1exif(1) command line front-end to libexif exif(1)
2
6 exif - shows EXIF information in JPEG files
7
9 exif [ OPTION ] [ file... ]
10
12 exif is a small command-line utility to show and change EXIF informa‐
13 tion in JPEG files.
14 Most digital cameras produce EXIF files, which are JPEG files with
16 extra tags that contain information about the image. The exif command-
17 line utility allows you to read EXIF information from and write EXIF
18 information to those files. exif internally uses the libexif library.
19 Each input file given on the command line is acted upon in turn, using
21 all the options given. Execution will be aborted immediately if one
22 file is not readable or does not contain EXIF tags.
23 As EXIF tags are read, any unknown ones are discarded and known ones
25 are automatically converted into the correct format, if they aren't
26 already. Corrupted MakerNote tags are also removed, but no format
27 changes are made.
28
30 -v, --version
31 Display the exif version number.
32 -i, --ids
34 Show ID numbers instead of tag names.
35 -t, --tag=TAG
37 Select only this TAG. TAG is the tag title, the short tag name,
38 or the tag number (hexadecimal numbers are prefixed with 0x),
39 from the IFD specified with --ifd. The tag title is dependent
40 on the current locale, whereas name and number are locale-inde‐
41 pendent.
42 --ifd=IFD
44 Select a tag or tags from this IFD. Valid IFDs are "0", "1",
45 "EXIF", "GPS", and "Interoperability". Defaults to "0".
46 -l, --list-tags
48 List all known EXIF tags and IFDs. A JPEG image must be pro‐
49 vided, and those tags which appear in the file are shown with an
50 asterisk in the corresponding position in the list.
51 -|, --show-mnote
53 Show the contents of the MakerNote tag. The contents of this
54 tag are nonstandard (and often undocumented) and may therefore
55 not be recognized, or if they are recognized they may not neces‐
56 sarily be interpreted correctly.
57 --remove
59 Remove the tag or (if no tag is specified) the entire IFD.
60 -s, --show-description
62 Show description of tag. The --tag option must also be given.
63 -e, --extract-thumbnail
65 Extract the thumbnail, writing the thumbnail image to the file
66 specified with --output.
67 -r, --remove-thumbnail
69 Remove the thumbnail from the image, writing the new image to
70 the file specified with --output.
71 -n, --insert-thumbnail=FILE
73 Insert FILE as thumbnail. No attempt is made to ensure that the
74 contents of FILE are in a valid thumbnail format.
75 --no-fixup
77 Do not attempt to fix EXIF specification violations when reading
78 tags. When used in conjunction with --create-exif, this option
79 inhibits the creation of the mandatory tags. exif will other‐
80 wise remove illegal or unknown tags, add some mandatory tags
81 using default values, and change the data type of some tags to
82 match that required by the specification.
83 -o, --output=FILE
85 Write output image to FILE. If this option is not given and an
86 image file must be written, the name used is the same as the
87 input file with the suffix ".modified.jpeg".
88 --set-value=VALUE
90 Set the data for the tag specified with --tag and --ifd to
91 VALUE. Compound values consisting of multiple components are
92 separated with spaces.
93 -c, --create-exif
95 Create EXIF data if it does not exist. Mandatory tags are cre‐
96 ated with default values unless the --no-fixup option is given.
97 This option can be used instead of specifying an input file name
98 in most cases, to operate on the default values of the mandatory
99 set of EXIF tags. In this case, the --output option has no
100 effect and no file is written.
101 -m, --machine-readable
103 Produce output in a machine-readable (tab-delimited) format.
104 The --xml-output and --machine-readable options are mutually
105 exclusive.
106 -w, --width=N
108 Set the maximum width of the output to N characters (default
109 80). This does not apply to some output formats (e.g. XML).
110 -x, --xml-output
112 Produce output in an XML format (when possible). The --xml-out‐
113 put and --machine-readable options are mutually exclusive. Note
114 that the XML schema changes with the locale, and it sometimes
115 produces invalid XML. This option is not recommended.
116 -d, --debug
118 Show debugging messages. Also, when processing a file that con‐
119 tains corrupted data, this option causes exif to attempt to con‐
120 tinue processing. Normally, corrupted data causes an abort.
121 Help options
123 -?, --help
124 Show help message.
125 --usage
127 Display brief usage message.
128
130 Display all recognized EXIF tags in an image and the tag contents, with
131 bad tags fixed:
132 exif image.jpg
134 Display a table listing all known EXIF tags and whether each one exists
136 in the given image:
137 exif --list-tags --no-fixup image.jpg
139 Display details on all XResolution tags found in the given image:
141 exif --tag=XResolution --no-fixup image.jpg
143 Display the raw contents of the "Model" tag in the given image (with a
145 newline character appended):
146 exif --ifd=0 --tag=Model --machine-readable image.jpg
148 Extract the thumbnail into the file thumbnail.jpg:
150 exif --extract-thumbnail --output=thumbnail.jpg image.jpg
152 Display a list of the numeric values of only the EXIF tags in the
154 thumbnail IFD (IFD 1) and the tag values:
155 exif --ids --ifd=1 --no-fixup image.jpg
157 Display the meaning of tag 0x9209 in the "EXIF" IFD according to the
159 EXIF specification:
160 exif --show-description --ifd=EXIF --tag=0x9209
162 Add an Orientation tag with value "bottom - left" to an existing image,
164 leaving the existing tags untouched:
165 exif --output=new.jpg --ifd=0 --tag=0x0112 --set-value=4 --no-
167 fixup image.jpg
168 Add a YCbCr Sub-Sampling tag with value 2,1 (a.k.a YCbCr 4:2:2) to an
170 existing image and fix the existing tags, if necessary:
171 exif --output=new.jpg --tag=YCbCrSubSampling --ifd=0 --set-
173 value='2 1' image.jpg
174 Display a table with all known EXIF tags, highlighting mandatory ones:
176 exif -cl
178
180 exif was written by Lutz Mueller <lutz@users.sourceforge.net> and
181 numerous contributors. This man page is Copyright © 2002-2012 Thomas
182 Pircher, Dan Fandrich and others.
183
185 http://www.sourceforge.net/projects/libexif
186exif 0.6.21 2012-06-27 exif(1)