NAME¶
exiftool - Read and write meta information in files
SYNOPSIS¶
- exiftool [OPTIONS] [-TAG...]
[--TAG...] FILE...
- exiftool [OPTIONS]
-TAG[+-<]=[VALUE]... FILE...
- exiftool [OPTIONS] -tagsFromFile
SRCFILE [- SRCTAG[>DSTTAG]...] FILE...
- exiftool [ -ver |
-list[w|f|
wf|g[NUM]|d|x] ]
For specific examples, see the EXAMPLES sections below.
DESCRIPTION¶
A command-line interface to Image::ExifTool, used for reading and writing meta
information in image, audio and video files.
FILE is one or more source
file names, directory names, or "-" for the standard input.
Information is read from the source files and output in readable form to the
console (or written to output text files with
-w).
To write, copy or delete information in each
FILE, specify new tag values
with the -
TAG=[
VALUE] syntax or the
-tagsFromFile or
-geotag options. By default the original files are preserved with
"_original" appended to their names -- be sure to verify that the
new files are OK before erasing the originals. Once in write mode, exiftool
will ignore any read-specific options.
Note: If
FILE is a directory name then only supported file types in the
directory are processed (in write mode only writable types are processed).
However, files may be specified by name, or the
-ext option may be used
to force processing of files with any extension.
Below is a list of file types and meta information formats currently supported
by ExifTool (r = read, w = write, c = create):
File Types
------------+-------------+-------------+-------------+------------
3FR r | DVB r | M4A/V r | PBM r/w | RWL r/w
3G2 r | DYLIB r | MEF r/w | PDF r/w | RWZ r
3GP r | EIP r | MIE r/w/c | PEF r/w | RM r
ACR r | EPS r/w | MIFF r | PFA r | SO r
AFM r | ERF r/w | MKA r | PFB r | SR2 r/w
AI r/w | EXE r | MKS r | PFM r | SRF r
AIFF r | EXIF r/w/c | MKV r | PGF r | SRW r/w
APE r | F4A/V r | MNG r/w | PGM r/w | SVG r
ARW r/w | FLA r | MOS r/w | PICT r | SWF r
ASF r | FLAC r | MOV r | PMP r | THM r/w
AVI r | FLV r | MP3 r | PNG r/w | TIFF r/w
BMP r | FPX r | MP4 r | PPM r/w | TTC r
BTF r | GIF r/w | MPC r | PPT r | TTF r
COS r | GZ r | MPG r | PPTX r | VRD r/w/c
CR2 r/w | HDP r/w | MPO r/w | PS r/w | VSD r
CRW r/w | HTML r | MQV r | PSB r/w | WAV r
CS1 r/w | ICC r/w/c | MRW r/w | PSD r/w | WDP r/w
DCM r | IIQ r/w | MXF r | PSP r | WEBP r
DCP r/w | IND r/w | NEF r/w | QTIF r | WEBM r
DCR r | ITC r | NRW r/w | RA r | WMA r
DFONT r | JNG r/w | NUMBERS r | RAF r/w | WMV r
DIVX r | JP2 r/w | ODP r | RAM r | X3F r/w
DJVU r | JPEG r/w | ODS r | RAR r | XCF r
DLL r | K25 r | ODT r | RAW r/w | XLS r
DNG r/w | KDC r | OGG r | RIFF r | XLSX r
DOC r | KEY r | ORF r/w | RSRC r | XMP r/w/c
DOCX r | LNK r | OTF r | RTF r | ZIP r
DV r | M2TS r | PAGES r | RW2 r/w |
Meta Information
----------------------+----------------------+---------------------
EXIF r/w/c | CIFF r/w | Ricoh RMETA r
GPS r/w/c | AFCP r/w | Picture Info r
IPTC r/w/c | Kodak Meta r/w | Adobe APP14 r
XMP r/w/c | FotoStation r/w | MPF r
MakerNotes r/w/c | PhotoMechanic r/w | Stim r
Photoshop IRB r/w/c | JPEG 2000 r | APE r
ICC Profile r/w/c | DICOM r | Vorbis r
MIE r/w/c | Flash r | SPIFF r
JFIF r/w/c | FlashPix r | DjVu r
Ducky APP12 r/w/c | QuickTime r | M2TS r
PDF r/w/c | Matroska r | PE/COFF r
PNG r/w/c | GeoTIFF r | AVCHD r
Canon VRD r/w/c | PrintIM r | ZIP r
Nikon Capture r/w/c | ID3 r | (and more)
OPTIONS¶
Case is not significant for any command-line option (including tag and group
names), except for single-character options when the corresponding upper-case
option exists. Many single-character options have equivalent long-name
versions (shown in brackets), and some options have inverses which are invoked
with a leading double-dash. Note that multiple single-character options may
NOT be combined into one argument because this would be interpreted as a tag
name.
Option Summary¶
Tag 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) Output data as exiftool arguments
-b (-binary) Output data in binary format
-c FMT (-coordFormat) Set format for GPS coordinates
-charset [[TYPE=]CHARSET] Specify encoding for special characters
-csv[=CSVFILE] Export/import tags in CSV format
-d FMT (-dateFormat) Set format for date/time values
-D (-decimal) Show tag ID numbers in decimal
-E, -ex (-escape(HTML|XML)) Escape values for HTML (-E) or XML (-ex)
-f (-forcePrint) Force printing of all specified tags
-g[NUM...] (-groupHeadings) Organize output by tag group
-G[NUM...] (-groupNames) Print group name for each tag
-h (-htmlFormat) Use HMTL formatting for output
-H (-hex) Show tag ID number in hexadecimal
-htmlDump[OFFSET] Generate HTML-format binary dump
-j[=JSONFILE] (-json) Export/import tags in JSON format
-l (-long) Use long 2-line output format
-L (-latin) Use Windows Latin1 encoding
-lang [LANG] Set current language
-n (--printConv) Disable print conversion
-p FMTFILE (-printFormat) Print output in specified format
-s[NUM] (-short) Short output format
-S (-veryShort) Very short output format
-sep STR (-separator) Set separator string for list items
-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 output text files
-X (-xmlFormat) Use RDF/XML output format
Processing control
-a (-duplicates) Allow duplicate tags to be extracted
-e (--composite) Do not calculate composite tags
-ee (-extractEmbedded) Extract information from embedded files
-ext EXT (-extension) Process files with specified extension
-F[OFFSET] (-fixBase) Fix the base for maker notes offsets
-fast[NUM] Increase speed for slow devices
-fileOrder [-]TAG Set file processing order
-i DIR (-ignore) Ignore specified directory name
-if EXPR Conditionally process files
-m (-ignoreMinorErrors) Ignore minor errors and warnings
-o OUTFILE (-out) Set output file or directory name
-overwrite_original Overwrite original by renaming tmp file
-overwrite_original_in_place Overwrite original by copying tmp file
-P (-preserve) Preserve date/time of original file
-password PASSWD Password for processing protected files
-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
-z (-zip) Read/write compressed information
Special features
-geotag TRKFILE Geotag images from specified GPS log
-use MODULE Add features from plug-in module
Utilities
-delete_original[!] Delete "_original" backups
-restore_original Restore from "_original" backups
Other options
-@ ARGFILE Read command-line arguments from file
-k (-pause) Pause before terminating
-list[w|f|wf|g[NUM]|d|x] List various exiftool attributes
-ver Print exiftool version number
Advanced options
-common_args Define common arguments
-config CFGFILE Specify configuration file name
-execute Execute multiple commands on one line
-srcfile FMT Set different source file name
-stay_open FLAG Keep reading -@ argfile even after EOF
Option Details¶
Tag operations
- -TAG
- Extract information for specified tag (ie.
"-CreateDate"). A tag name is the handle by which a piece of
information is referenced. See Image::ExifTool::TagNames for documentation
on available tag names. A tag name may include leading group names
separated by colons (ie. "-EXIF:CreateDate", or
"-Doc1:XMP:Creator"), and each group name may be prefixed by a
digit to specify family number (ie. "-1IPTC:City"). Use the
-listg option to list available group names by family.
A special tag name of "All" may be used to indicate all meta
information. This is particularly useful when a group name is specified to
extract all information in a group (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, and
wildcards may not be used when writing/deleting tags.
