1EXIFTOOL(1) User Contributed Perl Documentation EXIFTOOL(1)
2
6 exiftool - Read and write meta information in files
7
9 Reading
10 exiftool [OPTIONS] [-TAG...] [--TAG...] FILE...
11 Writing
13 exiftool [OPTIONS] -TAG[+-<]=[VALUE]... FILE...
14 Copying
16 exiftool [OPTIONS] -tagsFromFile SRCFILE [-SRCTAG[>DSTTAG]...] FILE...
17 Other
19 exiftool [ -ver | -list[w|f|r|wf|g[NUM]|d|x] ]
20 For specific examples, see the EXAMPLES sections below.
22 This documentation is displayed if exiftool is run without an input
24 FILE when one is expected.
25
27 A command-line interface to Image::ExifTool, used for reading and
28 writing meta information in a variety of file types. FILE is one or
29 more source file names, directory names, or "-" for the standard input.
30 Metadata is read from source files and printed in readable form to the
31 console (or written to output text files with -w).
32 To write or delete metadata, tag values are assigned using
34 -TAG=[VALUE], and/or the -geotag, -csv= or -json= options. To copy or
35 move metadata, the -tagsFromFile feature is used. By default the
36 original files are preserved with "_original" appended to their names
37 -- be sure to verify that the new files are OK before erasing the
38 originals. Once in write mode, exiftool will ignore any read-specific
39 options.
40 Note: If FILE is a directory name then only supported file types in
42 the directory are processed (in write mode only writable types are
43 processed). However, files may be specified by name, or the -ext
44 option may be used to force processing of files with any extension.
45 Hidden files in the directory are also processed. Adding the -r option
46 causes subdirectories to be processed recursively, but subdirectories
47 with names beginning with "." are skipped unless -r. is used.
48 Below is a list of file types and meta information formats currently
50 supported by ExifTool (r = read, w = write, c = create):
51 File Types
53 ------------+-------------+-------------+-------------+------------
54 360 r/w | DR4 r/w/c | JNG r/w | ODP r | RIFF r
55 3FR r | DSS r | JP2 r/w | ODS r | RSRC r
56 3G2 r/w | DV r | JPEG r/w | ODT r | RTF r
57 3GP r/w | DVB r/w | JSON r | OFR r | RW2 r/w
58 A r | DVR-MS r | JXL r | OGG r | RWL r/w
59 AA r | DYLIB r | K25 r | OGV r | RWZ r
60 AAE r | EIP r | KDC r | ONP r | RM r
61 AAX r/w | EPS r/w | KEY r | OPUS r | SEQ r
62 ACR r | EPUB r | LA r | ORF r/w | SKETCH r
63 AFM r | ERF r/w | LFP r | ORI r/w | SO r
64 AI r/w | EXE r | LIF r | OTF r | SR2 r/w
65 AIFF r | EXIF r/w/c | LNK r | PAC r | SRF r
66 APE r | EXR r | LRV r/w | PAGES r | SRW r/w
67 ARQ r/w | EXV r/w/c | M2TS r | PBM r/w | SVG r
68 ARW r/w | F4A/V r/w | M4A/V r/w | PCD r | SWF r
69 ASF r | FFF r/w | MACOS r | PCX r | THM r/w
70 AVI r | FITS r | MAX r | PDB r | TIFF r/w
71 AVIF r/w | FLA r | MEF r/w | PDF r/w | TORRENT r
72 AZW r | FLAC r | MIE r/w/ | PEF r/w | TTC r
73 BMP r | FLIF r/w | MIFF r c | PFA r | TTF r
74 BPG r | FLV r | MKA r | PFB r | TXT r
75 BTF r | FPF r | MKS r | PFM r | VCF r
76 CHM r | FPX r | MKV r | PGF r | VRD r/w/c
77 COS r | GIF r/w | MNG r/w | PGM r/w | VSD r
78 CR2 r/w | GPR r/w | MOBI r | PLIST r | WAV r
79 CR3 r/w | GZ r | MODD r | PICT r | WDP r/w
80 CRM r/w | HDP r/w | MOI r | PMP r | WEBP r
81 CRW r/w | HDR r | MOS r/w | PNG r/w | WEBM r
82 CS1 r/w | HEIC r/w | MOV r/w | PPM r/w | WMA r
83 CSV r | HEIF r/w | MP3 r | PPT r | WMV r
84 CZI r | HTML r | MP4 r/w | PPTX r | WTV r
85 DCM r | ICC r/w/c | MPC r | PS r/w | WV r
86 DCP r/w | ICS r | MPG r | PSB r/w | X3F r/w
87 DCR r | IDML r | MPO r/w | PSD r/w | XCF r
88 DFONT r | IIQ r/w | MQV r/w | PSP r | XLS r
89 DIVX r | IND r/w | MRC r | QTIF r/w | XLSX r
90 DJVU r | INSP r/w | MRW r/w | R3D r | XMP r/w/c
91 DLL r | INSV r | MXF r | RA r | ZIP r
92 DNG r/w | INX r | NEF r/w | RAF r/w |
93 DOC r | ISO r | NRW r/w | RAM r |
94 DOCX r | ITC r | NUMBERS r | RAR r |
95 DPX r | J2C r | O r | RAW r/w |
96 Meta Information
98 ----------------------+----------------------+---------------------
99 EXIF r/w/c | CIFF r/w | Ricoh RMETA r
100 GPS r/w/c | AFCP r/w | Picture Info r
101 IPTC r/w/c | Kodak Meta r/w | Adobe APP14 r
102 XMP r/w/c | FotoStation r/w | MPF r
103 MakerNotes r/w/c | PhotoMechanic r/w | Stim r
104 Photoshop IRB r/w/c | JPEG 2000 r | DPX r
105 ICC Profile r/w/c | DICOM r | APE r
106 MIE r/w/c | Flash r | Vorbis r
107 JFIF r/w/c | FlashPix r | SPIFF r
108 Ducky APP12 r/w/c | QuickTime r | DjVu r
109 PDF r/w/c | Matroska r | M2TS r
110 PNG r/w/c | MXF r | PE/COFF r
111 Canon VRD r/w/c | PrintIM r | AVCHD r
112 Nikon Capture r/w/c | FLAC r | ZIP r
113 GeoTIFF r/w/c | ID3 r | (and more)
114
116 Case is not significant for any command-line option (including tag and
117 group names), except for single-character options when the
118 corresponding upper-case option exists. Many single-character options
119 have equivalent long-name versions (shown in brackets), and some
120 options have inverses which are invoked with a leading double-dash.
121 Unrecognized options are interpreted as tag names (for this reason,
122 multiple single-character options may NOT be combined into one
123 argument). Contrary to standard practice, options may appear after
124 source file names on the exiftool command line.
125 Option Overview
127 Tag operations
128 -TAG or --TAG Extract or exclude specified tag
130 -TAG[+-^]=[VALUE] Write new value for tag
131 -TAG[+-]<=DATFILE Write tag value from contents of file
132 -TAG[+-]<SRCTAG Copy tag value (see -tagsFromFile)
133 -tagsFromFile SRCFILE Copy tag values from file
135 -x TAG (-exclude) Exclude specified tag
136 Input-output text formatting
138 -args (-argFormat) Format metadata as exiftool arguments
140 -b (-binary) Output metadata in binary format
141 -c FMT (-coordFormat) Set format for GPS coordinates
142 -charset [[TYPE=]CHARSET] Specify encoding for special characters
143 -csv[[+]=CSVFILE] Export/import tags in CSV format
144 -csvDelim STR Set delimiter for CSV file
145 -d FMT (-dateFormat) Set format for date/time values
146 -D (-decimal) Show tag ID numbers in decimal
147 -E,-ex,-ec (-escape(HTML|XML|C))Escape tag values for HTML, XML or C
148 -f (-forcePrint) Force printing of all specified tags
149 -g[NUM...] (-groupHeadings) Organize output by tag group
150 -G[NUM...] (-groupNames) Print group name for each tag
151 -h (-htmlFormat) Use HTML formatting for output
152 -H (-hex) Show tag ID numbers in hexadecimal
153 -htmlDump[OFFSET] Generate HTML-format binary dump
154 -j[[+]=JSONFILE] (-json) Export/import tags in JSON format
155 -l (-long) Use long 2-line output format
156 -L (-latin) Use Windows Latin1 encoding
157 -lang [LANG] Set current language
158 -listItem INDEX Extract specific item from a list
159 -n (--printConv) No print conversion
160 -p FMTFILE (-printFormat) Print output in specified format
161 -php Export tags as a PHP Array
162 -s[NUM] (-short) Short output format
163 -S (-veryShort) Very short output format
164 -sep STR (-separator) Set separator string for list items
165 -sort Sort output alphabetically
166 -struct Enable output of structured information
167 -t (-tab) Output in tab-delimited list format
168 -T (-table) Output in tabular format
169 -v[NUM] (-verbose) Print verbose messages
170 -w[+|!] EXT (-textOut) Write (or overwrite!) output text files
171 -W[+|!] FMT (-tagOut) Write output text file for each tag
172 -Wext EXT (-tagOutExt) Write only specified file types with -W
173 -X (-xmlFormat) Use RDF/XML output format
174 Processing control
176 -a (-duplicates) Allow duplicate tags to be extracted
178 -e (--composite) Do not generate composite tags
179 -ee[NUM] (-extractEmbedded) Extract information from embedded files
180 -ext[+] EXT (-extension) Process files with specified extension
181 -F[OFFSET] (-fixBase) Fix the base for maker notes offsets
182 -fast[NUM] Increase speed when extracting metadata
183 -fileOrder[NUM] [-]TAG Set file processing order
184 -i DIR (-ignore) Ignore specified directory name
185 -if[NUM] EXPR Conditionally process files
186 -m (-ignoreMinorErrors) Ignore minor errors and warnings
187 -o OUTFILE (-out) Set output file or directory name
188 -overwrite_original Overwrite original by renaming tmp file
189 -overwrite_original_in_place Overwrite original by copying tmp file
190 -P (-preserve) Preserve file modification date/time
191 -password PASSWD Password for processing protected files
192 -progress[:[TITLE]] Show file progress count
193 -q (-quiet) Quiet processing
194 -r[.] (-recurse) Recursively process subdirectories
195 -scanForXMP Brute force XMP scan
196 -u (-unknown) Extract unknown tags
197 -U (-unknown2) Extract unknown binary tags too
198 -wm MODE (-writeMode) Set mode for writing/creating tags
199 -z (-zip) Read/write compressed information
200 Other options
202 -@ ARGFILE Read command-line arguments from file
204 -k (-pause) Pause before terminating
205 -list[w|f|wf|g[NUM]|d|x] List various exiftool capabilities
206 -ver Print exiftool version number
207 -- End of options
208 Special features
210 -geotag TRKFILE Geotag images from specified GPS log
212 -globalTimeShift SHIFT Shift all formatted date/time values
213 -use MODULE Add features from plug-in module
214 Utilities
216 -delete_original[!] Delete "_original" backups
218 -restore_original Restore from "_original" backups
219 Advanced options
221 -api OPT[[^]=[VAL]] Set ExifTool API option
223 -common_args Define common arguments
224 -config CFGFILE Specify configuration file name
225 -echo[NUM] TEXT Echo text to stdout or stderr
226 -efile[NUM][!] ERRFILE Save names of files with errors
227 -execute[NUM] Execute multiple commands on one line
228 -list_dir List directories, not their contents
229 -srcfile FMT Process a different source file
230 -stay_open FLAG Keep reading -@ argfile even after EOF
231 -userParam PARAM[[^]=[VAL]] Set user parameter (API UserParam opt)
232 Option Details
234 Tag operations
235 -TAG Extract information for the specified tag (eg. "-CreateDate").
237 Multiple tags may be specified in a single command. A tag name is
238 the handle by which a piece of information is referenced. See
239 Image::ExifTool::TagNames for documentation on available tag
240 names. A tag name may include leading group names separated by
241 colons (eg. "-EXIF:CreateDate", or "-Doc1:XMP:Creator"), and each
242 group name may be prefixed by a digit to specify family number
243 (eg. "-1IPTC:City"). Use the -listg option to list available
244 group names by family.
245 A special tag name of "All" may be used to indicate all meta
247 information (ie. -All). This is particularly useful when a group
248 name is specified to extract all information in a group (but
249 beware that unless the -a option is also used, some tags in the
250 group may be suppressed by same-named tags in other groups). The
251 wildcard characters "?" and "*" may be used in a tag name to match
252 any single character and zero or more characters respectively.
253 These may not be used in a group name, with the exception that a
254 group name of "*" (or "All") may be used to extract all instances
255 of a tag (as if -a was used). Note that arguments containing
256 wildcards must be quoted on the command line of most systems to
257 prevent shell globbing.
258 A "#" may be appended to the tag name to disable the print
260 conversion on a per-tag basis (see the -n option). This may also
261 be used when writing or copying tags.
262 If no tags are specified, all available information is extracted
264 (as if "-All" had been specified).
265 Note: Descriptions, not tag names, are shown by default when
267 extracting information. Use the -s option to see the tag names
268 instead.
269 --TAG
271 Exclude specified tag from extracted information. Same as the -x
272 option. Group names and wildcards are permitted as described
273 above for -TAG. Once excluded from the output, a tag may not be
274 re-included by a subsequent option. May also be used following a
275 -tagsFromFile option to exclude tags from being copied (when
276 redirecting to another tag, it is the source tag that should be
277 excluded), or to exclude groups from being deleted when deleting
278 all information (eg. "-all= --exif:all" deletes all but EXIF
279 information). But note that this will not exclude individual tags
280 from a group delete (unless a family 2 group is specified, see
281 note 4 below). Instead, individual tags may be recovered using
282 the -tagsFromFile option (eg. "-all= -tagsfromfile @ -artist").
283 To speed processing when reading XMP, exclusions in XMP groups
285 also bypass processing of the corresponding XMP property and any
286 contained properties. For example, "--xmp-crs:all" may speed
287 processing significantly in cases where a large number of XMP-crs
288 tags exist. To use this feature to bypass processing of a
289 specific XMP property, the property name must be used instead of
290 the ExifTool tag name (eg. "--xmp-crs:dabs"). Also, "XMP-all" may
291 be used to to indicate any XMP namespace (eg. <C--xmp-all:dabs>).
292 -TAG[+-^]=[VALUE]
294 Write a new value for the specified tag (eg. "-comment=wow"), or
295 delete the tag if no VALUE is given (eg. "-comment="). "+=" and
296 "-=" are used to add or remove existing entries from a list, or to
297 shift date/time values (see Image::ExifTool::Shift.pl and note 6
298 below for more details). "+=" may also be used to increment
299 numerical values (or decrement if VALUE is negative), and "-=" may
300 be used to conditionally delete or replace a tag (see "WRITING
301 EXAMPLES" for examples). "^=" is used to write an empty string
302 instead of deleting the tag when no VALUE is given, but otherwise
303 it is equivalent to "=", but note that the caret must be quoted on
304 the Windows command line.
