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exiftool:

Name	Value
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 [-SRCTAG[>DSTTAG]...] FILE...
Other
exiftool [ -ver | -list[w|f|r|wf|g[NUM]|d|x] ]
For specific examples, see the EXAMPLES sections below.
This documentation is displayed if exiftool is run without an input
FILE when one is expected.
DESCRIPTION
A command-line interface to Image	:ExifTool, used for reading and writing
meta information in a variety of file types. FILE is one or more source
file names, directory names, or "-" for the standard input. 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 | DPX r | ITC r | NUMBERS r | RAM r
3FR r | DR4 r/w/c | J2C r | O r | RAR r
3G2 r/w | DSS r | JNG r/w | ODP r | RAW r/w
3GP r/w | DV r | JP2 r/w | ODS r | RIFF r
A r | DVB r/w | JPEG r/w | ODT r | RSRC r
AA r | DVR-MS r | JSON r | OFR r | RTF r
AAE r | DYLIB r | JXL r | OGG r | RW2 r/w
AAX r/w | EIP r | K25 r | OGV r | RWL r/w
ACR r | EPS r/w | KDC r | ONP r | RWZ r
AFM r | EPUB r | KEY r | OPUS r | RM r
AI r/w | ERF r/w | LA r | ORF r/w | SEQ r
AIFF r | EXE r | LFP r | ORI r/w | SKETCH r
APE r | EXIF r/w/c | LNK r | OTF r | SO r
ARQ r/w | EXR r | LRV r/w | PAC r | SR2 r/w
ARW r/w | EXV r/w/c | M2TS r | PAGES r | SRF r
ASF r | F4A/V r/w | M4A/V r/w | PBM r/w | SRW r/w
AVI r | FFF r/w | MACOS r | PCD r | SVG r
AVIF r/w | FITS r | MAX r | PCX r | SWF r
AZW r | FLA r | MEF r/w | PDB r | THM r/w
BMP r | FLAC r | MIE r/w/c | PDF r/w | TIFF r/w
BPG r | FLIF r/w | MIFF r | PEF r/w | TORRENT r
BTF r | FLV r | MKA r | PFA r | TTC r
CHM r | FPF r | MKS r | PFB r | TTF r
COS r | FPX r | MKV r | PFM r | TXT r
CR2 r/w | GIF r/w | MNG r/w | PGF r | VCF r
CR3 r/w | GPR r/w | MOBI r | PGM r/w | VRD r/w/c
CRM r/w | GZ r | MODD r | PLIST r | VSD r
CRW r/w | HDP r/w | MOI r | PICT r | WAV r
CS1 r/w | HDR r | MOS r/w | PMP r | WDP r/w
CSV r | HEIC r/w | MOV r/w | PNG r/w | WEBP r
CZI r | HEIF r/w | MP3 r | PPM r/w | WEBM r
DCM r | HTML r | MP4 r/w | PPT r | WMA r
DCP r/w | ICC r/w/c | MPC r | PPTX r | WMV r
DCR r | ICS r | MPG r | PS r/w | WTV r
DFONT r | IDML r | MPO r/w | PSB r/w | WV r
DIVX r | IIQ r/w | MQV r/w | PSD r/w | X3F r/w
DJVU r | IND r/w | MRC r | PSP r | XCF r
DLL r | INSP r/w | MRW r/w | QTIF r/w | XLS r
DNG r/w | INSV r | MXF r | R3D r | XLSX r
DOC r | INX r | NEF r/w | RA r | XMP r/w/c
DOCX 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[+-]
-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 FMTFILE (-printFormat) Print output in specified format
-php Export tags as a PHP Array
-s[NUM] (-short) Short output format
-S (-veryShort) Very short output format
-sep STR (-separator) Set separator string for list items
-sort Sort output alphabetically
-struct Enable output of structured information
-t (-tab) Output in tab-delimited list format
-T (-table) Output in tabular format
-v[NUM] (-verbose) Print verbose messages
-w[+|!] EXT (-textOut) Write (or overwrite!) output text files
-W[+|!] FMT (-tagOut) Write output text file for each tag
-Wext EXT (-tagOutExt) Write only specified file types with -W
-X (-xmlFormat) Use RDF/XML output format
Processing control
-a (-duplicates) Allow duplicate tags to be extracted
-e (--composite) Do not 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[	[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
-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][!] ERRFILE Save names of files with errors
-execute[NUM] Execute multiple commands on one line
-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").
