C
-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 HTML formatting for output
-H (-hex) Show tag ID numbers 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) No print conversion
-p[-] STR (-printFormat) Print output in specified format
-php Export tags as a PHP Array
-plot Output tags as SVG plot file
-s[NUM] (-short) Short output format (-s for tag names)
-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 generate composite tags
-ee[NUM] (-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 when extracting metadata
-fileOrder[NUM] [-]TAG Set file processing order
-i DIR (-ignore) Ignore specified directory name
-if[NUM] 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 file modification date/time
-password PASSWD Password for processing protected files
-progress[NUM][:[TITLE]] 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 mode for writing/creating tags
-z (-zip) Read/write compressed information
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
-- End of options
Special features
-diff FILE2 Compare metadata with another file
-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
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
-efile[NUM][!] TXTFILE Save names of files with errors
-execute[NUM] Execute multiple commands on one line
-fileNUM ALTFILE Load tags from alternate file
-list_dir List directories, not their contents
-srcfile FMT Process a different source file
-stay_open FLAG Keep reading -@ argfile even after EOF
-userParam PARAM[[^]=[VAL]] Set user parameter (API UserParam opt)
Option Details
Tag operations
-TAG Extract information for the specified tag (eg. "-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 (eg.
"-EXIF:CreateDate", or "-Doc1:XMP:Creator"), and each group name
may be prefixed by a digit to specify family number (eg.
"-1IPTC:City"). (Note that the API SavePath and SaveFormat options
must be used for the family 5 and 6 groups respectively to be
available.) 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 (ie. -All). 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. Group names and wildcards are permitted as described above
for -TAG. 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 (eg. "-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 (eg. "-all= -tagsfromfile @ -artist").
To speed processing when reading XMP, exclusions in XMP groups also
bypass processing of the corresponding XMP property and any
contained properties. For example, "--xmp-crs:all" may speed
processing significantly in cases where a large number of XMP-crs
tags exist. To use this feature to bypass processing of a specific
XMP property, the property name must be used instead of the
ExifTool tag name (eg. "--xmp-crs:dabs"). Also, "XMP-all" may be
used to to indicate any XMP namespace (eg. "--xmp-all:dabs").
-TAG[+-^]=[VALUE]
Write a new value for the specified tag (eg. "-comment=wow"), or
delete the tag if no VALUE is given (eg. "-comment="). "+=" and
"-=" are used to add or remove existing entries from a list, or to
shift date/time values (see Image::ExifTool::Shift.pl and notes 6
and 7 below for more details). "+=" may also be used to increment
numerical values (or decrement if VALUE is negative), and "-=" may
be used to conditionally delete or replace a tag (see "WRITING
EXAMPLES" for examples). "^=" is used to write an empty string
instead of deleting the tag when no VALUE is given, but otherwise
it is equivalent to "=". (Note that the caret must be quoted on
the Windows command line.)
TAG may contain one or more leading family 0, 1, 2 or 7 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 in JPEG and TIFF-format images
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 equivalent
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
(eg. "-XMP-dc: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. However, color space information is removed, so the colors
may be affected (but this may be avoided by copying back the tags
defined by the ColorSpaceTags shortcut). 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.
MOV/MP4 Video:
- Deleting ItemList also deletes Keys tags.
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, for which 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 by ExifTool are reversible (by deleting the
update with "-PDF-update:all=") 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". But note that these unnamed APP
segments may not be excluded with "--APPxx:all" when deleting all
information.
6) When shifting a value, the shift is applied to the original
value of the tag, overriding any other values previously assigned
to the tag on the same command line. To shift a date/time value
and copy it to another tag in the same operation, use the
-globalTimeShift option.
7) The "+=" operator may not be used to shift a List-type date/time
tag (eg. XMP-dc:Date) because "+=" is used to add elements to the
list. Instead, the -globalTimeShift option should be used.
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. If DATFILE/FMT is not provided, the effect
is the same as "-TAG=", and the tag is simply deleted. "+<=" 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 the specified tag(s) are written to the
same family 1 group they had in the source file (ie. the same
specific location, like ExifIFD or XMP-dc). For example, the
common operation of copying all writable tags to the same specific
locations in the output FILE is achieved by adding "-all:all". A
different family may be specified by adding a leading family number
to the group name (eg. "-0all:all" preserves the same general
location, like EXIF or XMP).
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. (eg. the current FILE would be represented
by "%d%f.%e", with the same effect as "@"). See the -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 "'-DSTTAG<SRCTAG'" or "'-SRCTAG>DSTTAG'" on the command line
after -tagsFromFile, and causes the value of SRCTAG to be copied
from SRCFILE and written to DSTTAG in FILE. Has no effect unless
SRCTAG exists in SRCFILE. 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 (but the family
may be specified by adding a leading number to the group name, eg.
"0All" writes to the same family 0 group 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'" (but see Note 5
below).
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 and the "Advanced formatting
feature" section 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 note 8 below about using the redirection
feature with list-type stags, shortcuts or when using wildcards in
tag names.
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, and individual makernote tags may not be excluded
from a block copy. 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 from that of
assigned tags for list-type tags and conditional replacements
because each copy operation on a tag overrides any previous
operations. 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. To accumulate values from
different operations into the same list, add a "+" after the
initial "-" of the argument. For example:
exiftool -tagsfromfile @ '-subject<make' '-+subject<model' ...
Similarly, "-+DSTTAG" must be used when conditionally replacing a
tag to prevent overriding earlier conditions.
6) The -a option (allow duplicate tags) is always in effect when
copying tags from SRCFILE, but the highest priority tag is always
copied last so it takes precedence.
7) Structured tags are copied by default when copying tags. See
the -struct option for details.
8) With the redirection feature, copying a tag directly (ie.
"'-DSTTAG<SRCTAG'") is not the same as interpolating its value
inside a string (ie. "'-DSTTAG<$SRCTAG'") for source tags which are
list-type tags, shortcut tags, or tag names containing wildcards.
When copying directly, the values of each matching source tag are
copied individually to the destination tag (as if they were
separate assignments). However, when interpolated inside a string,
list items and the values of shortcut tags are concatenated (with a
separator set by the -sep option), and wildcards are not
allowed.Another difference is that a minor warning is generated if
a tag doesn't exist when interpolating its value in a string (with
"$"), but isn't when copying the tag directly.