305 TAG may contain one or more leading family 0, 1, 2 or 7 group
307 names, prefixed by optional family numbers, and separated colons.
308 If no group name is specified, the tag is created in the preferred
309 group, and updated in any other location where a same-named tag
310 already exists. The preferred group in JPEG and TIFF-format
311 images is the first group in the following list where TAG is
312 valid: 1) EXIF, 2) IPTC, 3) XMP.
313 The wildcards "*" and "?" may be used in tag names to assign the
315 same value to multiple tags. When specified with wildcards,
316 "Unsafe" tags are not written. A tag name of "All" is equivalent
317 to "*" (except that it doesn't require quoting, while arguments
318 with wildcards do on systems with shell globbing), and is often
319 used when deleting all metadata (ie. "-All=") or an entire group
320 (eg. "-XMP-dc:All=", see note 4 below). Note that not all groups
321 are deletable, and that the JPEG APP14 "Adobe" group is not
322 removed by default with "-All=" because it may affect the
323 appearance of the image. However, color space information is
324 removed, so the colors may be affected (but this may be avoided by
325 copying back the tags defined by the ColorSpaceTags shortcut).
326 Use the -listd option for a complete list of deletable groups, and
327 see note 5 below regarding the "APP" groups. Also, within an
328 image some groups may be contained within others, and these groups
329 are removed if the containing group is deleted:
330 JPEG Image:
332 - Deleting EXIF or IFD0 also deletes ExifIFD, GlobParamIFD,
333 GPS, IFD1, InteropIFD, MakerNotes, PrintIM and SubIFD.
334 - Deleting ExifIFD also deletes InteropIFD and MakerNotes.
335 - Deleting Photoshop also deletes IPTC.
336 TIFF Image:
338 - Deleting EXIF only removes ExifIFD which also deletes
339 InteropIFD and MakerNotes.
340 Notes:
342 1) Many tag values may be assigned in a single command. If two
344 assignments affect the same tag, the latter takes precedence
345 (except for list-type tags, for which both values are written).
346 2) In general, MakerNotes tags are considered "Permanent", and may
348 be edited but not created or deleted individually. This avoids
349 many potential problems, including the inevitable compatibility
350 problems with OEM software which may be very inflexible about the
351 information it expects to find in the maker notes.
352 3) Changes to PDF files by ExifTool are reversible (by deleting
354 the update with "-PDF-update:all=") because the original
355 information is never actually deleted from the file. So ExifTool
356 alone may not be used to securely edit metadata in PDF files.
357 4) Specifying "-GROUP:all=" deletes the entire group as a block
359 only if a single family 0 or 1 group is specified. Otherwise all
360 deletable tags in the specified group(s) are removed individually,
361 and in this case is it possible to exclude individual tags from a
362 mass delete. For example, "-time:all --Exif:Time:All" removes all
363 deletable Time tags except those in the EXIF. This difference
364 also applies if family 2 is specified when deleting all groups.
365 For example, "-2all:all=" deletes tags individually, while
366 "-all:all=" deletes entire blocks.
367 5) The "APP" group names ("APP0" through "APP15") are used to
369 delete JPEG application segments which are not associated with
370 another deletable group. For example, specifying "-APP14:All="
371 will NOT delete the APP14 "Adobe" segment because this is
372 accomplished with "-Adobe:All".
373 6) When shifting a value, the shift is applied to the original
375 value of the tag, overriding any other values previously assigned
376 to the tag on the same command line. To shift a date/time value
377 and copy it to another tag in the same operation, use the
378 -globalTimeShift option.
379 Special feature: Integer values may be specified in hexadecimal
381 with a leading "0x", and simple rational values may be specified
382 as fractions.
383 -TAG<=DATFILE or -TAG<=FMT
385 Set the value of a tag from the contents of file DATFILE. The
386 file name may also be given by a FMT string where %d, %f and %e
387 represent the directory, file name and extension of the original
388 FILE (see the -w option for more details). Note that quotes are
389 required around this argument to prevent shell redirection since
390 it contains a "<" symbol. If DATFILE/FMT is not provided, the
391 effect is the same as "-TAG=", and the tag is simply deleted.
392 "+<=" or "-<=" may also be used to add or delete specific list
393 entries, or to shift date/time values.
394 -tagsFromFile SRCFILE or FMT
396 Copy tag values from SRCFILE to FILE. Tag names on the command
397 line after this option specify the tags to be copied, or excluded
398 from the copy. Wildcards are permitted in these tag names. If no
399 tags are specified, then all possible tags (see note 1 below) from
400 the source file are copied to same-named tags in the preferred
401 location of the output file (the same as specifying "-all"). More
402 than one -tagsFromFile option may be used to copy tags from
403 multiple files.
404 By default, this option will update any existing and writable
406 same-named tags in the output FILE, but will create new tags only
407 in their preferred groups. This allows some information to be
408 automatically transferred to the appropriate group when copying
409 between images of different formats. However, if a group name is
410 specified for a tag then the information is written only to this
411 group (unless redirected to another group, see below). If "All"
412 is used as a group name, then the specified tag(s) are written to
413 the same family 1 group they had in the source file (ie. the same
414 specific location, like ExifIFD or XMP-dc). For example, the
415 common operation of copying all writable tags to the same specific
416 locations in the output FILE is achieved by adding "-all:all". A
417 different family may be specified by adding a leading family
418 number to the group name (eg. "-0all:all" preserves the same
419 general location, like EXIF or XMP).
420 SRCFILE may be the same as FILE to move information around within
422 a single file. In this case, "@" may be used to represent the
423 source file (ie. "-tagsFromFile @"), permitting this feature to be
424 used for batch processing multiple files. Specified tags are then
425 copied from each file in turn as it is rewritten. For advanced
426 batch use, the source file name may also be specified using a FMT
427 string in which %d, %f and %e represent the directory, file name
428 and extension of FILE. (eg. the current FILE would be represented
429 by "%d%f.%e", with the same effect as "@"). See the -w option for
430 FMT string examples.
431 A powerful redirection feature allows a destination tag to be
433 specified for each copied tag. With this feature, information may
434 be written to a tag with a different name or group. This is done
435 using "'-DSTTAG<SRCTAG'" or "'-SRCTAG>DSTTAG'" on the command line
436 after -tagsFromFile, and causes the value of SRCTAG to be copied
437 from SRCFILE and written to DSTTAG in FILE. Has no effect unless
438 SRCTAG exists in SRCFILE. Note that this argument must be quoted
439 to prevent shell redirection, and there is no "=" sign as when
440 assigning new values. Source and/or destination tags may be
441 prefixed by a group name and/or suffixed by "#". Wildcards are
442 allowed in both the source and destination tag names. A
443 destination group and/or tag name of "All" or "*" writes to the
444 same family 1 group and/or tag name as the source. If no
445 destination group is specified, the information is written to the
446 preferred group. Whitespace around the ">" or "<" is ignored. As
447 a convenience, "-tagsFromFile @" is assumed for any redirected
448 tags which are specified without a prior -tagsFromFile option.
449 Copied tags may also be added or deleted from a list with
450 arguments of the form "'-SRCTAG+<DSTTAG'" or "'-SRCTAG-<DSTTAG'"
451 (but see Note 5 below).
452 An extension of the redirection feature allows strings involving
454 tag names to be used on the right hand side of the "<" symbol with
455 the syntax "'-DSTTAG<STR'", where tag names in STR are prefixed
456 with a "$" symbol. See the -p option and the "Advanced formatting
457 feature" section for more details about this syntax. Strings
458 starting with a "=" sign must insert a single space after the "<"
459 to avoid confusion with the "<=" operator which sets the tag value
460 from the contents of a file. A single space at the start of the
461 string is removed if it exists, but all other whitespace in the
462 string is preserved. See note 8 below about using the redirection
463 feature with list-type stags, shortcuts or when using wildcards in
464 tag names.
465 See "COPYING EXAMPLES" for examples using -tagsFromFile.
467 Notes:
469 1) Some tags (generally tags which may affect the appearance of
471 the image) are considered "Unsafe" to write, and are only copied
472 if specified explicitly (ie. no wildcards). See the tag name
473 documentation for more details about "Unsafe" tags.
474 2) Be aware of the difference between excluding a tag from being
476 copied (--TAG), and deleting a tag (-TAG=). Excluding a tag
477 prevents it from being copied to the destination image, but
478 deleting will remove a pre-existing tag from the image.
479 3) The maker note information is copied as a block, so it isn't
481 affected like other information by subsequent tag assignments on
482 the command line, and individual makernote tags may not be
483 excluded from a block copy. Also, since the PreviewImage
484 referenced from the maker notes may be rather large, it is not
485 copied, and must be transferred separately if desired.
486 4) The order of operations is to copy all specified tags at the
488 point of the -tagsFromFile option in the command line. Any tag
489 assignment to the right of the -tagsFromFile option is made after
490 all tags are copied. For example, new tag values are set in the
491 order One, Two, Three then Four with this command:
492 exiftool -One=1 -tagsFromFile s.jpg -Two -Four=4 -Three d.jpg
494 This is significant in the case where an overlap exists between
496 the copied and assigned tags because later operations may override
497 earlier ones.
498 5) The normal behaviour of copied tags differs from that of
500 assigned tags for list-type tags and conditional replacements
501 because each copy operation on a tag overrides any previous
502 operations. While this avoids duplicate list items when copying
503 groups of tags from a file containing redundant information, it
504 also prevents values of different tags from being copied into the
505 same list when this is the intent. So a -addTagsFromFile option
506 is provided which allows copying of multiple tags into the same
507 list. eg)
508 exiftool -addtagsfromfile @ '-subject<make' '-subject<model' ...
510 Similarly, -addTagsFromFile must be used when conditionally
512 replacing a tag to prevent overriding earlier conditions.
513 Other than these differences, the -tagsFromFile and
515 -addTagsFromFile options are equivalent.
516 6) The -a option (allow duplicate tags) is always in effect when
518 copying tags from SRCFILE, but the highest priority tag is always
519 copied last so it takes precedence.
520 7) Structured tags are copied by default when copying tags. See
522 the -struct option for details.
523 8) With the redirection feature, copying a tag directly (ie.
525 "'-DSTTAG<SRCTAG'") is not the same as interpolating its value
526 inside a string (ie. "'-DSTTAG<$SRCTAG'") for list-type tags,
527 shortcut tags, tag names containing wildcards, or UserParam
528 variables. When copying directly, the values of each matching
529 source tag are copied individually to the destination tag (as if
530 they were separate assignments). However, when interpolated
531 inside a string, list items and the values of shortcut tags are
532 concatenated (with a separator set by the -sep option), and
533 wildcards are not allowed. Also, UserParam variables are
534 available only when interpolated in a string. Another difference
535 is that a minor warning is generated if a tag doesn't exist when
536 interpolating its value in a string (with "$"), but isn't when
537 copying the tag directly.
538 Finally, the behaviour is different when a destination tag or
540 group of "All" is used. When copying directly, a destination
541 group and/or tag name of "All" writes to the same family 1 group
542 and/or tag name as the source. But when interpolated in a string,
543 the identity of the source tags are lost and the value is written
544 to all possible groups/tags. For example, the string form must be
545 used in the following command since the intent is to set the value
546 of all existing date/time tags from "CreateDate":
547 exiftool '-time:all<$createdate' -wm w FILE
549 -x TAG (-exclude)
551 Exclude the specified tag. There may be multiple -x options.
552 This has the same effect as --TAG on the command line. See the
553 --TAG documentation above for a complete description.
554 Input-output text formatting
556 Note that trailing spaces are removed from extracted values for most
558 output text formats. The exceptions are -b, -csv, -j and -X.
559 -args (-argFormat)
561 Output information in the form of exiftool arguments, suitable for
562 use with the -@ option when writing. May be combined with the -G
563 option to include group names. This feature may be used to
564 effectively copy tags between images, but allows the metadata to
565 be altered by editing the intermediate file ("out.args" in this
566 example):
567 exiftool -args -G1 --filename --directory src.jpg > out.args
569 exiftool -@ out.args -sep ', ' dst.jpg
570 Note: Be careful when copying information with this technique
572 since it is easy to write tags which are normally considered
573 "Unsafe". For instance, the FileName and Directory tags are
574 excluded in the example above to avoid renaming and moving the
575 destination file. Also note that the second command above will
576 produce warning messages for any tags which are not writable.
577 As well, the -sep option should be used as in the second command
579 above to maintain separate list items when writing metadata back
580 to image files, and the -struct option may be used when extracting
581 to preserve structured XMP information.
582 -b, --b (-binary, --binary)
584 Output requested metadata in binary format without tag names or
585 descriptions (-b or -binary). This option is mainly used for
586 extracting embedded images or other binary data, but it may also
587 be useful for some text strings since control characters (such as
588 newlines) are not replaced by '.' as they are in the default
589 output. By default, list items are separated by a newline when
590 extracted with the -b option, but this may be changed (see the
591 -sep option for details). May be combined with -j, -php or -X to
592 extract binary data in JSON, PHP or XML format, but note that
593 "Unsafe" tags are not extracted as binary unless they are
594 specified explicitly or the API RequestAll option is set to 3 or
595 higher.
596 With a leading double dash (--b or --binary), tags which contain
598 binary data are suppressed in the output when reading.
599 -c FMT (-coordFormat)
601 Set the print format for GPS coordinates. FMT uses the same
602 syntax as a "printf" format string. The specifiers correspond to
603 degrees, minutes and seconds in that order, but minutes and
604 seconds are optional. For example, the following table gives the
605 output for the same coordinate using various formats:
606 FMT Output
608 ------------------- ------------------
609 "%d deg %d' %.2f"\" 54 deg 59' 22.80" (default for reading)
610 "%d %d %.8f" 54 59 22.80000000 (default for copying)
611 "%d deg %.4f min" 54 deg 59.3800 min
612 "%.6f degrees" 54.989667 degrees
613 Notes:
615 1) To avoid loss of precision, the default coordinate format is
617 different when copying tags using the -tagsFromFile option.
618 2) If the hemisphere is known, a reference direction (N, S, E or
620 W) is appended to each printed coordinate, but adding a "+" to the
621 format specifier (eg. "%+.6f") prints a signed coordinate instead.
622 3) This print formatting may be disabled with the -n option to
624 extract coordinates as signed decimal degrees.