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").
-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 note 6 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
"=".
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 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.
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".
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.
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 afterDSTTAG'"-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. If no destination group is specified, the information is
written to the preferred group. Whitespace around the ">" or "<" is"-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. So a -addTagsFromFile option is provided which allows copying
of multiple tags into the same list. eg)
exiftool -addtagsfromfile @ '-subject
Similarly, -addTagsFromFile must be used when conditionally replacing
a tag to prevent overriding earlier conditions.
Other than these differences, the -tagsFromFile and
-addTagsFromFile options are equivalent.
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 list-type tags, shortcut tags,
tag names containing wildcards, or UserParam variables. 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. Also,
UserParam variables are available only when interpolated in a string.
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 must be
specified explicitly to be extracted as binary in these formats.
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 "+" to the
format specifier (eg. "%+.6f") prints a signed coordinate instead.
3) This print formatting may be disabled with the -n option to
extract coordinates as signed decimal degrees.
-charset [[TYPE=]CHARSET]
If TYPE is "ExifTool" or not specified, this option sets the ExifTool
character encoding for output tag values when reading and input
values when writing, 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	//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
Empty values are ignored when importing (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). 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.
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 option is fundamentally different than all other
output format options because it requires information from all input
files to be buffered in memory before the output is written. This may
result in excessive memory usage when processing a very large number
of files with a single command. Also, it makes this option
incompatible with the -w option. 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. 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. Requires POSIX	:strptime or
Time	:Piece for the inversion conversion when writing.
-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-(>)-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 their values are not found. This
option only applies when specific tags are requested on the command
line (ie. not with wildcards or by "-all"). With this option, a dash
("-") is printed for the value of any missing tag, but the dash may
be changed via the API MissingTagValue option. May also be used to
add a 'flags' attribute to the -listx output, or to allow tags to be
deleted when writing with the -csv=CSVFILE feature.
-g[NUM][	NUM...] (-groupHeadings)
Organize output by tag group. NUM specifies a group family number,
and may be 0 (general location), 1 (specific location), 2 (category),
3 (document number), 4 (instance number), 5 (metadata path), 6
(EXIF/TIFF format) or 7 (tag ID). -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 SavePath and SaveFormat API 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, and
adding -l adds a "desc" field, and a "num" field if the numerical
value is different from the converted "val". 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.
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 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.
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 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 FMTFILE or STR (-printFormat)
Print output in the format specified by the given file or string. 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 file or string 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. Use $$ to
represent a "$" symbol, and $/ for a newline.
Multiple -p options may be used, each contributing a line (or more)
of text to the output. 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. 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 12.25 --
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 and Shortcut tags
representing multiple tags are joined according the the -sep option
setting when interpolated in the string.
When -ee (-extractEmbedded) is combined with -p, embedded documents
are effectively processed as separate input files.
If a specified tag does not exist, a minor warning is issued and the
line with the missing tag is not printed. However, the -f option may
be used to set the value of missing tags to '-' (but this may be
configured via the MissingTagValue API option), or the -m option may
be used to ignore minor warnings and leave the missing values empty.
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 with the -p option.
-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
eval('$array=' . `exiftool -php -q image.jpg`);
print_r($array);
?>
-s[NUM] (-short)
Short output format. Prints tag names instead of descriptions. Add
NUM or up to 3 -s options for even shorter formats
-s1 or -s - print tag names instead of descriptions
-s2 or -s -s - no extra spaces to column-align values
-s3 or -s -s -s - print values only (no tag names)
Also effective when combined with -t, -h, -X or -listx options.