Finally, the behaviour is different when a destination tag or group
of "All" is used. When copying directly, a destination group
and/or tag name of "All" writes to the same family 1 group and/or
tag name as the source. But when interpolated in a string, the
identity of the source tags are lost and the value is written to
all possible groups/tags. For example, the string form must be
used in the following command since the intent is to set the value
of all existing date/time tags from "CreateDate":
exiftool '-time:all<$createdate' -wm w FILE
-x TAG (-exclude)
Exclude the specified tag. There may be multiple -x options. This
has the same effect as --TAG on the command line. See the --TAG
documentation above for a complete description.
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 -sep ', ' 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.
As well, the -sep option should be used as in the second command
above to maintain separate list items when writing metadata back to
image files, and the -struct option may be used when extracting to
preserve structured XMP information.
-b, --b (-binary, --binary)
Output requested metadata in binary format without tag names or
descriptions (-b or -binary). 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. By default, list items are separated by a newline when
extracted with the -b option, but this may be changed (see the -sep
option for details). May be combined with -j, -php or -X to
extract binary data in JSON, PHP or XML format, but note that
"Unsafe" tags are not extracted as binary unless they are specified
explicitly or the API RequestAll option is set to 3 or higher.
With a leading double dash (--b or --binary), tags which contain
binary data are suppressed in the output when reading.
-c FMT (-coordFormat)
Set the print format for GPS coordinates. FMT uses the same syntax
as a "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 "+" or "-" to
the format specifier (eg. "%+.6f" or "%-.6f") prints a signed
coordinate instead. ("+" adds a leading "+" for positive
coordinates, but "-" does not.)
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, with a default of "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
DOSLatinUS cp437 DOS Latin US
DOSLatin1 cp850 DOS Latin1
DOSCyrillic cp866 DOS Cyrillic
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
TYPE may be "FileName" to specify the encoding of file names on the
command line (ie. FILE arguments). In Windows, this triggers use
of wide-character i/o routines, thus providing support for Unicode
file names. See the "WINDOWS UNICODE FILE NAMES" section below for
details.
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
RIFF Internal encoding of RIFF strings 0
See <https://exiftool.org/faq.html#Q10> for more information about
coded character sets, and the Image::ExifTool Options for more
details about the -charset settings.
-csv[[+]=CSVFILE]
Export information in CSV format, 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 (and a SourceFile of "*" may be used to
define default tags to be imported for all files which are combined
with any tags specified for the specific SourceFile processed). The
-csvDelim option may be used to change the input/output field
delimiter if something other than a comma is required.
The following examples demonstrate basic use of the -csv 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
When importing, empty values are ignored unless the -f option is
used and the API MissingTagValue is set to an empty string (in
which case the tag is deleted). Also, FileName and Directory
columns are ignored if they exist (ie. ExifTool will not attempt to
write these tags with a CSV import), but all other columns are
imported. 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). Multiple databases may be imported in a
single command.
Specific tags may be imported from the CSV database by adding -TAG
options to the command, or excluded with --TAG, with exclusions
taking priority. Group names and wildcards are allowed. If no
tags are specified, then all except FileName and Directory are
used. Tags are imported in the same order as the database entries.
When exporting a CSV file, the -g or -G option adds 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. The -b option may be added to
output binary data, encoded in base64 if necessary (indicated by
ASCII "base64:" as the first 7 bytes of the value). Values may
also be encoded in base64 if the -charset option is used and the
value contains invalid characters.
When exporting specific tags, the CSV columns are arranged in the
same order as the specified tags provided the column headings
exactly match the specified tag names, otherwise the columns are
sorted in alphabetical order.
When importing from a CSV file, only files specified on the command
line are processed. Any extra entries in the CSV file are ignored.
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 and the -plot options are fundamentally different
than all other output format options because they require
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, when used with -csv, the -w option changes to specify a
complete file name with no filename formatting codes or append mode
allowed, and -W may not be used. When processing a large number of
files, it is recommended to either use the JSON (-j) or XML (-X)
output format, or use -p to generate a fixed-column CSV file
instead of using the -csv option.
-csvDelim STR
Set the delimiter for separating CSV entries for CSV file
input/output via the -csv option. STR may contain "\t", "\n", "\r"
and "\\" to represent TAB, LF, CR and '\' respectively. A double
quote is not allowed in the delimiter. Default is ','.
-d FMT (-dateFormat)
Set the format for date/time tag values. The FMT string may
contain formatting codes beginning with a percent character ("%")
to represent the various components of a date/time value. ExifTool
implements 3 format codes internally (see below), but other format
codes 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. Requires POSIX::strptime or Time::Piece for the
inversion conversion when writing. Only one -d option may be used
per command.
Additional format codes implemented internally by ExifTool:
1) %z represents the time zone in "+/-HHMM" format. Adding a colon
(ie. %:z) adds a colon separator (eg. "-05:00"). If the date/time
value doesn't contain a time zone then %z gives the system time
zone for the specified date/time value.
2) %f represents fractional seconds, and supports an optional width
to specify the number of digits after the decimal point (eg. %3f
would give something like ".437"). Adding a minus sign drops the
decimal point (eg. "%-3f" would give "437").
3) %s represents the number of seconds since 00:00 UTC Jan 1, 1970,
taking into account the specified time zone (or system time zone if
not specified).
-D (-decimal)
Show tag ID number in decimal when extracting information.
-E, -ex, -ec (-escapeHTML, -escapeXML, -escapeC)
Escape characters in output tag values for HTML (-E), XML (-ex) or
C (-ec). 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. For C, all control characters and the
backslash are escaped. The inverse conversion is applied when
writing tags.
-f (-forcePrint)
Force printing of tags even if they don't exist. This option
applies to tags specified on the command line, or with the -p, -if
or -tagsFromFile options. When -f is used, the value of any
missing tag is set to a dash ("-") by default, but this may be
configured via the API MissingTagValue option. -f is also 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), 4 (instance number), 5 (metadata
path), 6 (EXIF/TIFF format), 7 (tag ID) or 8 (file number). -g0 is
assumed if a family number is not specified. May be combined with
other options to add group names to the output. 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 (eg.
-g:3:1). Use the -listg option to list group names for a specified
family. The API SavePath and SaveFormat options are automatically
enabled if the respective family 5 or 6 group names are requested.
See the API GetGroup documentation for more information.
-G[NUM][:NUM...] (-groupNames)
Same as -g but print group name for each tag. -G0 is assumed if
NUM is not specified. May be combined with a number of other
options to add group names to the output. Note that NUM may be
added wherever -G is mentioned in the documentation. See the -g
option above for details.
-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 would be output
as simple strings). The -a option is implied when -json is used,
but entries with identical JSON names are suppressed in the output.
(-G4 may be used to ensure that all tags have unique JSON names.)