625 -charset [[TYPE=]CHARSET]
627 If TYPE is "ExifTool" or not specified, this option sets the
628 ExifTool character encoding for output tag values when reading and
629 input values when writing, with a default of "UTF8". If no
630 CHARSET is given, a list of available character sets is returned.
631 Valid CHARSET values are:
632 CHARSET Alias(es) Description
634 ---------- --------------- ----------------------------------
635 UTF8 cp65001, UTF-8 UTF-8 characters (default)
636 Latin cp1252, Latin1 Windows Latin1 (West European)
637 Latin2 cp1250 Windows Latin2 (Central European)
638 Cyrillic cp1251, Russian Windows Cyrillic
639 Greek cp1253 Windows Greek
640 Turkish cp1254 Windows Turkish
641 Hebrew cp1255 Windows Hebrew
642 Arabic cp1256 Windows Arabic
643 Baltic cp1257 Windows Baltic
644 Vietnam cp1258 Windows Vietnamese
645 Thai cp874 Windows Thai
646 DOSLatinUS cp437 DOS Latin US
647 DOSLatin1 cp850 DOS Latin1
648 DOSCyrillic cp866 DOS Cyrillic
649 MacRoman cp10000, Roman Macintosh Roman
650 MacLatin2 cp10029 Macintosh Latin2 (Central Europe)
651 MacCyrillic cp10007 Macintosh Cyrillic
652 MacGreek cp10006 Macintosh Greek
653 MacTurkish cp10081 Macintosh Turkish
654 MacRomanian cp10010 Macintosh Romanian
655 MacIceland cp10079 Macintosh Icelandic
656 MacCroatian cp10082 Macintosh Croatian
657 TYPE may be "FileName" to specify the encoding of file names on
659 the command line (ie. FILE arguments). In Windows, this triggers
660 use of wide-character i/o routines, thus providing support for
661 Unicode file names. See the "WINDOWS UNICODE FILE NAMES" section
662 below for details.
663 Other values of TYPE listed below are used to specify the internal
665 encoding of various meta information formats.
666 TYPE Description Default
668 --------- ------------------------------------------- -------
669 EXIF Internal encoding of EXIF "ASCII" strings (none)
670 ID3 Internal encoding of ID3v1 information Latin
671 IPTC Internal IPTC encoding to assume when Latin
672 IPTC:CodedCharacterSet is not defined
673 Photoshop Internal encoding of Photoshop IRB strings Latin
674 QuickTime Internal encoding of QuickTime strings MacRoman
675 RIFF Internal encoding of RIFF strings 0
676 See <https://exiftool.org/faq.html#Q10> for more information about
678 coded character sets, and the Image::ExifTool Options for more
679 details about the -charset settings.
680 -csv[[+]=CSVFILE]
682 Export information in CSV format, or import information if CSVFILE
683 is specified. When importing, the CSV file must be in exactly the
684 same format as the exported file. The first row of the CSVFILE
685 must be the ExifTool tag names (with optional group names) for
686 each column of the file, and values must be separated by commas.
687 A special "SourceFile" column specifies the files associated with
688 each row of information (and a SourceFile of "*" may be used to
689 define default tags to be imported for all files which are
690 combined with any tags specified for the specific SourceFile
691 processed). The -csvDelim option may be used to change the
692 input/output field delimiter if something other than a comma is
693 required.
694 The following examples demonstrate basic use of the -csv option:
696 # generate CSV file with common tags from all images in a directory
698 exiftool -common -csv dir > out.csv
699 # update metadata for all images in a directory from CSV file
701 exiftool -csv=a.csv dir
702 Empty values are ignored when importing (unless the -f option is
704 used and the API MissingTagValue is set to an empty string, in
705 which case the tag is deleted). Also, FileName and Directory
706 columns are ignored if they exist (ie. ExifTool will not attempt
707 to write these tags with a CSV import). To force a tag to be
708 deleted, use the -f option and set the value to "-" in the CSV
709 file (or to the MissingTagValue if this API option was used).
710 Multiple databases may be imported in a single command.
711 When exporting a CSV file, the -g or -G option adds group names to
713 the tag headings. If the -a option is used to allow duplicate tag
714 names, the duplicate tags are only included in the CSV output if
715 the column headings are unique. Adding the -G4 option ensures a
716 unique column heading for each tag. The -b option may be added to
717 output binary data, encoded in base64 if necessary (indicated by
718 ASCII "base64:" as the first 7 bytes of the value). Values may
719 also be encoded in base64 if the -charset option is used and the
720 value contains invalid characters.
721 When exporting specific tags, the CSV columns are arranged in the
723 same order as the specified tags provided the column headings
724 exactly match the specified tag names, otherwise the columns are
725 sorted in alphabetical order.
726 When importing from a CSV file, only files specified on the
728 command line are processed. Any extra entries in the CSV file are
729 ignored.
730 List-type tags are stored as simple strings in a CSV file, but the
732 -sep option may be used to split them back into separate items
733 when importing.
734 Special feature: -csv+=CSVFILE may be used to add items to
736 existing lists. This affects only list-type tags. Also applies
737 to the -j option.
738 Note that this option is fundamentally different than all other
740 output format options because it requires information from all
741 input files to be buffered in memory before the output is written.
742 This may result in excessive memory usage when processing a very
743 large number of files with a single command. Also, it makes this
744 option incompatible with the -w option. When processing a large
745 number of files, it is recommended to either use the JSON (-j) or
746 XML (-X) output format, or use -p to generate a fixed-column CSV
747 file instead of using the -csv option.
748 -csvDelim STR
750 Set the delimiter for separating CSV entries for CSV file
751 input/output via the -csv option. STR may contain "\t", "\n",
752 "\r" and "\\" to represent TAB, LF, CR and '\' respectively. A
753 double quote is not allowed in the delimiter. Default is ','.
754 -d FMT (-dateFormat)
756 Set the format for date/time tag values. The FMT string may
757 contain formatting codes beginning with a percent character ("%")
758 to represent the various components of a date/time value. The
759 specifics of the FMT syntax are system dependent -- consult the
760 "strftime" man page on your system for details. The default
761 format is equivalent to "%Y:%m:%d %H:%M:%S". This option has no
762 effect on date-only or time-only tags and ignores timezone
763 information if present. ExifTool adds a %f format code to
764 represent fractional seconds, and supports an optional width to
765 specify the number of digits after the decimal point (eg. %3f
766 would give something like .437). Only one -d option may be used
767 per command. Requires POSIX::strptime or Time::Piece for the
768 inversion conversion when writing.
769 -D (-decimal)
771 Show tag ID number in decimal when extracting information.
772 -E, -ex, -ec (-escapeHTML, -escapeXML, -escapeC)
774 Escape characters in output tag values for HTML (-E), XML (-ex) or
775 C (-ec). For HTML, all characters with Unicode code points above
776 U+007F are escaped as well as the following 5 characters: &
777 (&) ' (') " (") > (>) and < (<). For XML, only
778 these 5 characters are escaped. The -E option is implied with -h,
779 and -ex is implied with -X. For C, all control characters and the
780 backslash are escaped. The inverse conversion is applied when
781 writing tags.
782 -f (-forcePrint)
784 Force printing of tags even if their values are not found. This
785 option only applies when specific tags are requested on the
786 command line (ie. not with wildcards or by "-all"). With this
787 option, a dash ("-") is printed for the value of any missing tag,
788 but the dash may be changed via the API MissingTagValue option.
789 May also be used to add a 'flags' attribute to the -listx output,
790 or to allow tags to be deleted when writing with the -csv=CSVFILE
791 feature.
792 -g[NUM][:NUM...] (-groupHeadings)
794 Organize output by tag group. NUM specifies a group family
795 number, and may be 0 (general location), 1 (specific location), 2
796 (category), 3 (document number), 4 (instance number), 5 (metadata
797 path), 6 (EXIF/TIFF format) or 7 (tag ID). -g0 is assumed if a
798 family number is not specified. May be combined with other
799 options to add group names to the output. Multiple families may
800 be specified by separating them with colons. By default the
801 resulting group name is simplified by removing any leading "Main:"
802 and collapsing adjacent identical group names, but this can be
803 avoided by placing a colon before the first family number (eg.
804 -g:3:1). Use the -listg option to list group names for a
805 specified family. The API SavePath and SaveFormat options are
806 automatically enabled if the respective family 5 or 6 group names
807 are requested. See the API GetGroup documentation for more
808 information.
809 -G[NUM][:NUM...] (-groupNames)
811 Same as -g but print group name for each tag. -G0 is assumed if
812 NUM is not specified. May be combined with a number of other
813 options to add group names to the output. Note that NUM may be
814 added wherever -G is mentioned in the documentation. See the -g
815 option above for details.
816 -h (-htmlFormat)
818 Use HTML table formatting for output. Implies the -E option. The
819 formatting options -D, -H, -g, -G, -l and -s may be used in
820 combination with -h to influence the HTML format.
821 -H (-hex)
823 Show tag ID number in hexadecimal when extracting information.
824 -htmlDump[OFFSET]
826 Generate a dynamic web page containing a hex dump of the EXIF
827 information. This can be a very powerful tool for low-level
828 analysis of EXIF information. The -htmlDump option is also
829 invoked if the -v and -h options are used together. The verbose
830 level controls the maximum length of the blocks dumped. An OFFSET
831 may be given to specify the base for displayed offsets. If not
832 provided, the EXIF/TIFF base offset is used. Use -htmlDump0 for
833 absolute offsets. Currently only EXIF/TIFF and JPEG information
834 is dumped, but the -u option can be used to give a raw hex dump of
835 other file formats.
836 -j[[+]=JSONFILE] (-json)
838 Use JSON (JavaScript Object Notation) formatting for console
839 output, or import JSON file if JSONFILE is specified. This option
840 may be combined with -g to organize the output into objects by
841 group, or -G to add group names to each tag. List-type tags with
842 multiple items are output as JSON arrays unless -sep is used. By
843 default XMP structures are flattened into individual tags in the
844 JSON output, but the original structure may be preserved with the
845 -struct option (this also causes all list-type XMP tags to be
846 output as JSON arrays, otherwise single-item lists would be output
847 as simple strings). The -a option is implied when -json is used,
848 but entries with identical JSON names are suppressed in the
849 output. (-G4 may be used to ensure that all tags have unique JSON
850 names.) Adding the -D or -H option changes tag values to JSON
851 objects with "val" and "id" fields, and adding -l adds a "desc"
852 field, and a "num" field if the numerical value is different from
853 the converted "val". The -b option may be added to output binary
854 data, encoded in base64 if necessary (indicated by ASCII "base64:"
855 as the first 7 bytes of the value), and -t may be added to include
856 tag table information (see -t for details). The JSON output is
857 UTF-8 regardless of any -L or -charset option setting, but the
858 UTF-8 validation is disabled if a character set other than UTF-8
859 is specified.
860 If JSONFILE is specified, the file is imported and the tag
862 definitions from the file are used to set tag values on a per-file
863 basis. The special "SourceFile" entry in each JSON object
864 associates the information with a specific target file. An object
865 with a missing SourceFile or a SourceFile of "*" defines default
866 tags for all target files which are combined with any tags
867 specified for the specific SourceFile processed. The imported
868 JSON file must have the same format as the exported JSON files
869 with the exception that the -g option is not compatible with the
870 import file format (use -G instead). Additionally, tag names in
871 the input JSON file may be suffixed with a "#" to disable print
872 conversion.
873 Unlike CSV import, empty values are not ignored, and will cause an
875 empty value to be written if supported by the specific metadata
876 type. Tags are deleted by using the -f option and setting the tag
877 value to "-" (or to the MissingTagValue setting if this API option
878 was used). Importing with -j+=JSONFILE causes new values to be
879 added to existing lists.
880 -l (-long)
882 Use long 2-line Canon-style output format. Adds a description and
883 unconverted value (if it is different from the converted value) to
884 the XML, JSON or PHP output when -X, -j or -php is used. May also
885 be combined with -listf, -listr or -listwf to add descriptions of
886 the file types.
887 -L (-latin)
889 Use Windows Latin1 encoding (cp1252) for output tag values instead
890 of the default UTF-8. When writing, -L specifies that input text
891 values are Latin1 instead of UTF-8. Equivalent to "-charset
892 latin".
893 -lang [LANG]
895 Set current language for tag descriptions and converted values.
896 LANG is "de", "fr", "ja", etc. Use -lang with no other arguments
897 to get a list of available languages. The default language is
898 "en" if -lang is not specified. Note that tag/group names are
899 always English, independent of the -lang setting, and translation
900 of warning/error messages has not yet been implemented. May also
901 be combined with -listx to output descriptions in one language
902 only.
903 By default, ExifTool uses UTF-8 encoding for special characters,
905 but the the -L or -charset option may be used to invoke other
906 encodings. Note that ExifTool uses Unicode::LineBreak if
907 available to help preserve the column alignment of the plain text
908 output for languages with a variable-width character set.
909 Currently, the language support is not complete, but users are
911 welcome to help improve this by submitting their own translations.
912 To submit a translation, follow these steps (you must have Perl
913 installed for this):
914 1. Download and unpack the latest Image-ExifTool full
916 distribution.
917 2. 'cd' into the Image-ExifTool directory.
919 3. Run this command to make an XML file of the desired tags (eg.
921 EXIF):
922 ./exiftool -listx -exif:all > out.xml
924 4. Copy this text into a file called 'import.pl' in the exiftool
926 directory:
927 push @INC, 'lib';
929 require Image::ExifTool::TagInfoXML;
930 my $file = shift or die "Expected XML file name\n";
931 $Image::ExifTool::TagInfoXML::makeMissing = shift;
932 Image::ExifTool::TagInfoXML::BuildLangModules($file,8);
933 5. Run the 'import.pl' script to Import the XML file, generating
935 the 'MISSING' entries for your language (eg. Russian):
936 perl import.pl out.xml ru
938 6. Edit the generated language module
940 lib/Image/ExifTool/Lang/ru.pm, and search and replace all
941 'MISSING' strings in the file with your translations.
942 7. Email the module ('ru.pm' in this example) to philharvey66 at
944 gmail.com
945 8. Thank you!!
947 -listItem INDEX
949 For list-type tags, this causes only the item with the specified
950 index to be extracted. INDEX is 0 for the first item in the list.
951 Negative indices may also be used to reference items from the end
952 of the list. Has no effect on single-valued tags. Also applies
953 to tag values when copying from a tag, and in -if conditions.
954 -n (--printConv)
956 Disable print conversion for all tags. By default, extracted
957 values are converted to a more human-readable format, but the -n
958 option disables this conversion, revealing the machine-readable
959 values. For example:
960 > exiftool -Orientation -S a.jpg
962 Orientation: Rotate 90 CW
963 > exiftool -Orientation -S -n a.jpg
964 Orientation: 6
965 The print conversion may also be disabled on a per-tag basis by
967 suffixing the tag name with a "#" character:
968 > exiftool -Orientation# -Orientation -S a.jpg
970 Orientation: 6
971 Orientation: Rotate 90 CW
972 These techniques may also be used to disable the inverse print
974 conversion when writing. For example, the following commands all
975 have the same effect:
976 > exiftool -Orientation='Rotate 90 CW' a.jpg
978 > exiftool -Orientation=6 -n a.jpg
979 > exiftool -Orientation#=6 a.jpg
980 -p FMTFILE or STR (-printFormat)
982 Print output in the format specified by the given file or string.
983 The argument is interpreted as a string unless a file of that name
984 exists, in which case the string is loaded from the contents of
985 the file. Tag names in the format file or string begin with a "$"
986 symbol and may contain leading group names and/or a trailing "#"
987 (to disable print conversion). Case is not significant. Braces
988 "{}" may be used around the tag name to separate it from
989 subsequent text. Use $$ to represent a "$" symbol, and $/ for a
990 newline.