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. May also be used following a -tagsFromFile
option to exclude tags from being copied, or to exclude groups from being
deleted when deleting all information (ie. "-all= --exif:all"
deletes all but EXIF information). But note that this will not exclude
individual tags from a group delete. Instead, the tags must be recovered
using the -tagsFromFile option (ie. "-all= -tagsfromfile @
-artist"). Wildcards are permitted as described above for
-TAG.
- -TAG[+-]=[VALUE]
- Write a new value for the specified tag (ie.
"-comment=wow"), or delete the tag if no VALUE is given
(ie. "-comment="). "+=" and "-=" are used to
add or remove existing entries from a list, or to shift date/time values
(see Image::ExifTool::Shift.pl for details), and "-=" may be
used to conditionally remove or replace a tag (see "WRITING
EXAMPLES" for examples).
TAG may contain a leading family 0 or 1 group name separated by a
colon. If no group name is specified, the tag is created in the preferred
group, and updated in any other location where a same-named tag already
exists. The preferred group is the first group in the following list where
TAG is valid: 1) EXIF, 2) IPTC, 3) XMP.
The special "All" tag may be used in this syntax only if a
VALUE is NOT given. This causes all meta information to be deleted
(or all information in a group if "-GROUP:All=" is used). Note
that not all groups are deletable. Use the -listd option for a
complete list of deletable groups. Also, within an image some groups may
be contained within others, and these groups are removed if the containing
group is deleted:
JPEG Image:
- Deleting EXIF or IFD0 also deletes ExifIFD, GlobParamIFD,
GPS, IFD1, InteropIFD, MakerNotes, PrintIM and SubIFD.
- Deleting ExifIFD also deletes InteropIFD and MakerNotes.
- Deleting Photoshop also deletes IPTC.
TIFF Image:
- Deleting EXIF only removes ExifIFD which also deletes
InteropIFD and MakerNotes.
Note: MakerNotes tags may be edited, but not created or deleted
individually. This avoids many potential problems including the inevitable
compatibility problems with OEM software which may be very inflexible
about the information it expects to find in the maker notes.
Special feature: Integer values may be specified in hexadecimal with a
leading "0x", and simple rational values may be specified as
fractions.
- -TAG<=DATFILE or
-TAG<= FMT
- Set the value of a tag from the contents of file
DATFILE. The file name may also be given by a FMT string
where %d, %f and %e represent the directory, file name and extension of
the original FILE (see the -w option for more details). Note
that quotes are required around this argument to prevent shell redirection
since it contains a "<" symbol. "+<=" or
"-<=" may also be used to add or delete specific list
entries, or to shift date/time values.
- -tagsFromFile SRCFILE or FMT
- Copy tag values from SRCFILE to FILE. Tag
names on the command line after this option specify the tags to be copied,
or excluded from the copy. If no tags are specified, then all possible
tags (see note 1 below) from the source file are copied. More than one
-tagsFromFile option may be used to copy tags from multiple files.
By default, this option will commute information between same-named tags in
different groups and write each tag to the preferred group. This allows
some information to be automatically translated when copying between
images of different formats. However, if a group name is specified for a
tag then the information is written to the original group (unless
redirected to another group, see below). This works even if
"All" is used as a group name, so "-All:All" is used
to specify that all information be copied to the same group in the
destination file.
SRCFILE may be the same as FILE to move information around
within a file. In this case, "@" may be used to represent the
source file (ie. "-tagsFromFile @"), permitting this feature to
be used for batch processing multiple files (see note 4 below). Specified
tags are then copied from each file in turn as it is rewritten. For
advanced batch use, the source file name may also be specified using a
FMT string in which %d, %f and %e represent the directory, file
name and extension of FILE. See -w option for FMT
string examples.
A powerful redirection feature allows a destination tag to be specified for
each extracted tag. With this feature, information may be written to a tag
with a different name or group. This is done using "'-
SRCTAG> DSTTAG'" or "'-
DSTTAG<SRCTAG'" on the command line after
-tagsFromFile, and causes the value of SRCTAG to be copied
from SRCFILE and written to DSTTAG in FILE. Note that
this argument must be quoted to prevent shell redirection, and there is no
"=" sign as when assigning new values. Both source and
destination tags may be prefixed by a group name, and "All" or
"*" may be used as a tag or group name. If no destination group
is specified, the information is written to the preferred group. As a
convenience, "-tagsFromFile @" is assumed for any redirected
tags which are specified without a prior -tagsFromFile option.
Copied tags may also be added or deleted from a list with arguments of the
form "'- SRCTAG+>DSTTAG'" or "'-
SRCTAG-> DSTTAG'".
An extension of the redirection feature allows strings involving tag names
to be used on the right hand side of the "<" symbol with the
syntax "'- DSTTAG<STR'", where tag names in
STR are prefixed with a "$" symbol. See the -p
option for more details about this syntax. Strings starting with a
"=" sign must insert a single space after the "<"
to avoid confusion with the "<=" syntax which would otherwise
attempt to set the tag value from the contents of a file. A single space
at the start of the string is removed if it exists, but all other
whitespace is preserved.
See "COPYING EXAMPLES" for examples using -tagsFromFile.
Notes:
1) Some tags (generally tags which may affect the appearance of the image)
are considered "unsafe" to write, and are only copied if
specified explicitly. See the tag name documentation for more details
about "unsafe" tags.
2) Be aware of the difference between excluding a tag from being copied (--
TAG), and deleting a tag (-TAG=). Excluding a tag prevents
it from being copied to the destination image, but deleting will remove a
pre-existing tag from the image.
3) The maker note information is copied as a block, so it isn't affected
like other information by subsequent tag assignments on the command line.
Also, since the PreviewImage referenced from the maker notes may be rather
large, it is not copied, and must be transferred separately if desired.
4) When performing complex batch processing, it is important to note that
the order of operations is different for tags copied in batch mode. In
general, tags are copied from batch-mode files after all other
command-line arguments have been applied. For example, the following two
commands are not equivalent:
# (not batch mode): Sets xmp:title to 'NEW'
exiftool -tagsfromfile a.jpg -xmp:title -xmp:title=NEW a.jpg
# (batch mode): Preserves original title if it exists
exiftool -tagsfromfile @ -xmp:title -xmp:title=NEW a.jpg
5) The normal behaviour of copied tags differs subtly from that of assigned
tags for List-type tags. When copying to a list, each copied tag overrides
any previous operations on the list. While this avoids duplicate list
items when copying groups of tags from a file containing redundant
information, it also prevents values of different tags from being copied
into the same list when this is the intent. So a -addTagsFromFile
option is provided which allows copying of multiple tags into the same
list. ie)
exiftool -addtagsfromfile @ '-subject<make' '-subject<model' ...
Other than this difference, the -tagsFromFile and
-addTagsFromFile options are equivalent.
6) The -a option (allow duplicate tags) is always in effect when
reading tags from SRCFILE.
7) The -struct option is in effect by default when copying tags, but
this may be disabled with --struct on the command line. See the
-struct option for details.
- -x TAG (-exclude)
- Exclude the specified tag. There may be multiple -x
options. This has the same effect as -- TAG on the command line.
May also be used following a -tagsFromFile option to exclude tags
from being copied.
Input-output text formatting
- -args (-argFormat)
- Output information in the form of exiftool arguments,
suitable for use with the -@ option when writing. May be combined
with the -G option to include group names. This feature may be used
to effectively copy tags between images, but allows the metadata to be
altered by editing the intermediate file ("out.args" in this
example):
exiftool -args -G1 --filename --directory src.jpg > out.args
exiftool -@ out.args dst.jpg
Note: Be careful when copying information with this technique since it is
easy to write tags which are normally considered "unsafe". For
instance, the FileName and Directory tags are excluded in the example
above to avoid renaming and moving the destination file. Also note that
the second command above will produce warning messages for any tags which
are not writable.
- -b (-binary)
- Output requested data in binary format without tag names or
descriptions. This option is mainly used for extracting embedded images or
other binary data, but it may also be useful for some text strings since
control characters (such as newlines) are not replaced by '.' as they are
in the default output. Also valid in combination with the "-X"
option.