-S (-veryShort)
Very short format. The same as -s2 or two -s options. Tag names are
printed instead of descriptions, and no extra spaces are added to
column-align values.
-sep STR (-separator)
Specify separator string for items in list-type tags. When reading,
the default is to join list items with ", ". When writing, this
option causes values assigned to list-type tags to be split into
individual items at each substring matching STR (otherwise they are
not split by default). Space characters in STR match zero or more
whitespace characters in the value.
Note that an empty separator ("") is allowed, and will join items
with no separator when reading, or split the value into individual
characters when writing.
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	//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).
-T (-table)
Output tag values in table form. Equivalent to -t -S -q -f.
-v[NUM] (-verbose)
Print verbose messages. NUM specifies the level of verbosity in the
range 0-5, with higher numbers being more verbose. If NUM is not
given, then each -v option increases the level of verbosity by 1.
With any level greater than 0, most other options are ignored and
normal console output is suppressed unless specific tags are
extracted. Using -v0 causes the console output buffer to be flushed
after each line (which may be useful to avoid delays when piping
exiftool output), and prints the name of each processed file when
writing. Also see the -progress option.
-w[+|!] EXT or FMT (-textOut)
Write console output to files with names ending in EXT, one for each
source file. The output file name is obtained by replacing the source
file extension (including the '.') with the specified extension (and
a '.' is added to the start of EXT if it doesn't already contain
one). Alternatively, a FMT string may be used to give more control
over the output file name and directory. In the format string, %d, %f
and %e represent the directory, filename and extension of the source
file, and %c represents a copy number which is automatically
incremented if the file already exists. %d includes the trailing '/'
if necessary, but %e does not include the leading '.'. For example
-w %d%f.txt # same effect as "-w txt"
-w dir/%f_%e.out # write files to "dir" as "FILE_EXT.out"
-w dir2/%d%f.txt # write to "dir2", keeping dir structure
-w a%c.txt # write to "a.txt" or "a1.txt" or "a2.txt"...
Existing files will not be 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 ...
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, and '+' has no effect. The number before the
decimal place gives the starting index, the number after the decimal
place gives the field width. The following examples show the output
filenames when used with the command "exiftool rose.jpg star.jpg
jet.jpg ..."
-w %C%f.txt # 0rose.txt, 1star.txt, 2jet.txt
-w %f-%10C.txt # rose-10.txt, star-11.txt, jet-12.txt
-w %.3C-%f.txt # 000-rose.txt, 001-star.txt, 002-jet.txt
-w %57.4C%f.txt # 0057rose.txt, 0058star.txt, 0059jet.txt
All format codes may be modified by 'l' or 'u' to specify lower or
upper case respectively (ie. %le for a lower case file extension).
When used to modify %c or %C, the numbers are changed to an
alphabetical base (see example H above). Also, %c 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 three additional format codes	%t, %g and %s represent
the tag name, group name, and suggested extension for the output file
(based on the format of the data). The %g code may be followed by a
single digit to specify the group family number (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 or %s.)
5) Individual list items are stored in separate files when -W is
combined with -b, but note that for separate files to be created %c
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, and not the standard XMP properties. To write XMP instead,
use the -o option with an XMP extension for the output file.
Processing control
-a, --a (-duplicates, --duplicates)
Allow (-a) or suppress (--a) duplicate tag names to be extracted. By
default, duplicate tags are suppressed when reading unless the -ee or
-X options are used or the Duplicates option is enabled in the
configuration file. This option has an affect when writing only to
allow duplicate 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	//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. For more substantial speed benefits, -fast2 also causes
exiftool to avoid extracting any EXIF MakerNote information.
-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. 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 have a large performance impact since
it involves an additional processing pass of each file, but this
impact may be reduced by specifying a NUM for the -fast level used
during the metadata-extraction phase. 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. 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" (case sensitive) may be specified to avoid recursing
into directories which are symbolic links when the -r option is used.