991 Multiple -p options may be used, each contributing a line (or
993 more) of text to the output. Lines beginning with "#[HEAD]" and
994 "#[TAIL]" are output before the first processed file and after the
995 last processed file respectively. Lines beginning with "#[SECT]"
996 and "#[ENDS]" are output before and after each section of files.
997 A section is defined as a group of consecutive files with the same
998 section header (eg. files are grouped by directory if "#[SECT]"
999 contains $directory). Lines beginning with "#[BODY]" and lines
1000 not beginning with "#" are output for each processed file. Lines
1001 beginning with "#[IF]" are not output, but all BODY lines are
1002 skipped if any tag on an IF line doesn't exist. Other lines
1003 beginning with "#" are ignored. (To output a line beginning with
1004 "#", use "#[BODY]#".) For example, this format file:
1005 # this is a comment line
1007 #[HEAD]-- Generated by ExifTool $exifToolVersion --
1008 File: $FileName - $DateTimeOriginal
1009 (f/$Aperture, ${ShutterSpeed}s, ISO $EXIF:ISO)
1010 #[TAIL]-- end --
1011 with this command:
1013 exiftool -p test.fmt a.jpg b.jpg
1015 produces output like this:
1017 -- Generated by ExifTool 12.38 --
1019 File: a.jpg - 2003:10:31 15:44:19
1020 (f/5.6, 1/60s, ISO 100)
1021 File: b.jpg - 2006:05:23 11:57:38
1022 (f/8.0, 1/13s, ISO 100)
1023 -- end --
1024 The values of List-type tags with multiple items and Shortcut tags
1026 representing multiple tags are joined according the the -sep
1027 option setting when interpolated in the string.
1028 When -ee (-extractEmbedded) is combined with -p, embedded
1030 documents are effectively processed as separate input files.
1031 If a specified tag does not exist, a minor warning is issued and
1033 the line with the missing tag is not printed. However, the -f
1034 option may be used to set the value of missing tags to '-' (but
1035 this may be configured via the API MissingTagValue option), or the
1036 -m option may be used to ignore minor warnings and leave the
1037 missing values empty. Alternatively, -q -q may be used to simply
1038 suppress the warning messages.
1039 The "Advanced formatting feature" may be used to modify the values
1041 of individual tags with the -p option.
1042 -php Format output as a PHP Array. The -g, -G, -D, -H, -l, -sep and
1044 -struct options combine with -php, and duplicate tags are handled
1045 in the same way as with the -json option. As well, the -b option
1046 may be added to output binary data, and -t may be added to include
1047 tag table information (see -t for details). Here is a simple
1048 example showing how this could be used in a PHP script:
1049 <?php
1051 eval('$array=' . `exiftool -php -q image.jpg`);
1052 print_r($array);
1053 ?>
1054 -s[NUM] (-short)
1056 Short output format. Prints tag names instead of descriptions.
1057 Add NUM or up to 3 -s options for even shorter formats:
1058 -s1 or -s - print tag names instead of descriptions
1060 -s2 or -s -s - no extra spaces to column-align values
1061 -s3 or -s -s -s - print values only (no tag names)
1062 Also effective when combined with -t, -h, -X or -listx options.
1064 -S (-veryShort)
1066 Very short format. The same as -s2 or two -s options. Tag names
1067 are printed instead of descriptions, and no extra spaces are added
1068 to column-align values.
1069 -sep STR (-separator)
1071 Specify separator string for items in list-type tags. When
1072 reading, the default is to join list items with ", ". When
1073 writing, this option causes values assigned to list-type tags to
1074 be split into individual items at each substring matching STR
1075 (otherwise they are not split by default). Space characters in
1076 STR match zero or more whitespace characters in the value.
1077 Note that an empty separator ("") is allowed, and will join items
1079 with no separator when reading, or split the value into individual
1080 characters when writing.
1081 For pure binary output (-b used without -j, -php or -X), the first
1083 -sep option specifies a list-item separator, and a second -sep
1084 option specifies a terminator for the end of the list (or after
1085 each value if not a list). In these strings, "\n", "\r" and "\t"
1086 may be used to represent a newline, carriage return and tab
1087 respectively. By default, binary list items are separated by a
1088 newline, and no terminator is added.
1089 -sort, --sort
1091 Sort output by tag description, or by tag name if the -s option is
1092 used. When sorting by description, the sort order will depend on
1093 the -lang option setting. Without the -sort option, tags appear
1094 in the order they were specified on the command line, or if not
1095 specified, the order they were extracted from the file. By
1096 default, tags are organized by groups when combined with the -g or
1097 -G option, but this grouping may be disabled with --sort.
1098 -struct, --struct
1100 Output structured XMP information instead of flattening to
1101 individual tags. This option works well when combined with the
1102 XML (-X) and JSON (-j) output formats. For other output formats,
1103 XMP structures and lists are serialized into the same format as
1104 when writing structured information (see
1105 <https://exiftool.org/struct.html> for details). When copying,
1106 structured tags are copied by default unless --struct is used to
1107 disable this feature (although flattened tags may still be copied
1108 by specifying them individually unless -struct is used). These
1109 options have no effect when assigning new values since both
1110 flattened and structured tags may always be used when writing.
1111 -t (-tab)
1113 Output a tab-delimited list of description/values (useful for
1114 database import). May be combined with -s to print tag names
1115 instead of descriptions, or -S to print tag values only, tab-
1116 delimited on a single line. The -t option may be combined with
1117 -j, -php or -X to add tag table information ("table", tag "id",
1118 and "index" for cases where multiple conditional tags exist with
1119 the same ID).
1120 -T (-table)
1122 Output tag values in table form. Equivalent to -t -S -q -f.
1123 -v[NUM] (-verbose)
1125 Print verbose messages. NUM specifies the level of verbosity in
1126 the range 0-5, with higher numbers being more verbose. If NUM is
1127 not given, then each -v option increases the level of verbosity by
1128 1. With any level greater than 0, most other options are ignored
1129 and normal console output is suppressed unless specific tags are
1130 extracted. Using -v0 causes the console output buffer to be
1131 flushed after each line (which may be useful to avoid delays when
1132 piping exiftool output), and prints the name of each processed
1133 file when writing. Also see the -progress option.
1134 -w[+|!] EXT or FMT (-textOut)
1136 Write console output to files with names ending in EXT, one for
1137 each source file. The output file name is obtained by replacing
1138 the source file extension (including the '.') with the specified
1139 extension (and a '.' is added to the start of EXT if it doesn't
1140 already contain one). Alternatively, a FMT string may be used to
1141 give more control over the output file name and directory. In the
1142 format string, %d, %f and %e represent the directory, filename and
1143 extension of the source file, and %c represents a copy number
1144 which is automatically incremented if the file already exists. %d
1145 includes the trailing '/' if necessary, but %e does not include
1146 the leading '.'. For example:
1147 -w %d%f.txt # same effect as "-w txt"
1149 -w dir/%f_%e.out # write files to "dir" as "FILE_EXT.out"
1150 -w dir2/%d%f.txt # write to "dir2", keeping dir structure
1151 -w a%c.txt # write to "a.txt" or "a1.txt" or "a2.txt"...
1152 Existing files will not be changed unless an exclamation point is
1154 added to the option name (ie. -w! or -textOut!) to overwrite the
1155 file, or a plus sign (ie. -w+ or -textOut+) to append to the
1156 existing file. Both may be used (ie. -w+! or -textOut+!) to
1157 overwrite output files that didn't exist before the command was
1158 run, and append the output from multiple source files. For
1159 example, to write one output file for all source files in each
1160 directory:
1161 exiftool -filename -createdate -T -w+! %d/out.txt -r DIR
1163 Capitalized format codes %D, %F, %E and %C provide slightly
1165 different alternatives to the lower case versions. %D does not
1166 include the trailing '/', %F is the full filename including
1167 extension, %E includes the leading '.', and %C increments the
1168 count for each processed file (see below).
1169 Notes:
1171 1) In a Windows BAT file the "%" character is represented by "%%",
1173 so an argument like "%d%f.txt" is written as "%%d%%f.txt".
1174 2) If the argument for -w does not contain a valid format code
1176 (eg. %f), then it is interpreted as a file extension, but there
1177 are three different ways to create a single output file from
1178 multiple source files:
1179 # 1. Shell redirection
1181 exiftool FILE1 FILE2 ... > out.txt
1182 # 2. With the -w option and a zero-width format code
1184 exiftool -w+! %0fout.txt FILE1 FILE2 ...
1185 # 3. With the -W option (see the -W option below)
1187 exiftool -W+! out.txt FILE1 FILE2 ...
1188 Advanced features:
1190 A substring of the original file name, directory or extension may
1192 be taken by specifying a field width immediately following the '%'
1193 character. If the width is negative, the substring is taken from
1194 the end. The substring position (characters to ignore at the
1195 start or end of the string) may be given by a second optional
1196 value after a decimal point. For example:
1197 Input File Name Format Specifier Output File Name
1199 ---------------- ---------------- ----------------
1200 Picture-123.jpg %7f.txt Picture.txt
1201 Picture-123.jpg %-.4f.out Picture.out
1202 Picture-123.jpg %7f.%-3f Picture.123
1203 Picture-123a.jpg Meta%-3.1f.txt Meta123.txt
1204 (Note that special characters may have a width of greater than
1206 one.)
1207 For %d and %D, the field width/position specifiers may be applied
1209 to the directory levels instead of substring position by using a
1210 colon instead of a decimal point in the format specifier. For
1211 example:
1212 Source Dir Format Result Notes
1214 ------------ ------ ---------- ------------------
1215 pics/2012/02 %2:d pics/2012/ take top 2 levels
1216 pics/2012/02 %-:1d pics/2012/ up one directory level
1217 pics/2012/02 %:1d 2012/02/ ignore top level
1218 pics/2012/02 %1:1d 2012/ take 1 level after top
1219 pics/2012/02 %-1:D 02 bottom level folder name
1220 /Users/phil %:2d phil/ ignore top 2 levels
1221 (Note that the root directory counts as one level when an absolute
1223 path is used as in the last example above.)
1224 For %c, these modifiers have a different effects. If a field
1226 width is given, the copy number is padded with zeros to the
1227 specified width. A leading '-' adds a dash before the copy
1228 number, and a '+' adds an underline. By default, the copy number
1229 is omitted from the first file of a given name, but this can be
1230 changed by adding a decimal point to the modifier. For example:
1231 -w A%-cZ.txt # AZ.txt, A-1Z.txt, A-2Z.txt ...
1233 -w B%5c.txt # B.txt, B00001.txt, B00002.txt ...
1234 -w C%.c.txt # C0.txt, C1.txt, C2.txt ...
1235 -w D%-.c.txt # D-0.txt, D-1.txt, D-2.txt ...
1236 -w E%-.4c.txt # E-0000.txt, E-0001.txt, E-0002.txt ...
1237 -w F%-.4nc.txt # F-0001.txt, F-0002.txt, F-0003.txt ...
1238 -w G%+c.txt # G.txt, G_1.txt G_2.txt ...
1239 -w H%-lc.txt # H.txt, H-b.txt, H-c.txt ...
1240 -w I.%.3uc.txt # I.AAA.txt, I.AAB.txt, I.AAC.txt ...
1241 A special feature allows the copy number to be incremented for
1243 each processed file by using %C (upper case) instead of %c. This
1244 allows a sequential number to be added to output file names, even
1245 if the names are different. For %C, a copy number of zero is not
1246 omitted as it is with %c. A leading '-' causes the number to be
1247 reset at the start of each new directory, and '+' has no effect.
1248 The number before the decimal place gives the starting index, the
1249 number after the decimal place gives the field width. The
1250 following examples show the output filenames when used with the
1251 command "exiftool rose.jpg star.jpg jet.jpg ...":
1252 -w %C%f.txt # 0rose.txt, 1star.txt, 2jet.txt
1254 -w %f-%10C.txt # rose-10.txt, star-11.txt, jet-12.txt
1255 -w %.3C-%f.txt # 000-rose.txt, 001-star.txt, 002-jet.txt
1256 -w %57.4C%f.txt # 0057rose.txt, 0058star.txt, 0059jet.txt
1257 All format codes may be modified by 'l' or 'u' to specify lower or
1259 upper case respectively (ie. %le for a lower case file extension).
1260 When used to modify %c or %C, the numbers are changed to an
1261 alphabetical base (see example H above). Also, %c and %C may be
1262 modified by 'n' to count using natural numbers starting from 1,
1263 instead of 0 (see example F above).
1264 This same FMT syntax is used with the -o and -tagsFromFile
1266 options, although %c and %C are only valid for output file names.
1267 -W[+|!] FMT (-tagOut)
1269 This enhanced version of the -w option allows a separate output
1270 file to be created for each extracted tag. See the -w option
1271 documentation above for details of the basic functionality.
1272 Listed here are the differences between -W and -w:
1273 1) With -W, a new output file is created for each extracted tag.
1275 2) -W supports four additional format codes: %t, %g and %s
1277 represent the tag name, group name, and suggested extension for
1278 the output file (based on the format of the data), and %o
1279 represents the value of the OriginalRawFileName or
1280 OriginalFileName tag from the input file (including extension).
1281 The %g code may be followed by a single digit to specify the group
1282 family number (eg. %g1), otherwise family 0 is assumed. The
1283 substring width/position/case specifiers may be used with these
1284 format codes in exactly the same way as with %f and %e.
1285 3) The argument for -W is interpreted as a file name if it
1287 contains no format codes. (For -w, this would be a file
1288 extension.) This change allows a simple file name to be
1289 specified, which, when combined with the append feature, provides
1290 a method to write metadata from multiple source files to a single
1291 output file without the need for shell redirection. For example,
1292 the following pairs of commands give the same result:
1293 # overwriting existing text file
1295 exiftool test.jpg > out.txt # shell redirection
1296 exiftool test.jpg -W+! out.txt # equivalent -W option
1297 # append to existing text file
1299 exiftool test.jpg >> out.txt # shell redirection
1300 exiftool test.jpg -W+ out.txt # equivalent -W option
1301 4) Adding the -v option to -W sends a list of the tags and output
1303 file names to the console instead of giving a verbose dump of the
1304 entire file. (Unless appending all output to one file for each
1305 source file by using -W+ with an output file FMT that does not
1306 contain %t, %g, %s or %o.)