- -c FMT (-coordFormat)
- Set the print format for GPS coordinates. FMT uses
the same syntax as the "printf" format string. The specifiers
correspond to degrees, minutes and seconds in that order, but minutes and
seconds are optional. For example, the following table gives the output
for the same coordinate using various formats:
FMT Output
------------------- ------------------
"%d deg %d' %.2f"\" 54 deg 59' 22.80" (default for reading)
"%d %d %.8f" 54 59 22.80000000 (default for copying)
"%d deg %.4f min" 54 deg 59.3800 min
"%.6f degrees" 54.989667 degrees
Notes:
1) To avoid loss of precision, the default coordinate format is different
when copying tags using the -tagsFromFile option.
2) This print formatting may be disabled with the -n option to
extract coordinates as signed decimal degrees.
- -charset [[TYPE=]CHARSET]
- If TYPE is "ExifTool" or not specified,
this option sets the ExifTool character encoding for output tag values
when reading and input values when writing. The default ExifTool encoding
is "UTF8". If no CHARSET is given, a list of available
character sets is returned. Valid CHARSET values are:
CHARSET Alias(es) Description
---------- --------------- ----------------------------------
UTF8 cp65001, UTF-8 UTF-8 characters (default)
Latin cp1252, Latin1 Windows Latin1 (West European)
Latin2 cp1250 Windows Latin2 (Central European)
Cyrillic cp1251, Russian Windows Cyrillic
Greek cp1253 Windows Greek
Turkish cp1254 Windows Turkish
Hebrew cp1255 Windows Hebrew
Arabic cp1256 Windows Arabic
Baltic cp1257 Windows Baltic
Vietnam cp1258 Windows Vietnamese
Thai cp874 Windows Thai
MacRoman cp10000, Roman Macintosh Roman
MacLatin2 cp10029 Macintosh Latin2 (Central Europe)
MacCyrillic cp10007 Macintosh Cyrillic
MacGreek cp10006 Macintosh Greek
MacTurkish cp10081 Macintosh Turkish
MacRomanian cp10010 Macintosh Romanian
MacIceland cp10079 Macintosh Icelandic
MacCroatian cp10082 Macintosh Croatian
Other values of TYPE listed below are used to specify the internal
encoding of various meta information formats.
TYPE Description Default
--------- ------------------------------------------- -------
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
See <http://owl.phy.queensu.ca/~phil/exiftool/faq.html#Q10> for more
information about coded character sets.
- -csv[=CSVFILE]
- Export information in as a CSV file, or import information
if CSVFILE is specified. The first row of the CSVFILE must
be the ExifTool tag names (with optional group names) for each column of
the file. A special "SourceFile" column specifies the files
associated with each row of information (a SourceFile of "*" may
be used to apply the information to all target images). The following
examples demonstrate basic use of this option:
# generate CSV file with common tags from all images in a directory
exiftool -common -csv dir > out.csv
# update metadata for all images in a directory from CSV file
exiftool -csv=a.csv dir
Empty values are ignored when importing. To force a tag to be deleted, use
the -f option and set the value to "-" in the CSV file.
May be combined with the -g or -G option to add group names
to the tags.
Special feature: "+=" CSVFILE may be used to add items to
existing lists. This affects only list-type tags. Also applies to the
-j option.
- -d FMT (-dateFormat)
- Set the format for date/time tag values. The specifics of
the FMT syntax are system dependent -- consult the
"strftime" man page on your system for details. The default
format is equivalent to "%Y:%m:%d %H:%M:%S". This option has no
effect on date-only or time-only tags and ignores timezone information if
present. Only one -d option may be used per command. The inverse
operation (ie. un-formatting a date/time value) is currently not applied
when writing a date/time tag.
- -D (-decimal)
- Show tag ID number in decimal when extracting
information.
- -E, -ex (-escapeHTML,
-escapeXML)
- Escape characters in output values for HTML (-E) or
XML ( -ex). For HTML, all characters with Unicode code points above
U+007F are escaped as well as the following 5 characters: &
(&) ' (') " (") > (>) and <
(<). For XML, only these 5 characters are escaped. The -E
option is implied with -h, and -ex is implied with
-X. The inverse conversion is applied when writing tags.
- -f (-forcePrint)
- Force printing of tags even if their values are not found.
This option only applies when tag names are specified. May also be used to
add a 'flags' attribute to the -listx output, or to allow tags to
be deleted with the -csv option.
- -g[NUM][:NUM...]
(-groupHeadings)
- Organize output by tag group. NUM specifies a group
family number, and may be 0 (general location), 1 (specific location), 2
(category), 3 (document number) or 4 (instance number). Multiple families
may be specified by separating them with colons. By default the resulting
group name is simplified by removing any leading "Main:" and
collapsing adjacent identical group names, but this can be avoided by
placing a colon before the first family number (ie. -g:3:1). If
NUM is not specified, -g0 is assumed. Use the -listg
option to list group names for a specified family.
- -G[NUM][:NUM...]
(-groupNames)
- Same as -g but print group name for each tag.
- -h (-htmlFormat)
- Use HTML table formatting for output. Implies the -E
option. The formatting options -D, -H, -g, -G,
-l and -s may be used in combination with -h to
influence the HTML format.
- -H (-hex)
- Show tag ID number in hexadecimal when extracting
information.
- -htmlDump[OFFSET]
- Generate a dynamic web page containing a hex dump of the
EXIF information. This can be a very powerful tool for low-level analysis
of EXIF information. The -htmlDump option is also invoked if the
-v and -h options are used together. The verbose level
controls the maximum length of the blocks dumped. An OFFSET may be
given to specify the base for displayed offsets. If not provided, the
EXIF/TIFF base offset is used. Use -htmlDump0 for absolute offsets.
Currently only EXIF/TIFF and JPEG information is dumped, but the -u option
can be used to give a raw hex dump of other file formats.
- -j[=JSONFILE] (-json)
- Use JSON (JavaScript Object Notation) formatting for
console output, or import JSON file if JSONFILE is specified. This
option may be combined with -g to organize the output into objects
by group, or -G to add group names to each tag. List-type tags with
multiple items are output as JSON arrays unless -sep is used. By
default XMP structures are flattened into individual tags in the JSON
output, but the original structure may be preserved with the
-struct option (this also causes all List-type XMP tags to be
output as JSON arrays, otherwise single-item lists would be output as
simple strings). The -a option is implied if the -g or
-G options are used, otherwise it is ignored and duplicate tags are
suppressed. The -b, -L and -charset options have no
effect on the JSON output.
If JSONFILE is specified, the file is imported and the tag
definitions from the file are used to set tag values on a per-file basis.
The special "SourceFile" entry in each JSON object associates
the information with a specific target file (see the -csv option
for details). The imported JSON file must have the same format as the
exported JSON files with the exception that the -g option is not
compatible with the import file format (use -G instead).
Additionally, tag names in the input JSON file may be suffixed with a
"#" to disable print conversion.
- -l (-long)
- Use long 2-line Canon-style output format. Adds a
description and unconverted value to the XML output when -X is
used.
- -L (-latin)
- Use Windows Latin1 encoding (cp1252) for output tag values
instead of the default UTF-8. When writing, -L specifies that input
text values are Latin1 instead of UTF-8. Equivalent to "-charset
latin".
- -lang [LANG]
- Set current language for tag descriptions and converted
values. LANG is "de", "fr", "ja",
etc. Use -lang with no other arguments to get a list of available
languages. The default language is "en" if -lang is not
specified. Note that tag/group names are always English, independent of
the -lang setting, and translation of warning/error messages has
not yet been implemented.
By default, ExifTool uses UTF-8 encoding for special characters, but the the
-L or -charset option may be used to invoke other encodings.
Currently, the language support is not complete, but users are welcome to
help improve this by submitting their own translations. To submit a set of
translations, first use the -listx option and redirect the output
to a file to generate an XML tag database, then add entries for other
languages, zip this file, and email it to phil at owl.phy.queensu.ca for
inclusion in ExifTool.