As well, a value of "HIDDEN" (case sensitive) 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
# 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 this directory (not
compatible with the B<-fileOrder> option)
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 the same way as with -p before
the expression is evaluated. In this interpolation, $/ is converted
to a newline and $$ represents a single "$" symbol (so Perl
variables, if used, require a double "$").
4) The condition may only test tags from the file being processed. To
process one file based on tags from another, two steps are required.
For example, to process XMP sidecar files in directory "DIR" based on
tags from the associated NEF
exiftool -if EXPR -p '$directory/$filename' -ext nef DIR > nef.txt
exiftool -@ nef.txt -srcfile %d%f.xmp ...
5) The -a option has no effect on the evaluation of the expression,
and the values of duplicate tags are accessible only by specifying a
group name (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").
-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[	[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 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 "##" (20
characters 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. compressed
textual metadata in PNG), 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
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
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), or an XML database of tag details including language
translations (-listx). The -list, -listw and -listx options may be
followed by an additional argument of the form "-GROUP	All" to list
only tags in a specific group, where "GROUP" is one or more family
0-2 group names (excepting EXIF IFD groups) separated by colons. With
-listg, NUM may be given to specify the group family, otherwise
family 0 is assumed. The -l 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. Here are some examples
-list # list all tag names
-list -EXIF	All # list all EXIF tags
-list -xmp	time:all # list all XMP tags relating to time
-listw -XMP-dc	All # list all writable XMP-dc tags
-listf # list all supported file extensions
-listr # list all recognized file extensions
-listwf # list all writable file extensions
-listg1 # list all groups in family 1
-listd # list all deletable groups
-listx -EXIF	All # list database of EXIF tags in XML format
-listx -XMP	All -s # list short XML database of XMP tags
When combined with -listx, the -s option shortens the output by
omitting the descriptions and values (as in the last example above),
and -f adds a 'flags' attribute if applicable. The flags are
formatted as a comma-separated list of the following possible values
Avoid, Binary, List, Mandatory, Permanent, Protected, Unknown and
Unsafe (see the Tag Name documentation). For XMP List tags, the list
type (Alt, Bag or Seq) is added to the flags, and flattened structure
tags are indicated by a Flattened flag.
Note that none of the -list options require an input FILE.
-ver Print exiftool version number. 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
-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
When the "Geotime" value is converted to UTC, the local system
timezone is assumed unless the date/time value contains a timezone.
Writing "Geotime" causes the following tags to be written (provided
they can be calculated from the track log, and they are supported by
the destination metadata format)	GPSLatitude, GPSLatitudeRef,
GPSLongitude, GPSLongitudeRef, GPSAltitude, GPSAltitudeRef,
GPSDateStamp, GPSTimeStamp, GPSDateTime, GPSTrack, GPSTrackRef,
GPSSpeed, GPSSpeedRef, GPSImgDirection, GPSImgDirectionRef, GPSPitch,
GPSRoll, AmbientTemperature and CameraElevationAngle. By default,
tags are created in EXIF, and updated in XMP only if they already
exist. However, "EXIF	Geotime" or "XMP:Geotime" may be specified to
write only EXIF or XMP tags respectively. Note that GPSPitch and
GPSRoll are non-standard, and require user-defined tags in order to
be written.
The "Geosync" tag may be used to specify a time correction which is
applied to each "Geotime" value for synchronization with GPS time.
For example, the following command compensates for image times which
are 1 minute and 20 seconds behind GPS
exiftool -geosync=+1	20 -geotag a.log DIR
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 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.
-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	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 "MWG"
group is specified for any tag on the command line. See the MWG Tags
documentation for more details. Note that this option is not
reversible, and remains in effect until the application terminates,
even across the -execute option.
Utilities
-restore_original
-delete_original[!]