1307 5) Individual list items are stored in separate files when -W is
1309 combined with -b, but note that for separate files to be created
1310 %c or %C must be used in FMT to give the files unique names.
1311 -Wext EXT, --Wext EXT (-tagOutExt)
1313 This option is used to specify the type of output file(s) written
1314 by the -W option. An output file is written only if the suggested
1315 extension matches EXT. Multiple -Wext options may be used to
1316 write more than one type of file. Use --Wext to write all but the
1317 specified type(s).
1318 -X (-xmlFormat)
1320 Use ExifTool-specific RDF/XML formatting for console output.
1321 Implies the -a option, so duplicate tags are extracted. The
1322 formatting options -b, -D, -H, -l, -s, -sep, -struct and -t may be
1323 used in combination with -X to affect the output, but note that
1324 the tag ID (-D, -H and -t), binary data (-b) and structured output
1325 (-struct) options are not effective for the short output (-s).
1326 Another restriction of -s is that only one tag with a given group
1327 and name may appear in the output. Note that the tag ID options
1328 (-D, -H and -t) will produce non-standard RDF/XML unless the -l
1329 option is also used.
1330 By default, -X outputs flattened tags, so -struct should be added
1332 if required to preserve XMP structures. List-type tags with
1333 multiple values are formatted as an RDF Bag, but they are combined
1334 into a single string when -s or -sep is used. Using -L changes
1335 the XML encoding from "UTF-8" to "windows-1252". Other -charset
1336 settings change the encoding only if there is a corresponding
1337 standard XML character set. The -b option causes binary data
1338 values to be written, encoded in base64 if necessary. The -t
1339 option adds tag table information to the output (see -t for
1340 details).
1341 Note: This output is NOT the same as XMP because it uses
1343 dynamically-generated property names corresponding to the ExifTool
1344 tag names with ExifTool family 1 group names as namespaces, and
1345 not the standard XMP properties and namespaces. To write XMP
1346 instead, use the -o option with an XMP extension for the output
1347 file.
1348 Processing control
1350 -a, --a (-duplicates, --duplicates)
1352 Allow (-a) or suppress (--a) duplicate tag names to be extracted.
1353 By default, duplicate tags are suppressed when reading unless the
1354 -ee or -X options are used or the Duplicates option is enabled in
1355 the configuration file. This option has an affect when writing
1356 only to allow duplicate Warning messages to be shown. Duplicate
1357 tags are always extracted when copying.
1358 -e (--composite)
1360 Extract existing tags only -- don't generate composite tags.
1361 -ee[NUM] (-extractEmbedded)
1363 Extract information from embedded documents in EPS files, embedded
1364 EPS information and JPEG and Jpeg2000 images in PDF files,
1365 embedded MPF images in JPEG and MPO files, streaming metadata in
1366 AVCHD videos, and the resource fork of Mac OS files. Implies the
1367 -a option. Use -g3 or -G3 to identify the originating document
1368 for extracted information. Embedded documents containing sub-
1369 documents are indicated with dashes in the family 3 group name.
1370 (eg. "Doc2-3" is the 3rd sub-document of the 2nd embedded
1371 document.) Note that this option may increase processing time
1372 substantially, especially for PDF files with many embedded images
1373 or videos with streaming metadata.
1374 When used with -ee, the -p option is evaluated for each embedded
1376 document as if it were a separate input file. This allows, for
1377 example, generation of GPS track logs from timed metadata in
1378 videos. See <https://exiftool.org/geotag.html#Inverse> for
1379 examples.
1380 Setting NUM to 2 causes the H264 video stream in MP4 videos to be
1382 parsed until the first Supplemental Enhancement Information (SEI)
1383 message is decoded, or 3 to parse the entire H624 stream and
1384 decode all SEI information. For M2TS videos, a setting of 3
1385 causes the entire file to be parsed in search of unlisted programs
1386 which may contain timed GPS.
1387 -ext[+] EXT, --ext EXT (-extension)
1389 Process only files with (-ext) or without (--ext) a specified
1390 extension. There may be multiple -ext and --ext options. A plus
1391 sign may be added (ie. -ext+) to add the specified extension to
1392 the normally processed files. EXT may begin with a leading '.',
1393 which is ignored. Case is not significant. "*" may be used to
1394 process files with any extension (or none at all), as in the last
1395 three examples:
1396 exiftool -ext JPG DIR # process only JPG files
1398 exiftool --ext cr2 --ext dng DIR # supported files but CR2/DNG
1399 exiftool -ext+ txt DIR # supported files plus TXT
1400 exiftool -ext "*" DIR # process all files
1401 exiftool -ext "*" --ext xml DIR # process all but XML files
1402 exiftool -ext "*" --ext . DIR # all but those with no ext
1403 Using this option has two main advantages over specifying "*.EXT"
1405 on the command line: 1) It applies to files in subdirectories
1406 when combined with the -r option. 2) The -ext option is case-
1407 insensitive, which is useful when processing files on case-
1408 sensitive filesystems.
1409 Note that all files specified on the command line will be
1411 processed regardless of extension unless the -ext option is used.
1412 -F[OFFSET] (-fixBase)
1414 Fix the base for maker notes offsets. A common problem with some
1415 image editors is that offsets in the maker notes are not adjusted
1416 properly when the file is modified. This may cause the wrong
1417 values to be extracted for some maker note entries when reading
1418 the edited file. This option allows an integer OFFSET to be
1419 specified for adjusting the maker notes base offset. If no OFFSET
1420 is given, ExifTool takes its best guess at the correct base. Note
1421 that exiftool will automatically fix the offsets for images which
1422 store original offset information (eg. newer Canon models).
1423 Offsets are fixed permanently if -F is used when writing EXIF to
1424 an image. eg)
1425 exiftool -F -exif:resolutionunit=inches image.jpg
1427 -fast[NUM]
1429 Increase speed of extracting information. With -fast (or -fast1),
1430 ExifTool will not scan to the end of a JPEG image to check for an
1431 AFCP or PreviewImage trailer, or past the first comment in GIF
1432 images or the audio/video data in WAV/AVI files to search for
1433 additional metadata. These speed benefits are small when reading
1434 images directly from disk, but can be substantial if piping images
1435 through a network connection. For more substantial speed
1436 benefits, -fast2 also causes exiftool to avoid extracting any EXIF
1437 MakerNote information. -fast3 avoids extracting metadata from the
1438 file, and returns only pseudo System tags, but still reads the
1439 file header to obtain an educated guess at FileType. -fast4
1440 doesn't even read the file header, and returns only System tags
1441 and a FileType based on the file extension. -fast5 also disables
1442 generation of the Composite tags (like -e). Has no effect when
1443 writing.
1444 Note that a separate -fast setting may be used for evaluation of a
1446 -if condition, or when ordering files with the -fileOrder option.
1447 See the -if and -fileOrder options for details.
1448 -fileOrder[NUM] [-]TAG
1450 Set file processing order according to the sorted value of the
1451 specified TAG. For example, to process files in order of date:
1452 exiftool -fileOrder DateTimeOriginal DIR
1454 Additional -fileOrder options may be added for secondary sort
1456 keys. Numbers are sorted numerically, and all other values are
1457 sorted alphabetically. Files missing the specified tag are sorted
1458 last. The sort order may be reversed by prefixing the tag name
1459 with a "-" (eg. "-fileOrder -createdate"). Print conversion of
1460 the sorted values is disabled with the -n option, or a "#"
1461 appended to the tag name. Other formatting options (eg. -d) have
1462 no effect on the sorted values. Note that the -fileOrder option
1463 can have a large performance impact since it involves an
1464 additional processing pass of each file, but this impact may be
1465 reduced by specifying a NUM for the -fast level used during the
1466 metadata-extraction phase. For example, -fileOrder4 may be used
1467 if TAG is a pseudo System tag. If multiple -fileOrder options are
1468 used, the extraction is done at the lowest -fast level. Note that
1469 files are sorted across directory boundaries if multiple input
1470 directories are specified.
1471 -i DIR (-ignore)
1473 Ignore specified directory name. DIR may be either an individual
1474 folder name, or a full path. If a full path is specified, it must
1475 match the Directory tag exactly to be ignored. Use multiple -i
1476 options to ignore more than one directory name. A special DIR
1477 value of "SYMLINKS" (case sensitive) may be specified to avoid
1478 recursing into directories which are symbolic links when the -r
1479 option is used. As well, a value of "HIDDEN" (case sensitive) may
1480 be used to ignore files with names that start with a "." (ie.
1481 hidden files on Unix systems) when scanning a directory.
1482 -if[NUM] EXPR
1484 Specify a condition to be evaluated before processing each FILE.
1485 EXPR is a Perl-like logic expression containing tag names prefixed
1486 by "$" symbols. It is evaluated with the tags from each FILE in
1487 turn, and the file is processed only if the expression returns
1488 true. Unlike Perl variable names, tag names are not case
1489 sensitive and may contain a hyphen. As well, tag names may have a
1490 leading group names separated by colons, and/or a trailing "#"
1491 character to disable print conversion. The expression $GROUP:all
1492 evaluates to 1 if any tag exists in the specified "GROUP", or 0
1493 otherwise (see note 2 below). When multiple -if options are used,
1494 all conditions must be satisfied to process the file. Returns an
1495 exit status of 2 if all files fail the condition. Below are a few
1496 examples:
1497 # extract shutterspeed from all Canon images in a directory
1499 exiftool -shutterspeed -if '$make eq "Canon"' dir
1500 # add one hour to all images created on or after Apr. 2, 2006
1502 exiftool -alldates+=1 -if '$CreateDate ge "2006:04:02"' dir
1503 # set EXIF ISO value if possible, unless it is set already
1505 exiftool '-exif:iso<iso' -if 'not $exif:iso' dir
1506 # find images containing a specific keyword (case insensitive)
1508 exiftool -if '$keywords =~ /harvey/i' -filename dir
1509 Adding NUM to the -if option causes a separate processing pass to
1511 be executed for evaluating EXPR at a -fast level given by NUM (see
1512 the -fast option documentation for details). Without NUM, only
1513 one processing pass is done at the level specified by the -fast
1514 option. For example, using -if5 is possible if EXPR uses only
1515 pseudo System tags, and may significantly speed processing if
1516 enough files fail the condition.
1517 The expression has access to the current ExifTool object through
1519 $self, and the following special functions are available to allow
1520 short-circuiting of the file processing. Both functions have a
1521 return value of 1. Case is significant for function names.
1522 End() - end processing after this file
1524 EndDir() - end processing of files in this directory (not
1525 compatible with the B<-fileOrder> option)
1526 Notes:
1528 1) The -n and -b options also apply to tags used in EXPR.
1530 2) Some binary data blocks are not extracted unless specified
1532 explicitly. These tags are not available for use in the -if
1533 condition unless they are also specified on the command line. The
1534 alternative is to use the $GROUP:all syntax. (eg. Use $exif:all
1535 instead of $exif in EXPR to test for the existence of EXIF tags.)
1536 3) Tags in the string are interpolated the same way as with -p
1538 before the expression is evaluated. In this interpolation, $/ is
1539 converted to a newline and $$ represents a single "$" symbol (so
1540 Perl variables, if used, require a double "$").
1541 4) The condition may only test tags from the file being processed.
1543 To process one file based on tags from another, two steps are
1544 required. For example, to process XMP sidecar files in directory
1545 "DIR" based on tags from the associated NEF:
1546 exiftool -if EXPR -p '$directory/$filename' -ext nef DIR > nef.txt
1548 exiftool -@ nef.txt -srcfile %d%f.xmp ...
1549 5) The -a option has no effect on the evaluation of the
1551 expression, and the values of duplicate tags are accessible only
1552 by specifying a group name (such as a family 4 instance number,
1553 eg. $Copy1:TAG, $Copy2:TAG, etc).
1554 6) A special "OK" UserParam is available to test the success of
1556 the previous command when -execute was used, and may be used like
1557 any other tag in the condition (ie. "$OK").
1558 -m (-ignoreMinorErrors)
1560 Ignore minor errors and warnings. This enables writing to files
1561 with minor errors and disables some validation checks which could
1562 result in minor warnings. Generally, minor errors/warnings
1563 indicate a problem which usually won't result in loss of metadata
1564 if ignored. However, there are exceptions, so ExifTool leaves it
1565 up to you to make the final decision. Minor errors and warnings
1566 are indicated by "[minor]" at the start of the message. Warnings
1567 which affect processing when ignored are indicated by "[Minor]"
1568 (with a capital "M"). Note that this causes missing values in
1569 -tagsFromFile, -p and -if strings to be set to an empty string
1570 rather than an undefined value.
1571 -o OUTFILE or FMT (-out)
1573 Set the output file or directory name when writing information.
1574 Without this option, when any "real" tags are written the original
1575 file is renamed to "FILE_original" and output is written to FILE.
1576 When writing only FileName and/or Directory "pseudo" tags, -o
1577 causes the file to be copied instead of moved, but directories
1578 specified for either of these tags take precedence over that
1579 specified by the -o option.
1580 OUTFILE may be "-" to write to stdout. The output file name may
1582 also be specified using a FMT string in which %d, %f and %e
1583 represent the directory, file name and extension of FILE. Also,
1584 %c may be used to add a copy number. See the -w option for FMT
1585 string examples.
1586 The output file is taken to be a directory name if it already
1588 exists as a directory or if the name ends with '/'. Output
1589 directories are created if necessary. Existing files will not be
1590 overwritten. Combining the -overwrite_original option with -o
1591 causes the original source file to be erased after the output file
1592 is successfully written.
1593 A special feature of this option allows the creation of certain
1595 types of files from scratch, or with the metadata from another
1596 type of file. The following file types may be created using this
1597 technique:
1598 XMP, EXIF, EXV, MIE, ICC/ICM, VRD, DR4
1600 The output file type is determined by the extension of OUTFILE
1602 (specified as "-.EXT" when writing to stdout). The output file is
1603 then created from a combination of information in FILE (as if the
1604 -tagsFromFile option was used), and tag values assigned on the
1605 command line. If no FILE is specified, the output file may be
1606 created from scratch using only tags assigned on the command line.
1607 -overwrite_original
1609 Overwrite the original FILE (instead of preserving it by adding
1610 "_original" to the file name) when writing information to an
1611 image. Caution: This option should only be used if you already
1612 have separate backup copies of your image files. The overwrite is
1613 implemented by renaming a temporary file to replace the original.
1614 This deletes the original file and replaces it with the edited
1615 version in a single operation. When combined with -o, this option
1616 causes the original file to be deleted if the output file was
1617 successfully written (ie. the file is moved instead of copied).
1618 -overwrite_original_in_place
1620 Similar to -overwrite_original except that an extra step is added
1621 to allow the original file attributes to be preserved. For
1622 example, on a Mac this causes the original file creation date,
1623 type, creator, label color, icon, Finder tags, other extended
1624 attributes and hard links to the file to be preserved (but note
1625 that the Mac OS resource fork is always preserved unless
1626 specifically deleted with "-rsrc:all="). This is implemented by
1627 opening the original file in update mode and replacing its data
1628 with a copy of a temporary file before deleting the temporary.