Adding the -D or -H option changes tag values to JSON objects with
"val" and "id" fields. Adding -l adds a "desc" field, and a "num"
field if the numerical value is different from the converted "val",
and "fmt" and "hex" fields for EXIF metadata if the API SaveFormat
and SaveBin options are set respectively, and the length of the
"hex" output is limited by the API LimitLongValues setting. The -b
option may be added to output binary data, encoded in base64 if
necessary (indicated by ASCII "base64:" as the first 7 bytes of the
value), and -t may be added to include tag table information (see
-t for details). The JSON output is UTF-8 regardless of any -L or
-charset option setting, but the UTF-8 validation is disabled if a
character set other than UTF-8 is specified.
Note that ExifTool quotes JSON values only if they don't look like
numbers (regardless of the original storage format or the relevant
metadata specification). This may be a problem when reading the
JSON via a strongly typed language. However, the API StructFormat
option may be set to "JSONQ" to force quoting of numbers. As well,
the -sep option may be used to convert arrays into strings. For
example:
exiftool -j -api structformat=jsonq -sep ", " ...
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. An object
with a missing SourceFile or a SourceFile of "*" defines default
tags for all target files which are combined with any tags
specified for the specific SourceFile processed. The imported JSON
file must have the same format as the exported JSON files with the
exception that options exporting JSON objects instead of simple
values are not compatible with the import file format (ie. export
with -D, -H, -l, or -T is not compatible, and use -G instead of
-g). Additionally, tag names in the input JSON file may be
suffixed with a "#" to disable print conversion.
Specific tags may be imported from the JSON database by adding -TAG
options to the command, or excluded with --TAG, with exclusions
taking priority. Group names and wildcards are allowed. If no
tags are specified, then all except FileName and Directory are
used. Tags are imported in the same order as the database entries.
Unlike CSV import, empty values are not ignored, and will cause an
empty value to be written if supported by the specific metadata
type. Tags are deleted by using the -f option and setting the tag
value to "-" (or to the MissingTagValue setting if this API option
was used). Importing with -j+=JSONFILE causes new values to be
added to existing lists.
-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. May also
be combined with -listf, -listr or -listwf to add descriptions of
the file types.
-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. May also be
combined with -listx to output descriptions in one language only.
By default, ExifTool uses UTF-8 encoding for special characters,
but the -L or -charset option may be used to invoke other
encodings. Note that ExifTool uses Unicode::LineBreak if available
to help preserve the column alignment of the plain text output for
languages with a variable-width character set.
Currently, the language support is not complete, but users are
welcome to help improve this by submitting their own translations.
To submit a translation, follow these steps (you must have Perl
installed for this):
1. Download and unpack the latest Image-ExifTool full distribution.
2. 'cd' into the Image-ExifTool directory.
3. Run this command to make an XML file of the desired tags (eg.
EXIF):
./exiftool -listx -exif:all > out.xml
4. Copy this text into a file called 'import.pl' in the exiftool
directory:
push @INC, 'lib';
require Image::ExifTool::TagInfoXML;
my $file = shift or die "Expected XML file name\n";
$Image::ExifTool::TagInfoXML::makeMissing = shift;
Image::ExifTool::TagInfoXML::BuildLangModules($file,8);
5. Run the 'import.pl' script to Import the XML file, generating
the 'MISSING' entries for your language (eg. Russian):
perl import.pl out.xml ru
6. Edit the generated language module
lib/Image/ExifTool/Lang/ru.pm, and search and replace all 'MISSING'
strings in the file with your translations.
7. Email the module ('ru.pm' in this example) to philharvey66 at
gmail.com
8. Thank you!!
-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.
Negative indices may also be used to reference items from the end
of the list. Has no effect on single-valued tags. Also applies to
tag values when copying from a tag, and in -if conditions.
-n (--printConv)
Disable print conversion for all tags. By default, extracted
values are converted to a more human-readable format, but the -n
option disables this conversion, revealing the machine-readable
values. 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[-] STR or FMTFILE (-printFormat)
Print output in the format specified by the given string or file.
The argument is interpreted as a string unless a file of that name
exists, in which case the string is loaded from the contents of the
file. Tag names in the format string or file begin with a "$"
symbol and may contain leading group names and/or a trailing "#"
(to disable print conversion). Case is not significant. Braces
"{}" may be used around the tag name to separate it from subsequent
text (and must be used if subsequent text begins with an
alphanumeric character, hyphen, underline, colon or number sign).
Use $$ to represent a "$" symbol, and $/ for a newline. When the
string argument is used (ie. STR), a newline is added to the end of
the string unless -p- is specified or the -b option is used.
Multiple -p options may be used. Lines beginning with "#[HEAD]"
and "#[TAIL]" are output before the first processed file and after
the last processed file respectively. Lines beginning with
"#[SECT]" and "#[ENDS]" are output before and after each section of
files. A section is defined as a group of consecutive files with
the same section header (eg. files are grouped by directory if
"#[SECT]" contains $directory). Lines beginning with "#[BODY]" and
lines not beginning with "#" are output for each processed file.
Lines beginning with "#[IF]" are not output, but all BODY lines are
skipped if any tag on an IF line doesn't exist. Other lines
beginning with "#" are ignored. (To output a line beginning with
"#", use "#[BODY]#".) 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 13.25 --
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 --
The values of List-type tags with multiple items, Shortcut tags
representing multiple tags, and matching tags when the "All" group
is specified are joined according the -sep option setting when
interpolated in the string. (Note that when "All" is used as a
group name, dupicate tags are included regardless of the Duplicates
option setting.) When "All" is used as a tag name, a value of 1 is
returned if any tag exists in the specified group, or 0 otherwise
(unless the "All" group is also specified, in which case the values
of all matching tags are joined).
The -p output iterates through the family 3 group names, with each
sub-document producing additional output when combined with the -ee
(ExtractEmbedded) option.
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 API MissingTagValue option), or the
-m option may be used to ignore minor warnings and leave the
missing values empty. Alternatively, -q -q may be used to simply
suppress the warning messages.
The "Advanced formatting feature" may be used to modify the values
of individual tags within the -p option string.
Note that the API RequestTags option is automatically set for all
tags used in the FMTFILE or STR. This allows all other tags to be
ignored using -API IgnoreTags=all, resulting in reduced memory
usage and increased speed.