These utility options automate the maintenance of the "_original"
files created by exiftool. They have no effect on files without an
"_original" copy. The -restore_original option restores the specified
files from their original copies by renaming the "_original" files to
replace the edited versions. For example, the following command
restores the originals of all JPG images in directory "DIR"
exiftool -restore_original -ext jpg DIR
The -delete_original option deletes the "_original" copies of all
files specified on the command line. Without a trailing "!" this
option prompts for confirmation before continuing. For example, the
following command deletes "a.jpg_original" if it exists, after asking
"Are you sure?"
exiftool -delete_original a.jpg
These options may not be used with other options to read or write tag
values in the same command, but may be combined with options such
-ext, -if, -r, -q and -v.
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 "^=". See
Image	:ExifTool Options for a list of available API options. This
overrides API options set via the config file.
-common_args
Specifies that all arguments following this option are common to all
executed commands when -execute is used. This and the -config option
are the only options that may not be used inside a -@ ARGFILE. Note
that by definition this option and its arguments MUST come after all
other options on the command line.
-config CFGFILE
Load specified configuration file instead of the default
".ExifTool_config". If used, this option must come before all other
arguments on the command line and applies to all -execute'd commands.
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
	//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][!] ERRFILE
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), or any combination thereof (by summing NUM, eg. -efile3 is the
same has having both -efile and -efile2 options with the same
ERRFILE). By default, file names are appended to any existing
ERRFILE, but ERRFILE 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.
-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.
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	//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 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). 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",-"<"-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 -Comment='This is a new comment' dst.jpg
Write new comment to a JPG image (replaces any existing comment).
exiftool -comment= -o newdir -ext jpg .
Remove comment from all JPG images in the current directory, writing
the modified images to a new directory.
exiftool -keywords=EXIF -keywords=editor dst.jpg
Replace existing keyword list with two new keywords ("EXIF" and
"editor").
exiftool -Keywords+=word -o newfile.jpg src.jpg
Copy a source image to a new file, and add a keyword ("word") to the
current list of keywords.
exiftool -exposurecompensation+=-0.5 a.jpg
Decrement the value of ExposureCompensation by 0.5 EV. Note that +=
with a negative value is used for decrementing because the -=
operator is used for conditional deletion (see next example).
exiftool -credit-=xxx dir
Delete Credit information from all files in a directory where the
Credit value was "xxx".
exiftool -xmp	description-de='kühl' -E dst.jpg
Write alternate language for XMP	Description, using HTML character
escaping to input special characters.
exiftool -all= dst.jpg
Delete all meta information from an image. Note	You should NOT do
this to RAW images (except DNG) since proprietary RAW image formats
often contain information in the makernotes that is necessary for
converting the image.
exiftool -all= -comment='lonely' dst.jpg
Delete all meta information from an image and add a comment back in.
(Note that the order is important	"-comment='lonely' -all=" would
also delete the new comment.)
exiftool -all= --jfif	all dst.jpg
Delete all meta information except JFIF group from an image.
exiftool -Photoshop	All= dst.jpg
Delete Photoshop meta information from an image (note that the
Photoshop information also includes IPTC).
exiftool -r -XMP-crss	all= DIR
Recursively delete all XMP-crss information from images in a
directory.
exiftool '-ThumbnailImage<=thumb.jpg' dst.jpg
Set the thumbnail image from specified file (Note	The quotes are
necessary to prevent shell redirection).
exiftool '-JpgFromRaw<=%d%f_JFR.JPG' -ext NEF -r .
Recursively write JPEG images with filenames ending in "_JFR.JPG" to
the JpgFromRaw tag of like-named files with extension ".NEF" in the
current directory. (This is the inverse of the "-JpgFromRaw" command
of the "READING EXAMPLES" section above.)
exiftool -DateTimeOriginal-='0	0:0 1:30:0' dir
Adjust original date/time of all images in directory "dir" by
subtracting one hour and 30 minutes. (This is equivalent to
"-DateTimeOriginal-=1.5". See Image	:ExifTool::Shift.pl for details.)
exiftool -createdate+=3 -modifydate+=3 a.jpg b.jpg
Add 3 hours to the CreateDate and ModifyDate timestamps of two
images.
exiftool -AllDates+=1	30 -if '$make eq "Canon"' dir
Shift the values of DateTimeOriginal, CreateDate and ModifyDate
forward by 1 hour and 30 minutes for all Canon images in a directory.