1629 The extra step results in slower performance, so the
1630 -overwrite_original option should be used instead unless
1631 necessary.
1632 Note that this option reverts to the behaviour of the
1634 -overwrite_original option when also writing the FileName and/or
1635 Directory tags.
1636 -P (-preserve)
1638 Preserve the filesystem modification date/time ("FileModifyDate")
1639 of the original file when writing. Note that some filesystems
1640 store a creation date (ie. "FileCreateDate" on Windows and Mac
1641 systems) which is not affected by this option. This creation date
1642 is preserved on Windows systems where Win32API::File and
1643 Win32::API are available regardless of this setting. For other
1644 systems, the -overwrite_original_in_place option may be used if
1645 necessary to preserve the creation date. The -P option is
1646 superseded by any value written to the FileModifyDate tag.
1647 -password PASSWD
1649 Specify password to allow processing of password-protected PDF
1650 documents. If a password is required but not given, a warning is
1651 issued and the document is not processed. This option is ignored
1652 if a password is not required.
1653 -progress[:[TITLE]]
1655 Show the progress when processing files. Without a colon, the
1656 -progress option adds a progress count in brackets after the name
1657 of each processed file, giving the current file number and the
1658 total number of files to be processed. Implies the -v0 option,
1659 causing the names of processed files to also be printed when
1660 writing. When combined with the -if option, the total count
1661 includes all files before the condition is applied, but files that
1662 fail the condition will not have their names printed.
1663 If followed by a colon (ie. -progress:), the console window title
1665 is set according to the specified TITLE string. If no TITLE is
1666 given, a default TITLE string of "ExifTool %p%%" is assumed. In
1667 the string, %f represents the file name, %p is the progress as a
1668 percent, %r is the progress as a ratio, %##b is a progress bar of
1669 width "##" (20 characters if "##" is omitted), and %% is a %
1670 character. May be combined with the normal -progress option to
1671 also show the progress count in console messages. (Note: For this
1672 feature to function correctly on Mac/Linux, stderr must go to the
1673 console.)
1674 -q (-quiet)
1676 Quiet processing. One -q suppresses normal informational
1677 messages, and a second -q suppresses warnings as well. Error
1678 messages can not be suppressed, although minor errors may be
1679 downgraded to warnings with the -m option, which may then be
1680 suppressed with "-q -q".
1681 -r[.] (-recurse)
1683 Recursively process files in subdirectories. Only meaningful if
1684 FILE is a directory name. Subdirectories with names beginning
1685 with "." are not processed unless "." is added to the option name
1686 (ie. -r. or -recurse.). By default, exiftool will also follow
1687 symbolic links to directories if supported by the system, but this
1688 may be disabled with "-i SYMLINKS" (see the -i option for
1689 details). Combine this with -ext options to control the types of
1690 files processed.
1691 -scanForXMP
1693 Scan all files (even unsupported formats) for XMP information
1694 unless found already. When combined with the -fast option, only
1695 unsupported file types are scanned. Warning: It can be time
1696 consuming to scan large files.
1697 -u (-unknown)
1699 Extract values of unknown tags. Add another -u to also extract
1700 unknown information from binary data blocks. This option applies
1701 to tags with numerical tag ID's, and causes tag names like
1702 "Exif_0xc5d9" to be generated for unknown information. It has no
1703 effect on information types which have human-readable tag ID's
1704 (such as XMP), since unknown tags are extracted automatically from
1705 these formats.
1706 -U (-unknown2)
1708 Extract values of unknown tags as well as unknown information from
1709 some binary data blocks. This is the same as two -u options.
1710 -wm MODE (-writeMode)
1712 Set mode for writing/creating tags. MODE is a string of one or
1713 more characters from the list below. The default write mode is
1714 "wcg".
1715 w - Write existing tags
1717 c - Create new tags
1718 g - create new Groups as necessary
1719 For example, use "-wm cg" to only create new tags (and avoid
1721 editing existing ones).
1722 The level of the group is the SubDirectory level in the metadata
1724 structure. For XMP or IPTC this is the full XMP/IPTC block (the
1725 family 0 group), but for EXIF this is the individual IFD (the
1726 family 1 group).
1727 -z (-zip)
1729 When reading, causes information to be extracted from .gz and .bz2
1730 compressed images (only one image per archive; requires gzip and
1731 bzip2 to be available). When writing, causes compressed
1732 information to be written if supported by the metadata format (eg.
1733 compressed textual metadata in PNG), disables the recommended
1734 padding in embedded XMP (saving 2424 bytes when writing XMP in a
1735 file), and writes XMP in shorthand format -- the equivalent of
1736 setting the API Compress=1 and Compact="NoPadding,Shorthand".
1737 Other options
1739 -@ ARGFILE
1741 Read command-line arguments from the specified file. The file
1742 contains one argument per line (NOT one option per line -- some
1743 options require additional arguments, and all arguments must be
1744 placed on separate lines). Blank lines and lines beginning with
1745 "#" are ignored (unless they start with "#[CSTR]", in which case
1746 the rest of the line is treated as a C string, allowing standard C
1747 escape sequences such as "\n" for a newline). White space at the
1748 start of a line is removed. Normal shell processing of arguments
1749 is not performed, which among other things means that arguments
1750 should not be quoted and spaces are treated as any other
1751 character. ARGFILE may exist relative to either the current
1752 directory or the exiftool directory unless an absolute pathname is
1753 given.
1754 For example, the following ARGFILE will set the value of Copyright
1756 to "Copyright YYYY, Phil Harvey", where "YYYY" is the year of
1757 CreateDate:
1758 -d
1760 %Y
1761 -copyright<Copyright $createdate, Phil Harvey
1762 Arguments in ARGFILE behave exactly the same as if they were
1764 entered at the location of the -@ option on the command line, with
1765 the exception that the -config and -common_args options may not be
1766 used in an ARGFILE.
1767 -k (-pause)
1769 Pause with the message "-- press any key --" or "-- press RETURN
1770 --" (depending on your system) before terminating. This option is
1771 used to prevent the command window from closing when run as a
1772 Windows drag and drop application.
1773 -list, -listw, -listf, -listr, -listwf, -listg[NUM], -listd, -listx
1775 Print a list of all valid tag names (-list), all writable tag
1776 names (-listw), all supported file extensions (-listf), all
1777 recognized file extensions (-listr), all writable file extensions
1778 (-listwf), all tag groups [in a specified family] (-listg[NUM]),
1779 all deletable tag groups (-listd), or an XML database of tag
1780 details including language translations (-listx). The -list,
1781 -listw and -listx options may be followed by an additional
1782 argument of the form "-GROUP:All" to list only tags in a specific
1783 group, where "GROUP" is one or more family 0-2 group names
1784 (excepting EXIF IFD groups) separated by colons. With -listg, NUM
1785 may be given to specify the group family, otherwise family 0 is
1786 assumed. The -l option may be combined with -listf, -listr or
1787 -listwf to add file descriptions to the list. The -lang option
1788 may be combined with -listx to output descriptions in a single
1789 language. Here are some examples:
1790 -list # list all tag names
1792 -list -EXIF:All # list all EXIF tags
1793 -list -xmp:time:all # list all XMP tags relating to time
1794 -listw -XMP-dc:All # list all writable XMP-dc tags
1795 -listf # list all supported file extensions
1796 -listr # list all recognized file extensions
1797 -listwf # list all writable file extensions
1798 -listg1 # list all groups in family 1
1799 -listd # list all deletable groups
1800 -listx -EXIF:All # list database of EXIF tags in XML format
1801 -listx -XMP:All -s # list short XML database of XMP tags
1802 When combined with -listx, the -s option shortens the output by
1804 omitting the descriptions and values (as in the last example
1805 above), and -f adds a 'flags' attribute if applicable. The flags
1806 are formatted as a comma-separated list of the following possible
1807 values: Avoid, Binary, List, Mandatory, Permanent, Protected,
1808 Unknown and Unsafe (see the Tag Name documentation). For XMP List
1809 tags, the list type (Alt, Bag or Seq) is added to the flags, and
1810 flattened structure tags are indicated by a Flattened flag.
1811 Note that none of the -list options require an input FILE.
1813 -ver Print exiftool version number. The -v option may be added to
1815 print addition system information (see the README file of the full
1816 distribution for more details about optional libraries), or -v2 to
1817 also list the Perl include directories.
1818 -- Indicates the end of options. Any remaining arguments are treated
1820 as file names, even if they begin with a dash ("-").
1821 Special features
1823 -geotag TRKFILE
1825 Geotag images from the specified GPS track log file. Using the
1826 -geotag option is equivalent to writing a value to the "Geotag"
1827 tag. The GPS position is interpolated from the track at a time
1828 specified by the value written to the "Geotime" tag. If "Geotime"
1829 is not specified, the value is copied from "DateTimeOriginal#"
1830 (the "#" is added to copy the unformatted value, avoiding
1831 potential conflicts with the -d option). For example, the
1832 following two commands are equivalent:
1833 exiftool -geotag trk.log image.jpg
1835 exiftool -geotag trk.log "-Geotime<DateTimeOriginal#" image.jpg
1836 When the "Geotime" value is converted to UTC, the local system
1838 timezone is assumed unless the date/time value contains a
1839 timezone. Writing "Geotime" causes the following tags to be
1840 written (provided they can be calculated from the track log, and
1841 they are supported by the destination metadata format):
1842 GPSLatitude, GPSLatitudeRef, GPSLongitude, GPSLongitudeRef,
1843 GPSAltitude, GPSAltitudeRef, GPSDateStamp, GPSTimeStamp,
1844 GPSDateTime, GPSTrack, GPSTrackRef, GPSSpeed, GPSSpeedRef,
1845 GPSImgDirection, GPSImgDirectionRef, GPSPitch, GPSRoll,
1846 AmbientTemperature and CameraElevationAngle. By default, tags are
1847 created in EXIF, and updated in XMP only if they already exist.
1848 However, "EXIF:Geotime" or "XMP:Geotime" may be specified to write
1849 only EXIF or XMP tags respectively. Note that GPSPitch and
1850 GPSRoll are non-standard, and require user-defined tags in order
1851 to be written.
1852 The "Geosync" tag may be used to specify a time correction which
1854 is applied to each "Geotime" value for synchronization with GPS
1855 time. For example, the following command compensates for image
1856 times which are 1 minute and 20 seconds behind GPS:
1857 exiftool -geosync=+1:20 -geotag a.log DIR
1859 Advanced "Geosync" features allow a linear time drift correction
1861 and synchronization from previously geotagged images. See
1862 "geotag.html" in the full ExifTool distribution for more
1863 information.
1864 Multiple -geotag options may be used to concatenate GPS track log
1866 data. Also, a single -geotag option may be used to load multiple
1867 track log files by using wildcards in the TRKFILE name, but note
1868 that in this case TRKFILE must be quoted on most systems (with the
1869 notable exception of Windows) to prevent filename expansion. For
1870 example:
1871 exiftool -geotag "TRACKDIR/*.log" IMAGEDIR
1873 Currently supported track file formats are GPX, NMEA RMC/GGA/GLL,
1875 KML, IGC, Garmin XML and TCX, Magellan PMGNTRK, Honeywell PTNTHPR,
1876 Bramor gEO, Winplus Beacon TXT, and GPS/IMU CSV files. See
1877 "GEOTAGGING EXAMPLES" for examples. Also see "geotag.html" in the
1878 full ExifTool distribution and the Image::ExifTool Options for
1879 more details and for information about geotag configuration
1880 options.
1881 -globalTimeShift SHIFT
1883 Shift all formatted date/time values by the specified amount when
1884 reading. Does not apply to unformatted (-n) output. SHIFT takes
1885 the same form as the date/time shift when writing (see
1886 Image::ExifTool::Shift.pl for details), with a negative shift
1887 being indicated with a minus sign ("-") at the start of the SHIFT
1888 string. For example:
1889 # return all date/times, shifted back by 1 hour
1891 exiftool -globalTimeShift -1 -time:all a.jpg
1892 # set the file name from the shifted CreateDate (-1 day) for
1894 # all images in a directory
1895 exiftool "-filename<createdate" -globaltimeshift "-0:0:1 0:0:0" \
1896 -d %Y%m%d-%H%M%S.%%e dir
1897 -use MODULE
1899 Add features from specified plug-in MODULE. Currently, the MWG
1900 module is the only plug-in module distributed with exiftool. This
1901 module adds read/write support for tags as recommended by the
1902 Metadata Working Group. As a convenience, "-use MWG" is assumed
1903 if the "MWG" group is specified for any tag on the command line.
1904 See the MWG Tags documentation for more details. Note that this
1905 option is not reversible, and remains in effect until the
1906 application terminates, even across the -execute option.
1907 Utilities
1909 -restore_original
1911 -delete_original[!]
1912 These utility options automate the maintenance of the "_original"
1913 files created by exiftool. They have no effect on files without
1914 an "_original" copy. The -restore_original option restores the
1915 specified files from their original copies by renaming the
1916 "_original" files to replace the edited versions. For example,
1917 the following command restores the originals of all JPG images in
1918 directory "DIR":
1919 exiftool -restore_original -ext jpg DIR
1921 The -delete_original option deletes the "_original" copies of all
1923 files specified on the command line. Without a trailing "!" this
1924 option prompts for confirmation before continuing. For example,
1925 the following command deletes "a.jpg_original" if it exists, after
1926 asking "Are you sure?":
1927 exiftool -delete_original a.jpg
1929 These options may not be used with other options to read or write
1931 tag values in the same command, but may be combined with options
1932 such -ext, -if, -r, -q and -v.
1933 Advanced options
1935 Among other things, the advanced options allow complex processing to be
1937 performed from a single command without the need for additional
1938 scripting. This may be particularly useful for implementations such as
1939 Windows drag-and-drop applications. These options may also be used to
1940 improve performance in multi-pass processing by reducing the overhead
1941 required to load exiftool for each invocation.
1942 -api OPT[[^]=[VAL]]
1944 Set ExifTool API option. OPT is an API option name. The option
1945 value is set to 1 if =VAL is omitted. If VAL is omitted, the
1946 option value is set to undef if "=" is used, or an empty string
1947 with "^=". See Image::ExifTool Options for a list of available
1948 API options. This overrides API options set via the config file.
1949 -common_args
1951 Specifies that all arguments following this option are common to
1952 all executed commands when -execute is used. This and the -config
1953 option are the only options that may not be used inside a -@
1954 ARGFILE. Note that by definition this option and its arguments
1955 MUST come after all other options on the command line.
1956 -config CFGFILE
1958 Load specified configuration file instead of the default
1959 ".ExifTool_config". If used, this option must come before all
1960 other arguments on the command line and applies to all -execute'd
1961 commands. The CFGFILE must exist relative to the current working
1962 directory or the exiftool application directory unless an absolute
1963 path is specified. Loading of the default config file may be
1964 disabled by setting CFGFILE to an empty string (ie. ""). See
1965 <https://exiftool.org/config.html> and config_files/example.config
1966 in the full ExifTool distribution for details about the
1967 configuration file syntax.