-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, and -t may be added to include
tag table information (see -t for details). 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);
?>
-plot
Write output for all specified tags and all input files as a single
SVG-formatted plot. When combined with this feature, the -w option
argument is a complete file name with no format codes and the
append feature may not be used. Each tag specified on the command
line represents a dataset in the plot (or more for array values or
if the Split plot setting is used). Non-numerical values are
ignored. Each input file may contribute multiple points to a
dataset if it contains sub-documents and the -ee option is used, or
if the tag value is a delimited string of numbers (valid delimiters
are: space, comma, semicolon, tab and newline). Line, Scatter and
Histogram plot types are available. See the API Plot Option and
<https://exiftool.org/plot.html> for more details and information
about the plot settings.
-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.
For pure binary output (-b used without -j, -php or -X), the first
-sep option specifies a list-item separator, and a second -sep
option specifies a terminator for the end of the list (or after
each value if not a list). In these strings, "\n", "\r" and "\t"
may be used to represent a newline, carriage return and tab
respectively. By default, binary list items are separated by a
newline, and no terminator is added.
-sort, --sort
Sort output by tag description, or by tag name if the -s option is
used. 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. By
default, tags are organized by groups when combined with the -g or
-G option, but this grouping may be disabled with --sort.
-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, XMP
structures and lists are serialized into the same format as when
writing structured information (see
<https://exiftool.org/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 be combined with -j,
-php or -X to add tag table information ("table", tag "id", and
"index" for cases where multiple conditional tags exist with the
same ID), which allows the corresponding tag to be located in the
-listx 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 and the new file name when renaming, moving or
copying. Verbose levels above -v0 do not flush after each line.
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 changed unless an exclamation point is
added to the option name (ie. -w! or -textOut!) to overwrite the
file, or a plus sign (ie. -w+ or -textOut+) to append to the
existing file. 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
Capitalized format codes %D, %F, %E and %C provide slightly
different alternatives to the lower case versions. %D does not
include the trailing '/', %F is the full filename including
extension, %E includes the leading '.', and %C increments the count
for each processed file (see below).
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 valid format code (eg.
%f), then it is interpreted as a file extension, but there are
three different ways to create a single output file from multiple
source files:
# 1. Shell redirection
exiftool FILE1 FILE2 ... > out.txt
# 2. With the -w option and a zero-width format code
exiftool -w+! %0fout.txt FILE1 FILE2 ...
# 3. With the -W option (see the -W option below)
exiftool -W+! out.txt FILE1 FILE2 ...
3) The -w option changes when used with a multi-file output format
(-csv or -plot). With these, the argument of -w is a complete file
name with no formatting codes, and the append feature may not be
used.
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
(Note that special characters may have a width of greater than
one.)
For %d and %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
pics/2012/02 %-1:D 02 bottom level folder name
/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 ...
-w I.%.3uc.txt # I.AAA.txt, I.AAB.txt, I.AAC.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. A leading '-' causes the number to be reset at
the start of each new directory (in the original directory
structure if the files are being moved), and '+' has no effect.
The number before the decimal place gives the starting index, the
number after the decimal place gives the field width. To preserve
synchronization with the processed file number, by default the copy
number is not incremented to avoid file name collisions, so any
existing same-named file will cause an error. However using a
colon instead of a decimal point causes the number to be
incremented to avoid collisions with existing files.
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 and %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 and %C are 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. See the -w option
documentation above for details of the basic functionality. Listed
here are the differences between -W and -w:
1) With -W, a new output file is created for each extracted tag.
2) -W supports four 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), and %o represents
the value of the OriginalRawFileName or OriginalFileName tag from
the input file (including extension). The %g code may be followed
by a single digit to specify the group family number (eg. %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. For example, the following pairs
of commands give the same result:
# overwriting existing text file
exiftool test.jpg > out.txt # shell redirection
exiftool test.jpg -W+! out.txt # equivalent -W option
# append to existing text file
exiftool test.jpg >> out.txt # shell redirection
exiftool test.jpg -W+ out.txt # equivalent -W option
4) Adding the -v option to -W sends a list of the tags and output
file names to the console 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, %s or %o.)
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
or %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, -X outputs flattened tags, so -struct should be added
if required to preserve XMP structures. 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 (see -t for
details).
Note: This output is NOT the same as XMP because it uses
dynamically-generated property names corresponding to the ExifTool
tag names with ExifTool family 1 group names as namespaces, and not
the standard XMP properties and namespaces. 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 when reading unless the
-ee or -X options are used or the Duplicates option is enabled in
the configuration file. When writing, this option allows multiple
Warning messages to be shown. Duplicate tags are always extracted
when copying.
-e (--composite)
Extract existing tags only -- don't generate composite tags.
-ee[NUM] (-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. (eg.
"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 or videos with
streaming metadata.
When used with -ee, the -p option is evaluated for each embedded
document as if it were a separate input file. This allows, for
example, generation of GPS track logs from timed metadata in
videos. See <https://exiftool.org/geotag.html#Inverse> for
examples.
Setting NUM to 2 causes the H264 video stream in MP4 videos to be
parsed until the first Supplemental Enhancement Information (SEI)
message is decoded, or 3 to parse the entire H624 stream and decode
all SEI information. For M2TS videos, a setting of 3 causes the
entire file to be parsed in search of unlisted programs which may
contain timed GPS.
-ext[+] EXT, --ext EXT (-extension)
Process only files with (-ext) or without (--ext) a specified
extension. There may be multiple -ext and --ext options. A plus
sign may be added (ie. -ext+) to add the specified extension to the
normally processed files. EXT may begin with a leading '.', which
is ignored. Case is not significant. "*" may be used to process
files with any extension (or none at all), as in the last three
examples:
exiftool -ext JPG DIR # process only JPG files
exiftool --ext cr2 --ext dng DIR # supported files but CR2/DNG
exiftool -ext+ txt DIR # supported files plus TXT
exiftool -ext "*" DIR # process all files
exiftool -ext "*" --ext xml DIR # process all but XML files
exiftool -ext "*" --ext . DIR # all but those with no ext
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.
Note that all files specified on the command line will be processed
regardless of extension unless the -ext option is used.
-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 (eg. newer Canon models). Offsets are
fixed permanently if -F is used when writing EXIF to an image. eg)
exiftool -F -exif:resolutionunit=inches image.jpg
-fast[NUM]
Increase speed of extracting information. With -fast (or -fast1),
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. Also bypasses CRC validation when
writing PNG images which can be very slow. For more substantial
speed benefits, -fast2 also causes exiftool to avoid extracting any
EXIF MakerNote information, and to stop processing at the IDAT
chunk of PNG images and the mdat atom of QuickTime-format files
(but note that some files may store metadata after this). -fast3
avoids extracting metadata from the file, and returns only pseudo
System tags, but still reads the file header to obtain an educated
guess at FileType. -fast4 doesn't even read the file header, and
returns only System tags and a FileType based on the file
extension. -fast5 also disables generation of the Composite tags
(like -e). Has no effect when writing.