- -n (--printConv)
- Read and write values as numbers instead of words. By
default, extracted values are converted to a more human-readable format
for printing, but the -n option disables this print conversion for
all tags. For example:
> exiftool -Orientation -S a.jpg
Orientation: Rotate 90 CW
> exiftool -Orientation -S -n a.jpg
Orientation: 6
The print conversion may also be disabled on a per-tag basis by suffixing
the tag name with a "#" character:
> exiftool -Orientation# -Orientation -S a.jpg
Orientation: 6
Orientation: Rotate 90 CW
These techniques may also be used to disable the inverse print conversion
when writing. For example, the following commands all have the same
effect:
> exiftool -Orientation='Rotate 90 CW' a.jpg
> exiftool -Orientation=6 -n a.jpg
> exiftool -Orientation#=6 a.jpg
- -p FMTFILE or STR
(-printFormat)
- Print output in the format specified by the given file or
string (and ignore other format options). Tag names in the format file or
string begin with a "$" symbol and may contain a leading group
name and/or a trailing "#". Case is not significant. Braces
"{}" may be used around the tag name to separate it from
subsequent text. Use $$ to represent a "$" symbol, and $/ for a
newline. Multiple -p options may be used, each contributing a line
of text to the output. Lines beginning with "#[HEAD]" and
"#[TAIL]" are output only for the first and last processed files
respectively. Lines beginning with "#[BODY]" and lines not
beginning with "#" are output for each processed file. Other
lines beginning with "#" are ignored. For example, this format
file:
# this is a comment line
#[HEAD]# Generated by ExifTool $exifToolVersion
File: $FileName - $DateTimeOriginal
(f/$Aperture, ${ShutterSpeed}s, ISO $EXIF:ISO)
#[TAIL]# end
with this command:
exiftool -p test.fmt a.jpg b.jpg
produces output like this:
# Generated by ExifTool 8.10
File: a.jpg - 2003:10:31 15:44:19
(f/5.6, 1/60s, ISO 100)
File: b.jpg - 2006:05:23 11:57:38
(f/8.0, 1/13s, ISO 100)
# end
When -ee (-extractEmbedded) is combined with -p,
embedded documents are effectively processed as separate input files.
If a specified tag does not exist, a minor warning is issued and the line
with the missing tag is not printed. However, the -f option may be
used to set the value of missing tags to '-', or the -m option may
be used to ignore minor warnings and leave the missing values empty.
- -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
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 ", ". When writing, this option causes
values assigned to list-type tags to be split into individual items at
each substring matching specified separator. Space characters in the
separator string match zero or more whitespace characters.
- -struct, --struct
- Output structured XMP information instead of flattening to
individual tags. This option works well when combined with the XML (
-X) and JSON ( -j) output formats. For other output formats,
the structures are serialized into the same format as when writing
structured information (see
<http://owl.phy.queensu.ca/~phil/exiftool/struct.html> for details).
This option is enabled by default when copying tags to allow the
preservation of complex structures, but this feature may be disabled with
--struct. These options have no effect when assigning new values
since both flattened tags and structured tags may always be written.
- -t (-tab)
- Output a tab-delimited list of description/values (useful
for database import). May be combined with -s to print tag names
instead of descriptions, or -S to print tag values only,
tab-delimited on a single line. The -t option may also be used to
add tag table information to the -X option output.
- -T (-table)
- Output tag values in table form. Equivalent to -t -S -q
-f.
- -v[NUM] (-verbose)
- Print verbose messages. NUM specifies the level of
verbosity in the range 0-5, with higher numbers being more verbose. If
NUM is not given, then each -v option increases the level of
verbosity by 1. With any level greater than 0, most other options are
ignored and normal console output is suppressed unless specific tags are
extracted. Using -v0 causes the console output buffer to be flushed
after each line (which may be useful to avoid delays when piping exiftool
output), and prints the name of each processed file when writing.
- -w[!] EXT or FMT
(-textOut)
- Write console output to files with names ending in
EXT, one for each source file. The output file name is obtained by
replacing the source file extension (including the '.') with the specified
extension (and a '.' is added to the start of EXT if it doesn't
already contain one). Alternatively, a FMT string may be used to
give more control over the output file name and directory. In the format
string, %d, %f and %e represent the directory, filename and extension of
the source file, and %c represents a copy number which is automatically
incremented if the file already exists. %d includes the trailing '/' if
necessary, but %e does not include the leading '.'. For example:
-w %d%f.txt # same effect as "-w txt"
-w dir/%f_%e.out # write files to "dir" as "FILE_EXT.out"
-w dir2/%d%f.txt # write to "dir2", keeping dir structure
-w a%c.txt # write to "a.txt" or "a1.txt" or "a2.txt"...
Existing files will not be overwritten unless an exclamation point is added
to the option name (ie. -w! or -textOut!). Output
directories are created automatically if necessary.
Notes:
1) In a Windows BAT file the "%" character is represented by
"%%", so an argument like "%d%f.txt" is written as
"%%d%%f.txt".
2) It is not possible to specify a simple filename as an argument for
-w. Instead, this simple case is accomplished using shell
redirection:
exiftool FILE > out.txt
Advanced features: A substring of the original file name, directory or
extension may be taken by specifying a field width immediately following
the '%' character. If the width is negative, the substring is taken from
the end. The substring position (characters to ignore at the start or end
of the string) may be given by a second optional value after a decimal
point. For example:
Input File Name Format Specifier Output File Name
---------------- ---------------- ----------------
Picture-123.jpg %7f.txt Picture.txt
Picture-123.jpg %-.4f.out Picture.out
Picture-123.jpg %7f.%-3f Picture.123
Picture-123a.jpg Meta%-3.1f.txt Meta123.txt
For %c, these modifiers have a different effects. If a field width is given,
the copy number is padded with zeros to the specified width. A leading '-'
adds a dash before the copy number, and a '+' adds an underline. By
default, a copy number of zero is omitted, but this can be changed by
adding a decimal point to the modifier. For example:
-w A%-cZ.txt # AZ.txt, A-1Z.txt, A-2Z.txt ...
-w B%5c.txt # B.txt, B00001.txt, B00002.txt ...
-w C%.c.txt # C0.txt, C1.txt, C2.txt ...
-w D%-.c.txt # D-0.txt, D-1.txt, D-2.txt ...
-w E%-.4c.txt # E-0000.txt, E-0001.txt, E-0002.txt ...
-w F%-.4nc.txt # F-0001.txt, F-0002.txt, F-0003.txt ...
-w G%+c.txt # G.txt, G_1.txt G_2.txt ...
-w H%-lc.txt # H.txt, H-b.txt, H-c.txt ...
A special feature allows the copy number to be incremented for each
processed file by using %C (upper case) instead of %c. This allows a
sequential number to be added to output file names, even if the names are
different. For %C, the number before the decimal place gives the starting
index, and the number after the decimal place gives the field width. The
following examples show the output filenames when used with the command
"exiftool rose.jpg star.jpg jet.jpg ...":
-w %C%f.txt # 0rose.txt, 1star.txt, 2jet.txt
-w %f-%10C.txt # rose-10.txt, star-11.txt, jet-12.txt
-w %.3C-%f.txt # 000-rose.txt, 001-star.txt, 002-jet.txt
-w %57.4C%f.txt # 0057rose.txt, 0058star.txt, 0059jet.txt
All format codes may be modified by 'l' or 'u' to specify lower or upper
case respectively (ie. %le for a lower case file extension). When used to
modify %c or %C, the numbers are changed to an alphabetical base (see
example H above). Also, %c may be modified by 'n' to count using natural
numbers starting from 1, instead of 0 (see example F).
This same FMT syntax is used with the -o and
-tagsFromFile options, although %c is only valid for output file
names.
- -X (-xmlFormat)
- Use RDF/XML formatting for console output. Implies the
-a option, so duplicate tags are extracted. The formatting options
-b, -D, -H, -l, -s, -sep,
-struct and -t may be used in combination with -X to
affect the output, but note that the tag ID ( -D, -H and
-t), binary data ( -b) and structured output
(-struct) options are not effective for the short output (
-s). Another restriction of -s is that only one tag with a
given group and name may appear in the output. Note that the tag ID
options ( -D, -H and -t) will produce non-standard
RDF/XML unless the -l option is also used. By default, list-type
tags with multiple values are formatted as an RDF Bag, but they are
combined into a single string when -s or -sep is used. Using
-L changes the XML encoding from "UTF-8" to
"windows-1252". Other -charset settings change the
encoding only if there is a corresponding standard XML character set. The
-b option causes binary data values to be written, encoded in
base64 if necessary. The -t option adds tag table information to
the output (table "name", decimal tag "id", and
"index" for cases where multiple conditional tags exist with the
same ID).