1968 -echo[NUM] TEXT
1970 Echo TEXT to stdout (-echo or -echo1) or stderr (-echo2). Text is
1971 output as the command line is parsed, before the processing of any
1972 input files. NUM may also be 3 or 4 to output text (to stdout or
1973 stderr respectively) after processing is complete. For -echo3 and
1974 -echo4, "${status}" may be used in the TEXT string to represent
1975 the numerical exit status of the command (see "EXIT STATUS").
1976 -efile[NUM][!] ERRFILE
1978 Save the names of files giving errors (NUM missing or 1), files
1979 that were unchanged (NUM is 2), files that fail the -if condition
1980 (NUM is 4), or any combination thereof by summing NUM (eg. -efile3
1981 is the same has having both -efile and -efile2 options with the
1982 same ERRFILE). By default, file names are appended to any
1983 existing ERRFILE, but ERRFILE is overwritten if an exclamation
1984 point is added to the option (eg. -efile!). Saves the name of the
1985 file specified by the -srcfile option if applicable.
1986 -execute[NUM]
1988 Execute command for all arguments up to this point on the command
1989 line (plus any arguments specified by -common_args). The result
1990 is as if the commands were executed as separate command lines
1991 (with the exception of the -config and -use options which remain
1992 in effect for subsequent commands). Allows multiple commands to
1993 be executed from a single command line. NUM is an optional number
1994 that is echoed in the "{ready}" message when using the -stay_open
1995 feature. If a NUM is specified, the -q option no longer
1996 suppresses the output "{readyNUM}" message.
1997 -list_dir
1999 List directories themselves instead of their contents. This
2000 option effectively causes directories to be treated as normal
2001 files when reading and writing. For example, with this option the
2002 output of the "ls -la" command on Mac/Linux may be approximated by
2003 this exiftool command:
2004 exiftool -list_dir -T -ls-l -api systemtags -fast5 .* *
2006 (The -T option formats the output in tab-separated columns, -ls-l
2008 is a shortcut tag, the API SystemTags option is required to
2009 extract some necessary tags, and the -fast5 option is added for
2010 speed since only system tags are being extracted.)
2011 -srcfile FMT
2013 Specify a different source file to be processed based on the name
2014 of the original FILE. This may be useful in some special
2015 situations for processing related preview images or sidecar files.
2016 See the -w option for a description of the FMT syntax. Note that
2017 file name FMT strings for all options are based on the original
2018 FILE specified from the command line, not the name of the source
2019 file specified by -srcfile.
2020 For example, to copy metadata from NEF files to the corresponding
2022 JPG previews in a directory where other JPG images may exist:
2023 exiftool -ext nef -tagsfromfile @ -srcfile %d%f.jpg dir
2025 If more than one -srcfile option is specified, the files are
2027 tested in order and the first existing source file is processed.
2028 If none of the source files already exist, then exiftool uses the
2029 first -srcfile specified.
2030 A FMT of "@" may be used to represent the original FILE, which may
2032 be useful when specifying multiple -srcfile options (eg. to fall
2033 back to processing the original FILE if no sidecar exists).
2034 When this option is used, two special UserParam tags
2036 (OriginalFileName and OriginalDirectory) are generated to allow
2037 access to the original FILE name and directory.
2038 -stay_open FLAG
2040 If FLAG is 1 or "True" (case insensitive), causes exiftool keep
2041 reading from the -@ ARGFILE even after reaching the end of file.
2042 This feature allows calling applications to pre-load exiftool,
2043 thus avoiding the overhead of loading exiftool for each command.
2044 The procedure is as follows:
2045 1) Execute "exiftool -stay_open True -@ ARGFILE", where ARGFILE is
2047 the name of an existing (possibly empty) argument file or "-" to
2048 pipe arguments from the standard input.
2049 2) Write exiftool command-line arguments to ARGFILE, one argument
2051 per line (see the -@ option for details).
2052 3) Write "-execute\n" to ARGFILE, where "\n" represents a newline
2054 sequence. (Note: You may need to flush your write buffers here if
2055 using buffered output.) ExifTool will then execute the command
2056 with the arguments received up to this point, send a "{ready}"
2057 message to stdout when done (unless the -q or -T option is used),
2058 and continue trying to read arguments for the next command from
2059 ARGFILE. To aid in command/response synchronization, any number
2060 appended to the -execute option is echoed in the "{ready}"
2061 message. For example, "-execute613" results in "{ready613}".
2062 When this number is added, -q no longer suppresses the "{ready}"
2063 message. (Also, see the -echo3 and -echo4 options for additional
2064 ways to pass signals back to your application.)
2065 4) Repeat steps 2 and 3 for each command.
2067 5) Write "-stay_open\nFalse\n" (or "-stay_open\n0\n") to ARGFILE
2069 when done. This will cause exiftool to process any remaining
2070 command-line arguments then exit normally.
2071 The input ARGFILE may be changed at any time before step 5 above
2073 by writing the following lines to the currently open ARGFILE:
2074 -stay_open
2076 True
2077 -@
2078 NEWARGFILE
2079 This causes ARGFILE to be closed, and NEWARGFILE to be kept open.
2081 (Without the -stay_open here, exiftool would have returned to
2082 reading arguments from ARGFILE after reaching the end of
2083 NEWARGFILE.)
2084 Note: When writing arguments to a disk file there is a delay of
2086 up to 0.01 seconds after writing "-execute\n" before exiftool
2087 starts processing the command. This delay may be avoided by
2088 sending a CONT signal to the exiftool process immediately after
2089 writing "-execute\n". (There is no associated delay when writing
2090 arguments via a pipe with "-@ -", so the signal is not necessary
2091 when using this technique.)
2092 -userParam PARAM[[^]=[VAL]]
2094 Set user parameter. PARAM is an arbitrary user parameter name.
2095 This is an interface to the API UserParam option (see the
2096 Image::ExifTool Options documentation), and provides a method to
2097 access user-defined parameters in arguments to the -if and -p
2098 options as if they were any other tag. Appending a hash tag ("#")
2099 to PARAM (eg. "-userParam MyTag#=yes") also causes the parameter
2100 to be extracted as a normal tag in the UserParam group. Similar
2101 to the -api option, the parameter value is set to 1 if =VAL is
2102 omitted, undef if just VAL is omitted with "=", or an empty string
2103 if VAL is omitted with "^=".
2104 exiftool -p '$test from $filename' -userparam test=Hello FILE
2106 Advanced formatting feature
2108 An advanced formatting feature allows modification of the value of any
2110 tag interpolated within a -if or -p option argument, or a -tagsFromFile
2111 redirection string. Tag names within these strings are prefixed by a
2112 "$" symbol, and an arbitrary Perl expression may be applied to the tag
2113 value by placing braces around the tag name and inserting the
2114 expression after the name, separated by a semicolon (ie.
2115 "${TAG;EXPR}"). The expression acts on the value of the tag through
2116 the default input variable ($_), and has access to the full ExifTool
2117 API through the current ExifTool object ($self) and the tag key ($tag).
2118 It may contain any valid Perl code, including translation ("tr///") and
2119 substitution ("s///") operations, but note that braces within the
2120 expression must be balanced. The example below prints the camera Make
2121 with spaces translated to underlines, and multiple consecutive
2122 underlines replaced by a single underline:
2123 exiftool -p '${make;tr/ /_/;s/__+/_/g}' image.jpg
2125 An "@" may be added after the tag name to make the expression act on
2127 individual list items for list-type tags, simplifying list processing.
2128 Set $_ to undef to remove an item from the list. As an example, the
2129 following command returns all subjects not containing the string "xxx":
2130 exiftool -p '${subject@;$_=undef if /xxx/}' image.jpg
2132 A default expression of "tr(/\\?*:|"<>\0)()d" is assumed if the
2134 expression is empty (ie. "${TAG;}"). This removes the characters / \ ?
2135 * : | < > and null from the printed value. (These characters are
2136 illegal in Windows file names, so this feature is useful if tag values
2137 are used in file names.)
2138 Helper functions
2140 "DateFmt"
2142 Simplifies reformatting of individual date/time values. This function
2144 acts on a standard EXIF-formatted date/time value in $_ and formats it
2145 according to the specified format string (see the -d option). To avoid
2146 trying to reformat an already-formatted date/time value, a "#" must be
2147 added to the tag name (as in the example below) if the -d option is
2148 also used. For example:
2149 exiftool -p '${createdate#;DateFmt("%Y-%m-%d_%H%M%S")}' a.jpg
2151 "ShiftTime"
2153 Shifts EXIF-formatted date/time string by a specified amount. Start
2155 with a leading minus sign to shift backwards in time. See
2156 Image::ExifTool::Shift.pl for details about shift syntax. For example,
2157 to shift a date/time value back by one year:
2158 exiftool -p '${createdate;ShiftTime("-1:0:0 0")}' a.jpg
2160 "NoDups"
2162 Removes duplicate items from a list with a separator specified by the
2164 -sep option. This function is most useful when copying list-type tags.
2165 For example, the following command may be used to remove duplicate
2166 Keywords:
2167 exiftool -sep '##' '-keywords<${keywords;NoDups}' a.jpg
2169 The -sep option is necessary to split the string back into individual
2171 list items when writing to a list-type tag.
2172 An optional flag argument may be set to 1 to cause "NoDups" to set $_
2174 to undef if no duplicates existed, thus preventing the file from being
2175 rewritten unnecessarily:
2176 exiftool -sep '##' '-keywords<${keywords;NoDups(1)}' a.jpg
2178 Note that function names are case sensitive.
2180
2182 In Windows, command-line arguments are specified using the current code
2183 page and are recoded automatically to the system code page. This
2184 recoding is not done for arguments in ExifTool arg files, so by default
2185 filenames in arg files use the system code page. Unfortunately, these
2186 code pages are not complete character sets, so not all file names may
2187 be represented.
2188 ExifTool 9.79 and later allow the file name encoding to be specified
2190 with "-charset filename=CHARSET", where "CHARSET" is the name of a
2191 valid ExifTool character set, preferably "UTF8" (see the -charset
2192 option for a complete list). Setting this triggers the use of Windows
2193 wide-character i/o routines, thus providing support for most Unicode
2194 file names (see note 4). But note that it is not trivial to pass
2195 properly encoded file names on the Windows command line (see
2196 <https://exiftool.org/faq.html#Q18> for details), so placing them in a
2197 UTF-8 encoded -@ argfile and using "-charset filename=utf8" is
2198 recommended if possible.
2199 A warning is issued if a specified filename contains special characters
2201 and the filename character set was not provided. However, the warning
2202 may be disabled by setting "-charset filename=""", and ExifTool may
2203 still function correctly if the system code page matches the character
2204 set used for the file names.
2205 When a directory name is provided, the file name encoding need not be
2207 specified (unless the directory name contains special characters), and
2208 ExifTool will automatically use wide-character routines to scan the
2209 directory.
2210 The filename character set applies to the FILE arguments as well as
2212 filename arguments of -@, -geotag, -o, -p, -srcfile, -tagsFromFile,
2213 -csv=, -j= and -TAG<=. However, it does not apply to the -config
2214 filename, which always uses the system character set. The "-charset
2215 filename=" option must come before the -@ option to be effective, but
2216 the order doesn't matter with respect to other options.
2217 Notes:
2219 1) FileName and Directory tag values still use the same encoding as
2221 other tag values, and are converted to/from the filename character set
2222 when writing/reading if specified.
2223 2) Unicode support is not yet implemented for other Windows-based
2225 systems like Cygwin.
2226 3) See "WRITING READ-ONLY FILES" below for a note about editing read-
2228 only files with Unicode names.
2229 4) Unicode file names with surrogate pairs (code points over U+FFFF)
2231 still cause problems.
2232
2234 In general, ExifTool may be used to write metadata to read-only files
2235 provided that the user has write permission in the directory. However,
2236 there are three cases where file write permission is also required:
2237 1) When using the -overwrite_original_in_place option.
2239 2) When writing only pseudo System tags (eg. FileModifyDate).
2241 3) On Windows if the file has Unicode characters in its name, and a)
2243 the -overwrite_original option is used, or b) the "_original" backup
2244 already exists.
2245 Hidden files in Windows behave as read-only files when attempting to
2247 write any real tags to the file -- an error is generated when using the
2248 -overwrite_original_in_place, otherwise writing should be successful
2249 and the hidden attribute will be removed. But the -if option may be
2250 used to avoid processing hidden files (provided Win32API::File is
2251 available):
2252 exiftool -if "$fileattributes !~ /Hidden/" ...
2254
2256 Note: Beware when cutting and pasting these examples into your
2257 terminal! Some characters such as single and double quotes and hyphens
2258 may have been changed into similar-looking yet functionally-different
2259 characters by the text formatter used to display this documentation.
2260 Also note that Windows users must use double quotes instead of single
2261 quotes as below around arguments containing special characters.
2262 exiftool -a -u -g1 a.jpg
2264 Print all meta information in an image, including duplicate and
2265 unknown tags, sorted by group (for family 1). For performance
2266 reasons, this command may not extract all available metadata.
2267 (Metadata in embedded documents, metadata extracted by external
2268 utilities, and metadata requiring excessive processing time may
2269 not be extracted). Add "-ee3" and "-api RequestAll=3" to the
2270 command to extract absolutely everything available.
2271 exiftool -common dir
2273 Print common meta information for all images in "dir". "-common"
2274 is a shortcut tag representing common EXIF meta information.
2275 exiftool -T -createdate -aperture -shutterspeed -iso dir > out.txt
2277 List specified meta information in tab-delimited column form for
2278 all images in "dir" to an output text file named "out.txt".
2279 exiftool -s -ImageSize -ExposureTime b.jpg
2281 Print ImageSize and ExposureTime tag names and values.
2282 exiftool -l -canon c.jpg d.jpg
2284 Print standard Canon information from two image files.
2285 exiftool -r -w .txt -common pictures
2287 Recursively extract common meta information from files in
2288 "pictures" directory, writing text output to ".txt" files with the
2289 same names.
2290 exiftool -b -ThumbnailImage image.jpg > thumbnail.jpg
2292 Save thumbnail image from "image.jpg" to a file called
2293 "thumbnail.jpg".
2294 exiftool -b -JpgFromRaw -w _JFR.JPG -ext NEF -r .