Note that a separate -fast setting may be used for evaluation of a
-if condition, or when ordering files with the -fileOrder option.
See the -if and -fileOrder options for details.
-fileOrder[NUM] [-]TAG
Set file processing order according to the sorted value of the
specified TAG. Without this option, files are processed in the
order returned by the system, which is commonly by file name, but
this is filesystem dependent. For example, to process files in
order of date:
exiftool -fileOrder DateTimeOriginal DIR
Additional -fileOrder options may be added for secondary sort keys.
Numbers are sorted numerically, and all other values are sorted
alphabetically. Files missing the specified tag are sorted last.
The sort order may be reversed by prefixing the tag name with a "-"
(eg. "-fileOrder -createdate"). Print conversion of the sorted
values is disabled with the -n option, or a "#" appended to the tag
name. Other formatting options (eg. -d) have no effect on the
sorted values. Note that the -fileOrder option can incur large
performance penalty since it involves an additional initial
processing pass of all files, but this impact may be reduced by
specifying a NUM to effectively set the -fast level for the initial
pass. For example, -fileOrder4 may be used if TAG is a pseudo
System tag. If multiple -fileOrder options are used, the
extraction is done at the lowest -fast level. Note that files are
sorted across directory boundaries if multiple input directories
are specified.
-i DIR (-ignore)
Ignore specified directory name. DIR may be either an individual
folder name, or a full path, and is case sensitive. If a full path
is specified, it must match the Directory tag exactly to be
ignored. Use multiple -i options to ignore more than one directory
name. A special DIR value of "SYMLINKS" may be specified to avoid
recursing into directories which are symbolic links when the -r
option is used. As well, a value of "HIDDEN" may be used to ignore
files with names that start with a "." (ie. hidden files on Unix
systems) when scanning a directory.
-if[NUM] 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 2
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
Adding NUM to the -if option causes a separate processing pass to
be executed for evaluating EXPR at a -fast level given by NUM (see
the -fast option documentation for details). Without NUM, only one
processing pass is done at the level specified by the -fast option.
For example, using -if5 is possible if EXPR uses only pseudo System
tags, and may significantly speed processing if enough files fail
the condition.
The expression has access to the current ExifTool object through
$self, and the following special functions are available to allow
short-circuiting of the file processing. Both functions have a
return value of 1. Case is significant for function names.
End() - end processing after this file
EndDir() - end processing of files in the current directory
after this file (not compatible with -fileOrder)
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. (eg. Use $exif:all
instead of $exif in EXPR to test for the existence of EXIF tags.)
3) Tags in the string are interpolated in a similar way to -p
before the expression is evaluated. In this interpolation, $/ is
converted to a newline and $$ represents a single "$" symbol. So
Perl variables, if used, require a double "$", and regular
expressions ending in $/ must use $$/ instead.
4) The condition accesses only tags from the file being processed
unless the -fileNUM option is used to read an alternate file and
the corresponding family 8 group name is specified for the tag.
See the -fileNUM option details for more information.
5) The -a (Duplicates) option is implied when -if is used without a
fast NUM, and the values of duplicate tags are accessible by
specifying a group name in the expression (such as a family 4
instance number, eg. $Copy1:TAG, $Copy2:TAG, etc).
6) A special "OK" UserParam is available to test the success of the
previous command when -execute was used, and may be used like any
other tag in the condition (ie. "$OK").
7) The API RequestTags option is automatically set for all tags
used in the -if condition.
-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"). Note that this causes missing values in
-tagsFromFile, -p and -if strings to be set to an empty string
rather than an undefined value.
-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, EXIF, EXV, MIE, ICC/ICM, VRD, DR4
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, other extended
attributes 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.
Note that this option reverts to the behaviour of the
-overwrite_original option when also writing the FileName and/or
Directory tags.
-P (-preserve)
Preserve the filesystem modification date/time ("FileModifyDate")
of the original file when writing. Note that some filesystems
store a creation date (ie. "FileCreateDate" on Windows and Mac
systems) which is not affected by this option. This creation date
is preserved on Windows systems where Win32API::File and Win32::API
are available regardless of this setting. For other systems, the
-overwrite_original_in_place option may be used if necessary to
preserve the creation date. The -P option is superseded by any
value written to the FileModifyDate tag.
-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. This option is ignored
if a password is not required.
-progress[NUM][:[TITLE]]
Show the progress when processing files. Without a colon, the
-progress option adds a progress count in brackets after the name
of each processed file, giving the current file number and the
total number of files to be processed. Implies the -v0 option,
causing the names of processed files to also be printed when
writing. When combined with the -if option, the total count
includes all files before the condition is applied, but files that
fail the condition will not have their names printed. If NUM is
specified, the progress is shown every NUM input files.
If followed by a colon (ie. -progress:), the console window title
is set according to the specified TITLE string. If no TITLE is
given, a default TITLE string of "ExifTool %p%%" is assumed. In
the string, %f represents the file name, %p is the progress as a
percent, %r is the progress as a ratio, %##b is a progress bar of
width "##" (where "##" is an integer specifying the bar width in
characters, or 20 characters by default if "##" is omitted), and %%
is a % character. May be combined with the normal -progress option
to also show the progress count in console messages. (Note: For
this feature to function correctly on Mac/Linux, stderr must go to
the console.)
-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, which may then be suppressed with "-q
-q".
-r[.] (-recurse)
Recursively process files in subdirectories. Only meaningful if
FILE is a directory name. Subdirectories with names beginning with
"." are not processed unless "." is added to the option name (ie.
-r. or -recurse.). 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).
Combine this with -ext options to control the types of files
processed.
-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. The default write mode is
"wcg".
w - Write existing tags
c - Create new tags
g - create new Groups as necessary
For example, use "-wm cg" to only create new tags (and avoid
editing existing ones).
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 available). When writing, causes compressed
information to be written if supported by the metadata format (eg.
PNG supports compressed textual metadata, JXL supports compressed
EXIF and XML, and MIE supports any compressed metadata), disables
the recommended padding in embedded XMP (saving 2424 bytes when
writing XMP in a file), and writes XMP in shorthand format -- the
equivalent of setting the API Compress=1 and
Compact="NoPadding,Shorthand".