Processing control
- -a, --a (-duplicates,
--duplicates)
- Allow (-a) or suppress (--a) duplicate tag
names to be extracted. By default, duplicate tags are suppressed unless
the -ee or -X options are used or the Duplicates option is
enabled in the configuration file.
- -e (--composite)
- Extract existing tags only -- don't calculate composite
tags.
- -ee (-extractEmbedded)
- Extract information from embedded documents in EPS and PDF
files, embedded MPF images in JPEG and MPO files, streaming metadata in
AVCHD videos, and the resource fork of Mac OS files. Implies the -a
option. Use -g3 or -G3 to identify the originating document
for extracted information. Embedded documents containing sub-documents are
indicated with dashes in the family 3 group name. (ie. "Doc2-3"
is the 3rd sub-document of the 2nd embedded document.)
- -ext EXT, --ext EXT
(-extension)
- Process only files with (-ext) or without
(--ext) a specified extension. There may be multiple -ext
and --ext options. Extensions may begin with a leading '.', and
case is not significant. For example:
exiftool -ext .JPG DIR # process only JPG files
exiftool --ext crw --ext dng DIR # process all but CRW and DNG
exiftool --ext . DIR # ignore if no extension
Using this option has two main advantages over specifying "*.
EXT" on the command line: 1) It applies to files in
subdirectories when combined with the -r option. 2) The -ext
option is case-insensitive, which is useful when processing files on
case-sensitive filesystems.
- -F[OFFSET] (-fixBase)
- Fix the base for maker notes offsets. A common problem with
some image editors is that offsets in the maker notes are not adjusted
properly when the file is modified. This may cause the wrong values to be
extracted for some maker note entries when reading the edited file. This
option allows an integer OFFSET to be specified for adjusting the
maker notes base offset. If no OFFSET is given, ExifTool takes its
best guess at the correct base. Note that exiftool will automatically fix
the offsets for images which store original offset information (ie. newer
Canon models). Offsets are fixed permanently if -F is used when
writing EXIF to an image. ie)
exiftool -F -exif:resolutionunit=inches image.jpg
- -fast[NUM]
- Increase speed of extracting information from JPEG images.
With this option, ExifTool will not scan to the end of a JPEG image to
check for an AFCP or PreviewImage trailer, or past the first comment in
GIF images or the audio/video data in WAV/AVI files to search for
additional metadata. These speed benefits are small when reading images
directly from disk, but can be substantial if piping images through a
network connection. For more substantial speed benefits, -fast2
also causes exiftool to avoid extracting any EXIF MakerNote
information.
- -fileOrder [-]TAG
- Set file processing order according to the sorted value of
the specified TAG. For example, to process files in order of date:
exiftool -fileOrder DateTimeOriginal DIR
Additional -fileOrder options may be added as secondary sort keys.
Floating point values are sorted numerically, and all other values are
sorted alphabetically. The sort order may be reversed by prefixing the tag
name with a "-" (ie. "-fileOrder -createdate"). A
"#" may be appended to the tag name to disable print conversion
for the sorted values. Note that this option has a large performance
impact since it involves an additional processing pass of each file.
- -i DIR (-ignore)
- Ignore specified directory name. Use multiple -i
options to ignore more than one directory name. A special DIR value
of "SYMLINKS" (case sensitive) may be specified to ignore
symbolic links when the -r option is used.
- -if EXPR
- Specify a condition to be evaluated before processing each
FILE. EXPR is a Perl-like expression containing tag names
prefixed by "$" symbols. It is evaluated with the tags from each
FILE in turn, and the file is processed only if the expression
returns true. Unlike Perl variable names, tag names are not case sensitive
and may contain a hyphen. As well, tag names may have a leading group name
separated by a colon, and/or a trailing "#" character to disable
print conversion. When multiple -if options are used, all
conditions must be satisfied to process the file. Returns an exit status
of 1 if all files fail the condition. Below are a few examples:
# extract shutterspeed from all Canon images in a directory
exiftool -shutterspeed -if '$make eq "Canon"' dir
# add one hour to all images created on or after Apr. 2, 2006
exiftool -alldates+=1 -if '$CreateDate ge "2006:04:02"' dir
# set EXIF ISO value if possible, unless it is set already
exiftool '-exif:iso<iso' -if 'not $exif:iso' dir
# find images containing a specific keyword (case insensitive)
exiftool -if '$keywords =~ /harvey/i' -filename dir
- -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.
- -o OUTFILE or FMT (-out)
- Set the output file or directory name when writing
information. (Without this option, the original file is renamed to
"FILE_original" and output is sent to FILE.)
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. Currently, this can be done with XMP, ICC/ICM, MIE,
VRD and EXIF files by specifying the appropriate extension for
OUTFILE. The 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.
- -overwrite_original_in_place
- Similar to -overwrite_original except that an extra
step is added to allow the original file attributes to be preserved. For
example, on a Mac this causes the original file creation date, ownership,
type, creator, label color and icon to be preserved. This is implemented
by opening the original file in update mode and replacing its data with a
copy of a temporary file before deleting the temporary. The extra step
results in slower performance, so the -overwrite_original option
should be used instead unless necessary.
- -P (-preserve)
- Preserve the filesystem modification date/time of the
original file ("FileModifyDate") when writing. Note that some
filesystems (ie. Mac and Windows) store a creation date which is not
preserved by this option. For these systems, the
-overwrite_original_in_place option may be used to preserve the
creation date.
- -password PASSWD
- Specify password to allow processing of password-protected
PDF documents. If a password is required but not given, a warning is
issued and the document is not processed. Ignored if a password is not
required.
- -q (-quiet)
- Quiet processing. One -q suppresses normal
informational messages, and a second -q suppresses warnings as
well. Error messages can not be suppressed, although minor errors may be
downgraded to warnings with the -m option.
- -r (-recurse)
- Recursively process files in subdirectories. Only
meaningful if FILE is a directory name. By default, exiftool will
also follow symbolic links to directories if supported by the system, but
this may be disabled with "-i SYMLINKS" (see the -i
option for details).
- -scanForXMP
- Scan all files (even unsupported formats) for XMP
information unless found already. When combined with the -fast
option, only unsupported file types are scanned. Warning: It can be time
consuming to scan large files.
- -u (-unknown)
- Extract values of unknown tags. Add another -u to
also extract unknown information from binary data blocks. This option
applies to tags with numerical tag ID's, and causes tag names like
"Exif_0xc5d9" to be generated for unknown information. It has no
effect on information types which have human-readable tag ID's (such as
XMP), since unknown tags are extracted automatically from these
formats.
- -U (-unknown2)
- Extract values of unknown tags as well as unknown
information from some binary data blocks. This is the same as two
-u options.
- -z (-zip)
- When reading, causes information to be extracted from .gz
and .bz2 compressed images. (Only one image per archive. Requires gzip and
bzip2 to be installed on the system.) When writing, causes compressed
information to be written if supported by the image format. (ie. The PNG
format supports compressed text.)
Special features
- -geotag TRKFILE
- Geotag images from the specified GPS track log file. Using
the -geotag option is equivalent to writing a value to the
"Geotag" tag. After the -geotag option has been
specified, the value of the "Geotime" tag is written to define a
date/time for the position interpolation. If "Geotime" is not
specified, the value is copied from "DateTimeOriginal". For
example, the following two commands are equivalent:
exiftool -geotag track.log image.jpg
exiftool -geotag "-Geotime<DateTimeOriginal" image.jpg
When the "Geotime" value is converted to UTC, the local system
timezone is assumed unless the date/time value contains a timezone.
Writing "Geotime" causes the following 8 EXIF tags to be
created: GPSLatitude, GPSLatitudeRef, GPSLongitude, GPSLongitudeRef,
GPSAltitude, GPSAltitudeRef, GPSDateStamp and GPSTimeStamp. Alternately
"XMP:Geotime" may be written to create the following 5 XMP tags:
GPSLatitude, GPSLongitude, GPSAltitude, GPSAltitudeRef and GPSDateTime.