(The AllDates tag is provided as a shortcut for these three tags,
allowing them to be accessed via a single tag.)
exiftool -xmp	city=Kingston image1.jpg image2.nef
Write a tag to the XMP group of two images. (Without the "xmp	" this
tag would get written to the IPTC group since "City" exists in both,
and IPTC is preferred by default.)
exiftool -LightSource-='Unknown (0)' dst.tiff
Delete "LightSource" tag only if it is unknown with a value of 0.
exiftool -whitebalance-=auto -WhiteBalance=tung dst.jpg
Set "WhiteBalance" to "Tungsten" only if it was previously "Auto".
exiftool -comment-= -comment='new comment' a.jpg
Write a new comment only if the image doesn't have one already.
exiftool -o %d%f.xmp dir
Create XMP meta information data files for all images in "dir".
exiftool -o test.xmp -owner=Phil -title='XMP File'
Create an XMP data file only from tags defined on the command line.
exiftool '-ICC_Profile<=%d%f.icc' image.jpg
Write ICC_Profile to an image from a ".icc" file of the same name.
exiftool -hierarchicalkeywords='{keyword=one,children={keyword=B}}'
Write structured XMP information. See
	//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
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
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+
Add camera make to list of keywords.
exiftool '-comment	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
	//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
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
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
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
Both the directory and the filename may be changed together via the
"FileName" tag if the new "FileName" contains a '/'. The example
above recursively renames all images in a directory by adding a
"CreateDate" timestamp to the start of the filename, then moves them
into new directories named by date.
exiftool '-FileName<${CreateDate}_$filenumber.jpg' -d %Y%m%d -ext jpg .
Set the filename of all JPG images in the current directory from the
CreateDate and FileNumber tags, in the form "20060507_118-1861.jpg".
GEOTAGGING EXAMPLES
ExifTool implements geotagging via 3 special tags	Geotag (which for
convenience is also implemented as an exiftool option), Geosync and
Geotime. The examples below highlight some geotagging features. See
	//exiftool.org/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.
exiftool -geotag log.gpx '-xmp	geotime
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 DateTimeOriginal.
exiftool -geotag a.log -geotag b.log -r dir
Combine multiple track logs and geotag an entire directory tree of
images.
exiftool -geotag 'tracks/*.log' -r dir
Read all track logs from the "tracks" directory.
exiftool -p gpx.fmt -d %Y-%m-%dT%H	%M:%SZ dir > out.gpx
Generate a GPX track log from all images in directory "dir". This
example uses the "gpx.fmt" file included in the full ExifTool
distribution package and assumes that the images in "dir" have all
been previously geotagged.
PIPING EXAMPLES
cat a.jpg | exiftool -
Extract information from stdin.
exiftool image.jpg -thumbnailimage -b | exiftool -
Extract information from an embedded thumbnail image.
cat a.jpg | exiftool -iptc	keywords+=fantastic - > b.jpg
Add an IPTC keyword in a pipeline, saving output to a new file.
curl -s http	//a.domain.com/bigfile.jpg | exiftool -fast -
Extract information from an image over the internet using the cURL
utility. The -fast option prevents exiftool from scanning for trailer
information, so only the meta information header is transferred.
exiftool a.jpg -thumbnailimage -b | exiftool -comment=wow - | exiftool
a.jpg -thumbnailimage'<=-'
Add a comment to an embedded thumbnail image. (Why anyone would want
to do this I don't know, but I've included this as an example to
illustrate the flexibility of ExifTool.)
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 2003-2021, 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