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
"#" are ignored (unless they start with "#[CSTR]", in which case
the rest of the line is treated as a C string, allowing standard C
escape sequences such as "\n" for a newline). White space at the
start of a line is removed. 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
Arguments in ARGFILE behave exactly the same as if they were
entered at the location of the -@ option on the command line, with
the exception that the -config and -common_args options may not be
used in an ARGFILE.
-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,
-listgeo
Print a list of all valid tag names (-list), all writable tag names
(-listw), all supported file extensions (-listf), all recognized
file extensions (-listr), all writable file extensions (-listwf),
all tag groups [in a specified family] (-listg[NUM]), all deletable
tag groups (-listd), an XML database of tag details including
language translations (-listx), or the Geolocation database
(-listgeo). 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. The -l or -v option may be combined with
-listf, -listr or -listwf to add file descriptions to the list. The
-lang option may be combined with -listx to output descriptions in
a single language, and the -sort and/or -lang options may be
combined with -listgeo. Also, the API GeolocMinPop, GeolocFeature
and GeolocAltNames options apply to the -listgeo output. 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
-listgeo -lang de # list geolocation database in German
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 'flags' and 'struct' attributes 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 also given,
and flattened structure tags are indicated by a Flattened flag with
'struct' giving the ID of the parent structure.
Note that none of the -list options require an input FILE.
-ver Print exiftool version number. The -v option may be added to print
addition system information (see the README file of the full
distribution for more details about optional libraries), or -v2 to
also list the Perl include directories.
-- Indicates the end of options. Any remaining arguments are treated
as file names, even if they begin with a dash ("-").
Special features
-diff FILE2
Compare metadata in FILE with FILE2. The FILE2 name may include
filename formatting codes (see the -w option). All extracted tags
from the files are compared, but the extracted tags may be
controlled by adding -TAG or --TAG options. For example, below is
a command to compare all the same-named files in two different
directories, ignoring the System tags:
exiftool DIR1 -diff DIR2/%f.%e --system:all
The -g and -G options may be used to organize the output by the
specified family of groups, with -G1 being the default. The -a
option is implied. Adding -v includes a count of the number of
tags that are the same in each group, and -v2 also indicates when
zero tags were the same. The following text formatting options are
valid when -diff is used: -c, -charset, -d, -E, -ec, -ex, -L,
-lang, -n, -s, -sep, -struct and -w.
-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. The GPS position is interpolated from the track at a time
specified by the value written to the "Geotime" tag. If "Geotime"
is not specified, the value is copied from "DateTimeOriginal#" (the
"#" is added to copy the unformatted value, avoiding potential
conflicts with the -d option). For example, the following two
commands are equivalent:
exiftool -geotag trk.log image.jpg
exiftool -geotag trk.log "-Geotime<DateTimeOriginal#" image.jpg
If the "Geotime" value does not contain a time zone then the local
system timezone is assumed. 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, GPSMeasureMode, GPSDOP,
GPSPitch, GPSRoll, GPSCoordinates, AmbientTemperature and
CameraElevationAngle. By default, in image files tags are created
in EXIF, and updated in XMP only if they already exist. In
QuickTime-format files GPSCoordinates is created in the preferred
location (ItemList by default) as well as in XMP. However,
"EXIF:Geotime", "XMP:Geotime" or "QuickTime:Geotime" may be
specified to write to write only to one group. Also,
"ItemList:Geotime", "Keys:Geotime" or "UserData:Geotime" may be
used to write to a specific location in QuickTime-format files.
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
Advanced "Geosync" features allow a piecewise 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 concatenate 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,
Bramor gEO, Winplus Beacon TXT, and GPS/IMU CSV 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.
The API Geolocation option may be set to the value "geotag" to also
write the name, province/state and country of the nearest city
while geotagging. See <https://exiftool.org/geolocation.html> for
details.
-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. As a convenience, "-use MWG" is assumed if
the group name prefix starts with "MWG:" exactly for any requested
tag. 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.
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 an API option name. The option
value is set to 1 if =VAL is omitted. If VAL is omitted, the
option value is set to undef if "=" is used, or an empty string
with "^=". If OPT is not specified a list of available options is
returned. The option name is not case senstive, but the option
values are. See Image::ExifTool Options for option details. This
overrides API options set via the config file. Note that the
exiftool app sets some API options internally, and attempts to
change these via the command line will have no effect.
-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 and applies to all -execute'd
commands. This file is used to create user-defined tags as well as
set default ExifTool options. The CFGFILE must exist relative to
the current working directory or the exiftool application directory
unless an absolute path is specified. Loading of the default
config file may be disabled by setting CFGFILE to an empty string
(ie. ""). See <https://exiftool.org/config.html> and
config_files/example.config in the full ExifTool distribution for
details about the configuration file syntax.
-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. For -echo3 and
-echo4, "${status}" may be used in the TEXT string to represent the
numerical exit status of the command (see "EXIT STATUS").
-efile[NUM][!] TXTFILE
Save the names of files giving errors (NUM missing or 1), files
that were unchanged (NUM is 2), files that fail the -if condition
(NUM is 4), files that were updated (NUM is 8), files that were
created (NUM is 16), or any combination thereof by summing NUM (eg.
-efile3 is the same has having both -efile and -efile2 options with
the same TXTFILE). By default, file names are appended to any
existing TXTFILE, but TXTFILE is overwritten if an exclamation
point is added to the option (eg. -efile!). Saves the name of the
file specified by the -srcfile option if applicable.
-execute[NUM]
Execute command for all arguments up to this point on the command
line (plus any arguments specified by -common_args). The result is
as if the commands were executed as separate command lines (with
the exception of the -config and -use options which remain in
effect for subsequent commands). 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. If a NUM is specified, the -q option no longer suppresses
the output "{readyNUM}" message.
-fileNUM ALTFILE
Read tags from an alternate source file. Among other things, this
allows tags from different files to be compared and combined using
the -if and -p options. NUM is any string of digits. Tags from
alternate files are accessed via the corresponding family 8 group
name (eg. "File1:TAG" for the -file1 option, "File2:TAG" for
-file2, etc). ALTFILE may contain filename formatting codes like
the -w option (%d, %f, etc), and/or tag names with a leading "$"
symbol to access tags from the source file in the same way as the
-p option (so any other dollar symbol in the file name must be
doubled, eg. "money$$.jpg"). For example, assuming that the
OriginalFileName tag has been set in the edited file, a command to
copy Rights from the original file could look like this:
exiftool -file1 '$originalfilename' '-rights<file1:rights' edited.jpg
Subtle note: If a -tagsFromFile option is used, tags in the
ALTFILE argument come from the SRCFILE that applies to the first
argument accessing tags from the corresponding "FileNUM" group.