The "Geosync" tag may be used to specify a time correction which
is applied to each "Geotime" value for synchronization with GPS
time. For example, the following command compensates for image times which
are 1 minute and 20 seconds behind GPS:
exiftool -geosync=+1:20 -geotag a.log DIR
"Geosync" must be set before "Geotime" (if specified) to
be effective. Advanced "Geosync" features allow a linear time
drift correction and synchronization from previously geotagged images. See
"geotag.html" in the full ExifTool distribution for more
information.
Multiple -geotag options may be used to concatinate GPS track log
data. Also, a single -geotag option may be used to load multiple
track log files by using wildcards in the TRKFILE name, but note
that in this case TRKFILE must be quoted on most systems (with the
notable exception of Windows) to prevent filename expansion. For example:
exiftool -geotag "TRACKDIR/*.log" IMAGEDIR
Currently supported track file formats are GPX, NMEA RMC/GGA/GLL, KML, IGC,
Garmin XML and TCX, and Magellan PMGNTRK. See "GEOTAGGING
EXAMPLES" for examples. Also see "geotag.html" in the full
ExifTool distribution and the Image::ExifTool Options for more details and
for information about geotag configuration options.
- -use MODULE
- Add features from specified plug-in MODULE.
Currently, the MWG module is the only plug-in module distributed with
exiftool. This module adds read/write support for tags as recommended by
the Metadata Working Group. To save typing, "-use MWG" is
assumed if the "MWG" group is specified for any tag on the
command line. See the MWG Tags documentation for more details.
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 .jpeg images
in directory "DIR":
exiftool -restore_original -ext jpg DIR
The -delete_original option deletes the "_original" copies
of all files specified on the command line. Without a trailing
"!" this option prompts for confirmation before continuing. For
example, the following command deletes "a.jpg_original" if it
exists, after asking "Are you sure?":
exiftool -delete_original a.jpg
These options may not be used with other options to read or write tag values
in the same command, but may be combined with options such -ext,
-if, -r, -q and -v.
Other options
- -@ ARGFILE
- Read command-line arguments from the specified file. The
file contains one argument per line (NOT one option per line -- some
options require additional arguments which must be placed on separate
lines). Blank lines and lines beginning with "#" and are
ignored. Normal shell processing of arguments is not performed, which
among other things means that arguments should not be quoted.
ARGFILE may exist relative to either the current directory or the
exiftool directory unless an absolute pathname is given.
For example, the following ARGFILE will set the value of Copyright to
"Copyright YYYY, Phil Harvey", where "YYYY" is the
year of CreateDate:
-d
%Y
-copyright<Copyright $createdate, Phil Harvey
- -k (-pause)
- Pause with the message "-- press any key --" or
"-- press RETURN --" (depending on your system) before
terminating. This option is used to prevent the command window from
closing when run as a Windows drag and drop application.
- -list, -listw, -listf, -listr,
-listwf, -listg[NUM], -listd, -listx
- Print a list of all valid tag names (-list), all
writable tag names ( -listw), all supported file extensions
(-listff), all recognized file extensions ( -listr), all
writable file extensions ( -listwf), all tag groups [in a specified
family] ( -listg[NUM]), all deletable tag groups (
-listd), or an XML database of tag details ( -listx). The
-list, -listw and -listx options may be followed by
an additional argument of the form "-GROUP:All" to list all tags
in a specific group, where "GROUP" is one or more family 0-2
group names (excepting EXIF IFD groups) separated by colons. With
-listg, NUM may be given to specify the group family,
otherwise family 0 is assumed. When combined with -listx, the
-s option shortens the output by omitting the descriptions and
values, and -f adds a 'flags' attribute. Here are some examples:
-list # list all tag names
-list -EXIF:All # list all EXIF tags
-list -xmp:time:all # list all XMP tags relating to time
-listw -XMP-dc:All # list all writable XMP-dc tags
-listf # list all 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
Note that none of the -list options require an input
FILE.
- -ver
- Print exiftool version number.
Advanced options
Among other things, the advanced options allow complex processing to be
performed from a single command without the need for additional scripting.
This may be particularly useful for implementations such as Windows
drag-and-drop applications. These options may also be used to improve
performance in multi-pass processing by reducing the overhead required to load
exiftool for each invocation.
- -common_args
- Specifies that all arguments following this option are
common to all executed commands when -execute is used. This and the
-config option are the only options that may not be used inside a
-@ ARGFILE.
- -config CFGFILE
- Load specified configuration file instead of the default
".ExifTool_config". If used, this option must come before all
other arguments on the command line. The CFGFILE name may contain a
directory specification (otherwise the file must exist in the current
directory), or may be set to an empty string ("") to disable
loading of the config file. See the sample configuration file and
"config.html" in the full ExifTool distribution for more
information about the ExifTool configuration file.
- -execute
- Execute command for all arguments up to this point on the
command line. Allows multiple commands to be executed from a single
command line.
- -srcfile FMT
- Specify a different source file to be processed based on
the name of the original FILE. This may be useful in some special
situations for processing related preview images or sidecar files. See the
-w option for a description of the FMT syntax. Note that
file name FMT strings for all options are based on the original
FILE specified from the command line, not the name of the source
file specified by -srcfile.
- -stay_open FLAG
- If FLAG is 1 or "True", causes exiftool
keep reading from the -@ ARGFILE even after reaching the end
of file. This feature allows calling applications to pre-load exiftool,
thus avoiding the overhead of loading exiftool for each command. The
procedure is as follows:
1) Execute "exiftool -stay_open True -@ ARGFILE", where
ARGFILE is the name of an existing (possibly empty) argument file
or "-" to pipe arguments from the standard input.
2) Write exiftool command-line arguments to ARGFILE, one argument per
line (see the -@ option for details).
3) Write "-execute\n" to ARGFILE, where "\n"
represents a newline sequence. (Note: You may need to flush your write
buffers here if using buffered output.) Exiftool will then execute the
command with the arguments received up to this point, send a
"{ready}" message to stdout when done (unless the -q
option is used), and continue trying to read arguments for the next
command from ARGFILE.
4) Repeat steps 2 and 3 for each command.
5) Write "-stay_open\nFalse\n" to ARGFILE when done. This
will cause exiftool to process any remaining 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.)
READING EXAMPLES¶
Note: Beware when cutting and pasting these examples into your terminal!
Some characters such as single and double quotes and hyphens may have been
changed into similar-looking but functionally-different characters by the text
formatter used to display this documentation. Also note that Windows users
must use double quotes instead of single quotes as below around arguments
containing special characters.
- exiftool -a -u -g1 a.jpg
- Print all meta information in an image, including duplicate
and unknown tags, sorted by group (for family 1).
- exiftool -common dir
- Print common meta information for all images in
"dir".
- 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 CRW -r .
- Recursively extract JPG image from all Canon CRW files in
the current directory, adding "_JFR.JPG" for the name of the
output JPG files.
- exiftool -d '%r %a, %B %e, %Y' -DateTimeOriginal -S -s
*.jpg
- Print formatted date/time for all JPG files in the current
directory.
- exiftool -IFD1:XResolution -IFD1:YResolution image.jpg
- Extract image resolution from EXIF IFD1 information
(thumbnail image IFD).
- exiftool '-*resolution*' image.jpg
- Extract all tags with names containing the word
"Resolution" from an image.
- exiftool -xmp:author:all -a image.jpg
- Extract all author-related XMP information from an
image.
- exiftool -xmp -b a.jpg > out.xmp
- Extract complete XMP data record intact from
"a.jpg" and write it to "out.xmp" using the special
"XMP" tag (see the Extra tags in
Image::ExifTool::TagNames).
- exiftool -p '$filename has date $dateTimeOriginal' -q -f
dir
- Print one line of output containing the file name and
DateTimeOriginal for each image in directory "dir".
- exiftool -ee -p '$gpslatitude, $gpslongitude,
$gpstimestamp' a.m2ts
- Extract all GPS positions from an AVCHD video.