User-defined Composite tags may access tags from alternate files
using the appropriate (case-sensitive) family 8 group name.
-list_dir
List directories themselves instead of their contents. This option
effectively causes directories to be treated as normal files when
reading and writing. For example, with this option the output of
the "ls -la" command on Mac/Linux may be approximated by this
exiftool command:
exiftool -list_dir -T -ls-l -api systemtags -fast5 .* *
(The -T option formats the output in tab-separated columns, -ls-l
is a shortcut tag, the API SystemTags option is required to extract
some necessary tags, and the -fast5 option is added for speed since
only system tags are being extracted.)
-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.
For example, to copy metadata from NEF files to the corresponding
JPG previews in a directory where other JPG images may exist:
exiftool -ext nef -tagsfromfile @ -srcfile %d%f.jpg dir
If more 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 (eg. to fall
back to processing the original FILE if no sidecar exists).
When this option is used, two special UserParam tags
(OriginalFileName and OriginalDirectory) are generated to allow
access to the original FILE name and directory.
-stay_open FLAG
If FLAG is 1 or "True" (case insensitive), 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}". When this
number is added, -q no longer suppresses the "{ready}" message.
(Also, see the -echo3 and -echo4 options for additional ways to
pass signals back to your application.)
4) Repeat steps 2 and 3 for each command.
5) Write "-stay_open\nFalse\n" (or "-stay_open\n0\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.)
-userParam PARAM[[^]=[VAL]]
Set user parameter. PARAM is an arbitrary user parameter name.
This is an interface to the API UserParam option (see the
Image::ExifTool Options documentation), and provides a method to
access user-defined parameters in arguments to the -if and -p
options as if they were any other tag. Appending a hash tag ("#")
to PARAM (eg. "-userParam MyTag#=yes") also causes the parameter to
be extracted as a normal tag in the UserParam group. Similar to
the -api option, the parameter value is set to 1 if =VAL is
omitted, undef if just VAL is omitted with "=", or an empty string
if VAL is omitted with "^=".
exiftool -p '$test from $filename' -userparam test=Hello FILE
Advanced formatting feature
An advanced formatting feature allows modification of the value of any
tag interpolated within a -if or -p option argument, or a -tagsFromFile
redirection string. Tag names within these strings are prefixed by a
"$" symbol, and an arbitrary Perl expression may be applied to the tag
value by placing braces around the tag name and inserting the expression
after the name, separated by a semicolon (ie. "${TAG;EXPR}"). The
expression acts on the value of the tag through the default input
variable ($_), and has access to the full ExifTool API through the
current ExifTool object ($self) and the tag key ($tag). 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
An "@" may be added after the tag name to make the expression act on
individual list items for list-type tags, simplifying list processing.
Set $_ to undef to remove an item from the list. As an example, the
following command returns all subjects not containing the string "xxx":
exiftool -p '${subject@;$_=undef if /xxx/}' image.jpg
A default expression of "tr(/\\?*:|"<>\0)()d" is assumed if the
expression is empty (ie. "${TAG;}"). This removes the characters / \ ?
* : | < > and null from the printed value. (These characters are
illegal in Windows file names, so this feature is useful if tag values
are used in file names.)
Helper functions
"DateFmt"
Simplifies reformatting of individual date/time values. This function
acts on a standard EXIF-formatted date/time value in $_ and formats it
according to the specified format string (see the -d option). To avoid
trying to reformat an already-formatted date/time value, a "#" must be
added to the tag name (as in the example below) if the -d option is also
used. For example:
exiftool -p '${createdate#;DateFmt("%Y-%m-%d_%H%M%S")}' a.jpg
"ShiftTime"
Shifts EXIF-formatted date/time string by a specified amount. Start
with a leading minus sign to shift backwards in time. See
Image::ExifTool::Shift.pl for details about shift syntax. For example,
to shift a date/time value back by one year:
exiftool -p '${createdate;ShiftTime("-1:0:0 0")}' a.jpg
"NoDups"
Removes duplicate items from a list with a separator specified by the
-sep option. This function is most useful when copying list-type tags.
For example, the following command may be used to remove duplicate
Keywords:
exiftool -sep '##' '-keywords<${keywords;NoDups}' a.jpg
The -sep option is necessary to split the string back into individual
list items when writing to a list-type tag.
An optional flag argument may be set to 1 to cause "NoDups" to set $_ to
undef if no duplicates existed, thus preventing the file from being
rewritten unnecessarily:
exiftool -sep '##' '-keywords<${keywords;NoDups(1)}' a.jpg
Note that function names are case sensitive.
ExifTool 12.64 adds an API NoDups option which makes the NoDups helper
function largely redundant, with all the functionality except the
ability to avoid rewriting the file if there are no duplicates, but with
the advantage the duplicates may be removed when accumulating list items
from multiple sources. An equivalent to the above commands using this
feature would be:
exiftool -tagsfromfile @ -keywords -api nodups a.jpg
"SetTags"
Used to set tags in extracted images. With no arguments, copies all
tags from the source file to the embedded image:
exiftool -p '${previewimage;SetTags}' -b a.arw > preview.jpg
Arguments may be added to copy or set specific tags. Arguments take
exactly the same form as those on the command line when copying or
writing tags, but without the leading dash. For example:
exiftool -p '${previewimage;SetTags("comment=test","title<filename")}' ...
WINDOWS UNICODE FILE NAMES
In Windows, command-line arguments are specified using the current code
page and are recoded automatically to the system code page. This
recoding is not done for arguments in ExifTool arg files, so by default
filenames in arg files use the system code page. Unfortunately, these
code pages are not complete character sets, so not all file names may be
represented.
ExifTool 9.79 and later allow the file name encoding to be specified
with "-charset filename=CHARSET", where "CHARSET" is the name of a valid
ExifTool character set, preferably "UTF8" (see the -charset option for a
complete list). Setting this triggers the use of Windows wide-character
i/o routines, thus providing support for most Unicode file names (see
note 4). But note that it is not trivial to pass properly encoded file
names on the Windows command line (see
<https://exiftool.org/faq.html#Q18> for details), so placing them in a
UTF-8 encoded -@ argfile and using "-charset filename=utf8" is
recommended if possible.
A warning is issued if a specified filename contains special characters
and the filename character set was not provided. However, the warning
may be disabled by setting "-charset filename=""", and ExifTool may
still function correctly if the system code page matches the character
set used for the file names.