- exiftool -icc_profile -b -w icc image.jpg
- Save complete ICC_Profile from an image to an output file
with the same name and an extension of ".icc".
- exiftool -htmldump -w tmp/%f_%e.html t/images
- Generate HTML pages from a hex dump of EXIF information in
all images from the "t/images" directory. The output HTML files
are written to the "tmp" directory (which is created if it
didn't exist), with names of the form 'FILENAME_EXT.html'.
WRITING EXAMPLES¶
Note that quotes are necessary around arguments which contain certain special
characters such as ">", "<" or any white space.
These quoting techniques are shell dependent, but the examples below will work
for most Unix shells. With the Windows cmd shell however, double quotes should
be used (ie. -Comment="This is a new comment").
- exiftool -Comment='This is a new comment' dst.jpg
- Write new comment to a JPG image (replaces any existing
comment).
- exiftool -comment= -o newdir *.jpg
- Remove comment from all JPG images in the current
directory, writing the modified images to a new directory.
- exiftool -keywords=EXIF -keywords=editor dst.jpg
- Replace existing keyword list with two new keywords
("EXIF" and "editor").
- exiftool -Keywords+=word -o newfile.jpg src.jpg
- Copy a source image to a new file, and add a keyword
("word") to the current list of keywords.
- exiftool -credit-=xxx dir
- Delete Credit information from all files in a directory
where the Credit value was ("xxx").
- exiftool -xmp:description-de='kühl' -E
dst.jpg
- Write alternate language for XMP:Description, using HTML
character escaping to input special characters.
- exiftool -all= dst.jpg
- Delete all meta information from an image. Note: You should
NOT do this to RAW images (except DNG) since proprietary RAW image formats
often contain information in the makernotes that is necessary for
converting the image.
- exiftool -all= -comment='lonely' dst.jpg
- Delete all meta information from an image and add a comment
back in. (Note that the order is important: "-comment='lonely'
-all=" would also delete the new comment.)
- exiftool -all= --jfif:all dst.jpg
- Delete all meta information except JFIF group from an
image.
- exiftool -Photoshop:All= dst.jpg
- Delete Photoshop meta information from an image (note that
the Photoshop information also includes IPTC).
- exiftool -r -XMP-crss:all= DIR
- Recursively delete all XMP-crss information from images in
a directory.
- exiftool '-ThumbnailImage<=thumb.jpg' dst.jpg
- Set the thumbnail image from specified file (Note: The
quotes are neccessary to prevent shell redirection).
- exiftool '-JpgFromRaw<=%d%f_JFR.JPG' -ext CRW -r .
- Recursively write JPEG images with filenames ending in
"_JFR.JPG" to the JpgFromRaw tag of like-named files with
extension ".CRW" in the current directory. (This is the inverse
of the "-JpgFromRaw" command of the "READING EXAMPLES"
section above.)
- exiftool -DateTimeOriginal-='0:0:0 1:30:0' dir
- Adjust original date/time of all images in directory
"dir" by subtracting one hour and 30 minutes. (This is
equivalent to "-DateTimeOriginal-=1.5". See
Image::ExifTool::Shift.pl for details.)
- exiftool -createdate+=3 -modifydate+=3 a.jpg b.jpg
- Add 3 hours to the CreateDate and ModifyDate timestamps of
two images.
- exiftool -AllDates+=1:30 -if '$make eq "Canon"'
dir
- Shift the values of DateTimeOriginal, CreateDate and
ModifyDate forward by 1 hour and 30 minutes for all Canon images in a
directory. (The AllDates tag is provided as a shortcut for these three
tags, allowing them to be accessed via a single tag.)
- exiftool -xmp:city=Kingston image1.jpg image2.nef
- Write a tag to the XMP group of two images. (Without the
"xmp:" this tag would get written to the IPTC group since
"City" exists in both, and IPTC is preferred by default.)
- exiftool -LightSource-='Unknown (0)' dst.tiff
- Delete "LightSource" tag only if it is unknown
with a value of 0.
- exiftool -whitebalance-=auto -WhiteBalance=tung
dst.jpg
- Set "WhiteBalance" to "Tungsten" only
if it was previously "Auto".
- exiftool -comment-= -comment='new comment' a.jpg
- Write a new comment only if the image doesn't have one
already.
- exiftool -o %d%f.xmp dir
- Create XMP meta information data files for all images in
"dir".
- exiftool -o test.xmp -owner=Phil -title='XMP File'
- Create an XMP data file only from tags defined on the
command line.
- exiftool '-ICC_Profile<=%d%f.icc' image.jpg
- Write ICC_Profile to an image from a ".icc" file
of the same name.
- exiftool
-hierarchicalkeywords='{keyword=one,children={keyword=B}}'
- Write structured XMP information.
- exiftool -trailer:all= image.jpg
- Delete any trailer found after the end of image (EOI) in a
JPEG file. A number of digital cameras store a large PreviewImage after
the JPEG EOI, and the file size may be reduced significantly by deleting
this trailer. See the JPEG Tags documentation for a list of recognized
JPEG trailers.
COPYING EXAMPLES¶
These examples demonstrate the ability to copy tag values between files.
- exiftool -tagsFromFile src.crw dst.jpg
- Copy the values of all writable tags from
"src.crw" to "dst.jpg", writing the information to the
preferred groups.
- exiftool -TagsFromFile src.jpg -all:all dst.jpg
- Copy the values of all writable tags from
"src.jpg" to "dst.jpg", preserving the original tag
groups.
- exiftool -all= -tagsfromfile src.jpg -exif:all dst.jpg
- Erase all meta information from "dst.jpg" image,
then copy EXIF tags from "src.jpg".
- exiftool -exif:all= -tagsfromfile @ -all:all -unsafe
bad.jpg
- Rebuild all EXIF meta information from scratch in an image.
This technique can be used in JPEG images to repair corrupted EXIF
information which otherwise could not be written due to errors. The
"Unsafe" tag is a shortcut for unsafe EXIF tags in JPEG images
which are not normally copied. See the tag name documentation for more
details about unsafe tags.
- exiftool -Tagsfromfile a.jpg out.xmp
- Copy meta information from "a.jpg" to an XMP data
file. If the XMP data file "out.xmp" already exists, it will be
updated with the new information. Otherwise the XMP data file will be
created. Only XMP, ICC and MIE files may be created like this (other file
types may be edited but not created). See "WRITING EXAMPLES"
above for another technique to generate XMP files.
- exiftool -tagsFromFile a.jpg -XMP:All= -ThumbnailImage= -m
b.jpg
- Copy all meta information from "a.jpg" to
"b.jpg", deleting all XMP information and the thumbnail image
from the destination.
- exiftool -TagsFromFile src.jpg -title -author=Phil
dst.jpg
- Copy title from one image to another and set a new author
name.
- exiftool -TagsFromFile a.jpg -ISO -TagsFromFile b.jpg
-comment dst.jpg
- Copy ISO from one image and Comment from another image to a
destination image.
- exiftool -tagsfromfile src.jpg -exif:all --subifd:all
dst.jpg
- Copy only the EXIF information from one image to another,
excluding SubIFD tags.
- exiftool '-DateTimeOriginal>FileModifyDate' dir
- Use the original date from the meta information to set the
same file's filesystem modification date for all images in a directory.
(Note that "-TagsFromFile @" is assumed if no other
-TagsFromFile is specified when redirecting information as in this
example.)
- exiftool -TagsFromFile src.jpg '-all>xmp:all'
dst.jpg
- Copy all possible information from "src.jpg" and
write in XMP format to "dst.jpg".
- exiftool -@ iptc2xmp.args -iptc:all= a.jpg
- Translate IPTC information to XMP with appropriate tag name
conversions, and delete the original IPTC information from an image. This
example uses iptc2xmp.args, which is a file included with the ExifTool
distribution that contains the required arguments to convert IPTC
information to XMP format. Also included with the distribution 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.CRW -r -ext JPG dir
- Recursively rewrite all "JPG" images in
"dir" with information copied from the corresponding
"CRW" images in the same directories.
- exiftool '-make+>keywords' image.jpg
- Add camera make to list of keywords.