When a directory name is provided, the file name encoding need not be
specified (unless the directory name contains special characters), and
ExifTool will automatically use wide-character routines to scan the
directory.
The filename character set applies to the FILE arguments as well as
filename arguments of -@, -geotag, -o, -p, -srcfile, -tagsFromFile,
-csv=, -j= and -TAG<=. However, it does not apply to the -config
filename, which always uses the system character set. The "-charset
filename=" option must come before the -@ option to be effective, but
the order doesn't matter with respect to other options.
Notes:
1) FileName and Directory tag values still use the same encoding as
other tag values, and are converted to/from the filename character set
when writing/reading if specified.
2) Unicode support is not yet implemented for other Windows-based
systems like Cygwin.
3) See "WRITING READ-ONLY FILES" below for a note about editing read-
only files with Unicode names.
4) Unicode file names with surrogate pairs (code points over U+FFFF)
still cause problems.
WRITING READ-ONLY FILES
In general, ExifTool may be used to write metadata to read-only files
provided that the user has write permission in the directory. However,
there are three cases where file write permission is also required:
1) When using the -overwrite_original_in_place option.
2) When writing only pseudo System tags (eg. FileModifyDate).
3) On Windows if the file has Unicode characters in its name, and a) the
-overwrite_original option is used, or b) the "_original" backup already
exists.
Hidden files in Windows behave as read-only files when attempting to
write any real tags to the file -- an error is generated when using the
-overwrite_original_in_place, otherwise writing should be successful and
the hidden attribute will be removed. But the -if option may be used to
avoid processing hidden files (provided Win32API::File is available):
exiftool -if "$fileattributes !~ /Hidden/" ...
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 in the Windows cmd shell double quotes must be used instead of the
single quotes used in the 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). For performance
reasons, this command may not extract all available metadata.
(Metadata in embedded documents, metadata extracted by external
utilities, and metadata requiring excessive processing time may not
be extracted). Add "-ee3" and "-api RequestAll=3" to the command
to extract absolutely everything available.
"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 -a -b -W %d%f_%t%-c.%s -preview:all dir"
Extract all types of preview images (ThumbnailImage, PreviewImage,
JpgFromRaw, etc.) from files in directory "dir", adding the tag
name to the output preview image file names.
"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 $dateTimeOriginal' -q -f dir"
Print one line of output containing the file name and
DateTimeOriginal for each image in directory "dir".
"exiftool -ee3 -p '$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 (eg. -Comment="This is a new comment").
"exiftool -tagsfromfile src.jpg -exif:all --subifd:all 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
<https://exiftool.org/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
metadata-only files may be created like this (files containing
images 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 '-Description<${FileName;s/\.[^.]*$//}' dir"
Set the image Description from the file name after removing the
extension. This example uses the "Advanced formatting feature" to
perform a substitution operation to remove the last dot and
subsequent characters from the file name.
"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 -b -jpgfromraw -w %d%f_%ue.jpg -execute -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
<https://exiftool.org/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". eg) 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_${model;}.%e' dir"
Rename all files in "dir" by adding the camera model name to the
file name. The semicolon after the tag name inside the braces
causes characters which are invalid in Windows file names to be
deleted from the tag value (see the "Advanced formatting feature"
for an explanation).
"exiftool '-FileName<CreateDate' -d %Y%m%d_%H%M%S%%-c.%%e dir"
Rename all images in "dir" according to the "CreateDate" date and
time, adding a copy number with leading '-' if the file already
exists ("%-c"), and preserving the original file extension (%e).
Note the extra '%' necessary to escape the filename codes (%c and
%e) in the date format string.
"exiftool -r '-FileName<CreateDate' -d %Y-%m-%d/%H%M_%%f.%%e dir"
Both the directory and the filename may be changed together via the
"FileName" tag if the new "FileName" contains a '/'. The example
above recursively renames all images in a directory by adding a
"CreateDate" timestamp to the start of the filename, then moves
them into new directories named by date.
"exiftool '-FileName<${CreateDate}_$filenumber.jpg' -d %Y%m%d -ext jpg
."
Set the filename of all JPG images in the current directory from
the CreateDate and FileNumber tags, in the form
"20060507_118-1861.jpg".
GEOTAGGING EXAMPLES
ExifTool implements geotagging from GPS log files via 3 special tags:
Geotag (which for convenience is also implemented as an exiftool
option), Geosync and Geotime. The examples below highlight some
geotagging features. See <https://exiftool.org/geotag.html> for
additional documentation. (Note that geotagging from known GPS
coordinates is done by writing the GPS tags directly rather than using
the -geotag option.)
"exiftool -geotag track.log a.jpg"
Geotag an image ("a.jpg") from position information in a GPS track
log ("track.log"). Since the "Geotime" tag is not specified, the
value of SubSecDateTimeOriginal (preferentially) or
DateTimeOriginal is used for geotagging. Local system time is
assumed unless the time contains a timezone.
"exiftool -geotag track.log -geolocate=geotag a.jpg"
Geotag an image and also write geolocation information of the
nearest city (city name, state/province and country). Read here
for more details about the Geolocation feature:
<https://exiftool.org/geolocation.html#Write>
"exiftool -geotag t.log -geotime='2009:04:02 13:41:12-05:00' a.jpg"
Geotag an image with the GPS position for a specific time.
"exiftool -geotag log.gpx '-xmp:geotime<createdate' dir"
Geotag all images in directory "dir" with XMP tags instead of EXIF
tags, based on the image CreateDate.
"exiftool -geotag a.log -geosync=-20 dir"
Geotag images in directory "dir", accounting for image timestamps
which were 20 seconds ahead of GPS.
"exiftool -geotag a.log -geosync=1.jpg -geosync=2.jpg dir"
Geotag images using time synchronization from two previously
geotagged images (1.jpg and 2.jpg), synchronizing the image and GPS
times using a linear time drift correction.
"exiftool -geotag a.log '-geotime<${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
SubSecDateTimeOriginal or 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 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.)
INTERRUPTING EXIFTOOL
Interrupting exiftool with a CTRL-C or SIGINT will not result in
partially written files or temporary files remaining on the hard disk.
The exiftool application traps SIGINT and defers it until the end of
critical processes if necessary, then does a proper cleanup before
exiting.
EXIT STATUS
The exiftool application exits with a status of 0 on success, or 1 if an
error occurred, or 2 if all files failed the -if condition (for any of
the commands if -execute was used).
AUTHOR
Copyright 2003-2025, 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 v5.40.1 2025-03-16 EXIFTOOL(1p)
Generated by dwww version 1.16 on Tue Dec 16 06:13:55 CET 2025.