- exiftool '-comment<ISO=$exif:iso
Exposure=${shutterspeed}' dir
- Set the Comment tag of all images in "dir" from
the values of the EXIF:ISO and ShutterSpeed tags. The resulting comment
will be in the form "ISO=100 Exposure=1/60".
- exiftool -TagsFromFile src.jpg -icc_profile dst.jpg
- Copy ICC_Profile from one image to another.
- exiftool -TagsFromFile src.jpg -all:all dst.mie
- Copy all meta information in its original form from a JPEG
image to a MIE file. The MIE file will be created if it doesn't exist.
This technique can be used to store the metadata of an image so it can be
inserted back into the image (with the inverse command) later in a
workflow.
- exiftool -o dst.mie -all:all src.jpg
- This command performs exactly the same task as the command
above, except that the -o option will not write to an output file
that already exists.
- exiftool
-XMP:Flash="{mode=on,fired=true,return=not}" a.jpg
- Write a structured tag. See
<http://owl.phy.queensu.ca/~phil/exiftool/struct.html> for more
details.
- exiftool -if '$jpgfromraw' -b -jpgfromraw -w %d%f_%ue.jpg
-execute -if '$previewimage' -b -previewimage -w %d%f_%ue.jpg -execute
-tagsfromfile @ -srcfile %d%f_%ue.jpg -overwrite_original -common_args --ext
jpg DIR
- [Advanced] Extract JpgFromRaw or PreviewImage from all but
JPG files in DIR, saving them with file names like
"image_EXT.jpg", then add all meta information from the original
files to the extracted images. Here, the command line is broken into three
sections (separated by -execute options), and each is executed as
if it were a separate command. The -common_args option causes the
"--ext jpg DIR" arguments to be applied to all three commands,
and the -srcfile option allows the extracted JPG image to be the
source file for the third command (whereas the RAW files are the source
files for the other two commands).
RENAMING EXAMPLES¶
By writing the "FileName" and "Directory" tags, files are
renamed and/or moved to new directories. This can be particularly useful and
powerful for organizing files by date when combined with the
-d option.
New directories are created as necessary, but existing files will not be
overwritten. The format codes %d, %f and %e may be used in the new file name
to represent the directory, name and extension of the original file, and %c
may be used to add a copy number if the file already exists (see the
-w
option for details). Note that if used within a date format string, an extra
'%' must be added to pass these codes through the date/time parser. (And
further note that in a Windows batch file, all '%' characters must also be
escaped, so in this extreme case '%%%%f' is necessary to pass a simple '%f'
through the two levels of parsing.) See
<
http://owl.phy.queensu.ca/~phil/exiftool/filename.html> for additional
documentation and examples.
- exiftool -filename=new.jpg dir/old.jpg
- Rename "old.jpg" to "new.jpg" in
directory "dir".
- exiftool -directory=%e dir
- Move all files from directory "dir" into
directories named by the original file extensions.
- exiftool '-Directory<DateTimeOriginal' -d %Y/%m/%d
dir
- Move all files in "dir" into a directory
hierarchy based on year, month and day of "DateTimeOriginal".
ie) This command would move the file "dir/image.jpg" with a
"DateTimeOriginal" of "2005:10:12 16:05:56" to
"2005/10/12/image.jpg".
- exiftool -o . '-Directory<DateTimeOriginal' -d %Y/%m/%d
dir
- Same effect as above except files are copied instead of
moved.
- exiftool '-filename<%f_${focallength}.%e' dir
- Rename all files in "dir" by adding FocalLength
to the file name.
- exiftool '-FileName<CreateDate' -d %Y%m%d_%H%M%S%%-c.%%e
dir
- Rename all images in "dir" according to the
"CreateDate" date and time, adding a copy number with leading
'-' if the file already exists ("%-c"), and preserving the
original file extension (%e). Note the extra '%' necessary to escape the
filename codes (%c and %e) in the date format string.
- exiftool -r '-FileName<CreateDate' -d
%Y-%m-%d/%H%M_%%f.%%e dir
- Both the directory and the filename may be changed together
via the "FileName" tag if the new "FileName" contains
a '/'. The example above recursively renames all images in a directory by
adding a "CreateDate" timestamp to the start of the filename,
then moves them into new directories named by date.
- exiftool '-FileName<${CreateDate}_$filenumber.jpg' -d
%Y%m%d *.jpg
- Set the filename of all JPG images in the current directory
from the CreateDate and FileNumber tags, in the form
"20060507_118-1861.jpg".
GEOTAGGING EXAMPLES¶
ExifTool implements geotagging via 3 special tags: Geotag (which for convenience
is also implemented as an exiftool option), Geosync and Geotime. The examples
below highlight some geotagging features. See
<
http://owl.phy.queensu.ca/~phil/exiftool/geotag.html> for additional
documentation.
- exiftool -geotag track.log a.jpg
- Geotag an image ("a.jpg") from position
information in a GPS track log ("track.log"). Since the
"Geotime" tag is not specified, the value of DateTimeOriginal is
used for geotagging. Local system time is assumed unless DateTimeOriginal
contains a timezone.
- exiftool -geotag t.log -geotime='2009:04:02 13:41:12-05:00'
a.jpg
- Geotag an image with the GPS position for a specific time.
(Note that the "Geotag" tag must be assigned before
"Geotime" for the GPS data to be available when
"Geotime" is set.)
- exiftool -geotag log.gpx '-xmp:geotime<createdate'
dir
- Geotag all images in directory "dir" with XMP
tags instead of EXIF tags, based on the image CreateDate. (In this case,
the order of the arguments doesn't matter because tags with values copied
from other tags are always set after constant values.)
- exiftool -geotag a.log -geosync=-20 dir
- Geotag images in directory "dir", accounting for
image timestamps which were 20 seconds ahead of GPS.
- exiftool -geotag a.log -geosync=1.jpg -geosync=2.jpg
dir
- Geotag images using time synchronization from two
previously geotagged images (1.jpg and 2.jpg), synchronizing the image and
GPS times using a linear time drift correction.
- exiftool -geotag a.log '-geotime<${createdate}+01:00'
dir
- Geotag images in "dir" using CreateDate with the
specified timezone. If CreateDate already contained a timezone, then the
timezone specified on the command line is ignored.
- exiftool -geotag= a.jpg
- Delete GPS tags which may have been added by the geotag
feature. Note that this does not remove all GPS tags -- to do this instead
use "-gps:all=".
- exiftool -xmp:geotag= a.jpg
- Delete XMP GPS tags which were added by the geotag
feature.
- exiftool -xmp:geotag=track.log a.jpg
- Geotag an image with XMP tags, using the time from
DateTimeOriginal.
- exiftool -geotag a.log -geotag b.log -r dir
- Combine multiple track logs and geotag an entire directory
tree of images.
- exiftool -geotag 'tracks/*.log' -r dir
- Read all track logs from the "tracks"
directory.
- exiftool -p gpx.fmt -d %Y-%m-%dT%H:%M:%SZ dir >
out.gpx
- Generate a GPX track log from all images in directory
"dir". This example uses the "gpx.fmt" file included
in the full ExifTool distribution package and assumes that the images in
"dir" have all been previously geotagged.
PIPING EXAMPLES¶
- cat a.jpg | exiftool -
- Extract information from stdin.
- exiftool image.jpg -thumbnailimage -b | exiftool -
- Extract information from an embedded thumbnail image.
- cat a.jpg | exiftool -iptc:keywords+=fantastic - >
b.jpg
- Add an IPTC keyword in a pipeline, saving output to a new
file.
- wget -qO - http://a.domain.com/bigfile.jpg | exiftool -fast
-
- Extract information from an image over the internet using
the GNU wget utility. The -fast option prevents exiftool from
scanning for trailer information, so only the meta information header is
transferred.
- exiftool a.jpg -thumbnailimage -b | exiftool -comment=wow -
| exiftool a.jpg -thumbnailimage'<=-'
- Add a comment to an embedded thumbnail image. (Why anyone
would want to do this I don't know, but I've included this as an example
to illustrate the flexibility of ExifTool.)
DIAGNOSTICS¶
The exiftool application exits with a status of 0 on success, or 1 if an error
occured or if all files failed the
-if condition.
AUTHOR¶
Copyright 2003-2011, 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