2296 Recursively extract JPG image from all Nikon NEF files in the
2297 current directory, adding "_JFR.JPG" for the name of the output
2298 JPG files.
2299 exiftool -a -b -W %d%f_%t%-c.%s -preview:all dir
2301 Extract all types of preview images (ThumbnailImage, PreviewImage,
2302 JpgFromRaw, etc.) from files in directory "dir", adding the tag
2303 name to the output preview image file names.
2304 exiftool -d '%r %a, %B %e, %Y' -DateTimeOriginal -S -s -ext jpg .
2306 Print formatted date/time for all JPG files in the current
2307 directory.
2308 exiftool -IFD1:XResolution -IFD1:YResolution image.jpg
2310 Extract image resolution from EXIF IFD1 information (thumbnail
2311 image IFD).
2312 exiftool '-*resolution*' image.jpg
2314 Extract all tags with names containing the word "Resolution" from
2315 an image.
2316 exiftool -xmp:author:all -a image.jpg
2318 Extract all author-related XMP information from an image.
2319 exiftool -xmp -b a.jpg > out.xmp
2321 Extract complete XMP data record intact from "a.jpg" and write it
2322 to "out.xmp" using the special "XMP" tag (see the Extra tags in
2323 Image::ExifTool::TagNames).
2324 exiftool -p '$filename has date $dateTimeOriginal' -q -f dir
2326 Print one line of output containing the file name and
2327 DateTimeOriginal for each image in directory "dir".
2328 exiftool -ee3 -p '$gpslatitude, $gpslongitude, $gpstimestamp' a.m2ts
2330 Extract all GPS positions from an AVCHD video.
2331 exiftool -icc_profile -b -w icc image.jpg
2333 Save complete ICC_Profile from an image to an output file with the
2334 same name and an extension of ".icc".
2335 exiftool -htmldump -w tmp/%f_%e.html t/images
2337 Generate HTML pages from a hex dump of EXIF information in all
2338 images from the "t/images" directory. The output HTML files are
2339 written to the "tmp" directory (which is created if it didn't
2340 exist), with names of the form 'FILENAME_EXT.html'.
2341 exiftool -a -b -ee -embeddedimage -W Image_%.3g3.%s file.pdf
2343 Extract embedded JPG and JP2 images from a PDF file. The output
2344 images will have file names like "Image_#.jpg" or "Image_#.jp2",
2345 where "#" is the ExifTool family 3 embedded document number for
2346 the image.
2347
2349 Note that quotes are necessary around arguments which contain certain
2350 special characters such as ">", "<" or any white space. These quoting
2351 techniques are shell dependent, but the examples below will work for
2352 most Unix shells. With the Windows cmd shell however, double quotes
2353 should be used (eg. -Comment="This is a new comment").
2354 exiftool -Comment='This is a new comment' dst.jpg
2356 Write new comment to a JPG image (replaces any existing comment).
2357 exiftool -comment= -o newdir -ext jpg .
2359 Remove comment from all JPG images in the current directory,
2360 writing the modified images to a new directory.
2361 exiftool -keywords=EXIF -keywords=editor dst.jpg
2363 Replace existing keyword list with two new keywords ("EXIF" and
2364 "editor").
2365 exiftool -Keywords+=word -o newfile.jpg src.jpg
2367 Copy a source image to a new file, and add a keyword ("word") to
2368 the current list of keywords.
2369 exiftool -exposurecompensation+=-0.5 a.jpg
2371 Decrement the value of ExposureCompensation by 0.5 EV. Note that
2372 += with a negative value is used for decrementing because the -=
2373 operator is used for conditional deletion (see next example).
2374 exiftool -credit-=xxx dir
2376 Delete Credit information from all files in a directory where the
2377 Credit value was "xxx".
2378 exiftool -xmp:description-de='kühl' -E dst.jpg
2380 Write alternate language for XMP:Description, using HTML character
2381 escaping to input special characters.
2382 exiftool -all= dst.jpg
2384 Delete all meta information from an image. Note: You should NOT
2385 do this to RAW images (except DNG) since proprietary RAW image
2386 formats often contain information in the makernotes that is
2387 necessary for converting the image.
2388 exiftool -all= -comment='lonely' dst.jpg
2390 Delete all meta information from an image and add a comment back
2391 in. (Note that the order is important: "-comment='lonely' -all="
2392 would also delete the new comment.)
2393 exiftool -all= --jfif:all dst.jpg
2395 Delete all meta information except JFIF group from an image.
2396 exiftool -Photoshop:All= dst.jpg
2398 Delete Photoshop meta information from an image (note that the
2399 Photoshop information also includes IPTC).
2400 exiftool -r -XMP-crss:all= DIR
2402 Recursively delete all XMP-crss information from images in a
2403 directory.
2404 exiftool '-ThumbnailImage<=thumb.jpg' dst.jpg
2406 Set the thumbnail image from specified file (Note: The quotes are
2407 necessary to prevent shell redirection).
2408 exiftool '-JpgFromRaw<=%d%f_JFR.JPG' -ext NEF -r .
2410 Recursively write JPEG images with filenames ending in "_JFR.JPG"
2411 to the JpgFromRaw tag of like-named files with extension ".NEF" in
2412 the current directory. (This is the inverse of the "-JpgFromRaw"
2413 command of the "READING EXAMPLES" section above.)
2414 exiftool -DateTimeOriginal-='0:0:0 1:30:0' dir
2416 Adjust original date/time of all images in directory "dir" by
2417 subtracting one hour and 30 minutes. (This is equivalent to
2418 "-DateTimeOriginal-=1.5". See Image::ExifTool::Shift.pl for
2419 details.)
2420 exiftool -createdate+=3 -modifydate+=3 a.jpg b.jpg
2422 Add 3 hours to the CreateDate and ModifyDate timestamps of two
2423 images.
2424 exiftool -AllDates+=1:30 -if '$make eq "Canon"' dir
2426 Shift the values of DateTimeOriginal, CreateDate and ModifyDate
2427 forward by 1 hour and 30 minutes for all Canon images in a
2428 directory. (The AllDates tag is provided as a shortcut for these
2429 three tags, allowing them to be accessed via a single tag.)
2430 exiftool -xmp:city=Kingston image1.jpg image2.nef
2432 Write a tag to the XMP group of two images. (Without the "xmp:"
2433 this tag would get written to the IPTC group since "City" exists
2434 in both, and IPTC is preferred by default.)
2435 exiftool -LightSource-='Unknown (0)' dst.tiff
2437 Delete "LightSource" tag only if it is unknown with a value of 0.
2438 exiftool -whitebalance-=auto -WhiteBalance=tung dst.jpg
2440 Set "WhiteBalance" to "Tungsten" only if it was previously "Auto".
2441 exiftool -comment-= -comment='new comment' a.jpg
2443 Write a new comment only if the image doesn't have one already.
2444 exiftool -o %d%f.xmp dir
2446 Create XMP meta information data files for all images in "dir".
2447 exiftool -o test.xmp -owner=Phil -title='XMP File'
2449 Create an XMP data file only from tags defined on the command
2450 line.
2451 exiftool '-ICC_Profile<=%d%f.icc' image.jpg
2453 Write ICC_Profile to an image from a ".icc" file of the same name.
2454 exiftool -hierarchicalkeywords='{keyword=one,children={keyword=B}}'
2456 Write structured XMP information. See
2457 <https://exiftool.org/struct.html> for more details.
2458 exiftool -trailer:all= image.jpg
2460 Delete any trailer found after the end of image (EOI) in a JPEG
2461 file. A number of digital cameras store a large PreviewImage
2462 after the JPEG EOI, and the file size may be reduced significantly
2463 by deleting this trailer. See the JPEG Tags documentation for a
2464 list of recognized JPEG trailers.
2465
2467 These examples demonstrate the ability to copy tag values between
2468 files.
2469 exiftool -tagsFromFile src.cr2 dst.jpg
2471 Copy the values of all writable tags from "src.cr2" to "dst.jpg",
2472 writing the information to same-named tags in the preferred
2473 groups.
2474 exiftool -TagsFromFile src.jpg -all:all dst.jpg
2476 Copy the values of all writable tags from "src.jpg" to "dst.jpg",
2477 preserving the original tag groups.
2478 exiftool -all= -tagsfromfile src.jpg -exif:all dst.jpg
2480 Erase all meta information from "dst.jpg" image, then copy EXIF
2481 tags from "src.jpg".
2482 exiftool -exif:all= -tagsfromfile @ -all:all -unsafe bad.jpg
2484 Rebuild all EXIF meta information from scratch in an image. This
2485 technique can be used in JPEG images to repair corrupted EXIF
2486 information which otherwise could not be written due to errors.
2487 The "Unsafe" tag is a shortcut for unsafe EXIF tags in JPEG images
2488 which are not normally copied. See the tag name documentation for
2489 more details about unsafe tags.
2490 exiftool -Tagsfromfile a.jpg out.xmp
2492 Copy meta information from "a.jpg" to an XMP data file. If the
2493 XMP data file "out.xmp" already exists, it will be updated with
2494 the new information. Otherwise the XMP data file will be created.
2495 Only metadata-only files may be created like this (files
2496 containing images may be edited but not created). See "WRITING
2497 EXAMPLES" above for another technique to generate XMP files.
2498 exiftool -tagsFromFile a.jpg -XMP:All= -ThumbnailImage= -m b.jpg
2500 Copy all meta information from "a.jpg" to "b.jpg", deleting all
2501 XMP information and the thumbnail image from the destination.
2502 exiftool -TagsFromFile src.jpg -title -author=Phil dst.jpg
2504 Copy title from one image to another and set a new author name.
2505 exiftool -TagsFromFile a.jpg -ISO -TagsFromFile b.jpg -comment dst.jpg
2507 Copy ISO from one image and Comment from another image to a
2508 destination image.
2509 exiftool -tagsfromfile src.jpg -exif:all --subifd:all dst.jpg
2511 Copy only the EXIF information from one image to another,
2512 excluding SubIFD tags.
2513 exiftool '-FileModifyDate<DateTimeOriginal' dir
2515 Use the original date from the meta information to set the same
2516 file's filesystem modification date for all images in a directory.
2517 (Note that "-TagsFromFile @" is assumed if no other -TagsFromFile
2518 is specified when redirecting information as in this example.)
2519 exiftool -TagsFromFile src.jpg '-xmp:all<all' dst.jpg
2521 Copy all possible information from "src.jpg" and write in XMP
2522 format to "dst.jpg".
2523 exiftool '-Description<${FileName;s/\.[^.]*$//}' dir
2525 Set the image Description from the file name after removing the
2526 extension. This example uses the "Advanced formatting feature" to
2527 perform a substitution operation to remove the last dot and
2528 subsequent characters from the file name.
2529 exiftool -@ iptc2xmp.args -iptc:all= a.jpg
2531 Translate IPTC information to XMP with appropriate tag name
2532 conversions, and delete the original IPTC information from an
2533 image. This example uses iptc2xmp.args, which is a file included
2534 with the ExifTool distribution that contains the required
2535 arguments to convert IPTC information to XMP format. Also
2536 included with the distribution are xmp2iptc.args (which performs
2537 the inverse conversion) and a few more .args files for other
2538 conversions between EXIF, IPTC and XMP.
2539 exiftool -tagsfromfile %d%f.CR2 -r -ext JPG dir
2541 Recursively rewrite all "JPG" images in "dir" with information
2542 copied from the corresponding "CR2" images in the same
2543 directories.
2544 exiftool '-keywords+<make' image.jpg
2546 Add camera make to list of keywords.
2547 exiftool '-comment<ISO=$exif:iso Exposure=${shutterspeed}' dir
2549 Set the Comment tag of all images in "dir" from the values of the
2550 EXIF:ISO and ShutterSpeed tags. The resulting comment will be in
2551 the form "ISO=100 Exposure=1/60".
2552 exiftool -TagsFromFile src.jpg -icc_profile dst.jpg
2554 Copy ICC_Profile from one image to another.
2555 exiftool -TagsFromFile src.jpg -all:all dst.mie
2557 Copy all meta information in its original form from a JPEG image
2558 to a MIE file. The MIE file will be created if it doesn't exist.
2559 This technique can be used to store the metadata of an image so it
2560 can be inserted back into the image (with the inverse command)
2561 later in a workflow.
2562 exiftool -o dst.mie -all:all src.jpg
2564 This command performs exactly the same task as the command above,
2565 except that the -o option will not write to an output file that
2566 already exists.
2567 exiftool -b -jpgfromraw -w %d%f_%ue.jpg -execute -b -previewimage -w
2569 %d%f_%ue.jpg -execute -tagsfromfile @ -srcfile %d%f_%ue.jpg
2570 -overwrite_original -common_args --ext jpg DIR
2571 [Advanced] Extract JpgFromRaw or PreviewImage from all but JPG
2572 files in DIR, saving them with file names like "image_EXT.jpg",
2573 then add all meta information from the original files to the
2574 extracted images. Here, the command line is broken into three
2575 sections (separated by -execute options), and each is executed as
2576 if it were a separate command. The -common_args option causes the
2577 "--ext jpg DIR" arguments to be applied to all three commands, and
2578 the -srcfile option allows the extracted JPG image to be the
2579 source file for the third command (whereas the RAW files are the
2580 source files for the other two commands).
2581
2583 By writing the "FileName" and "Directory" tags, files are renamed
2584 and/or moved to new directories. This can be particularly useful and
2585 powerful for organizing files by date when combined with the -d option.
2586 New directories are created as necessary, but existing files will not
2587 be overwritten. The format codes %d, %f and %e may be used in the new
2588 file name to represent the directory, name and extension of the
2589 original file, and %c may be used to add a copy number if the file
2590 already exists (see the -w option for details). Note that if used
2591 within a date format string, an extra '%' must be added to pass these
2592 codes through the date/time parser. (And further note that in a
2593 Windows batch file, all '%' characters must also be escaped, so in this
2594 extreme case '%%%%f' is necessary to pass a simple '%f' through the two
2595 levels of parsing.) See <https://exiftool.org/filename.html> for
2596 additional documentation and examples.
2597 exiftool -filename=new.jpg dir/old.jpg
2599 Rename "old.jpg" to "new.jpg" in directory "dir".
2600 exiftool -directory=%e dir
2602 Move all files from directory "dir" into directories named by the
2603 original file extensions.
2604 exiftool '-Directory<DateTimeOriginal' -d %Y/%m/%d dir
2606 Move all files in "dir" into a directory hierarchy based on year,
2607 month and day of "DateTimeOriginal". eg) This command would move
2608 the file "dir/image.jpg" with a "DateTimeOriginal" of "2005:10:12
2609 16:05:56" to "2005/10/12/image.jpg".
2610 exiftool -o . '-Directory<DateTimeOriginal' -d %Y/%m/%d dir
2612 Same effect as above except files are copied instead of moved.
2613 exiftool '-filename<%f_${model;}.%e' dir
2615 Rename all files in "dir" by adding the camera model name to the
2616 file name. The semicolon after the tag name inside the braces
2617 causes characters which are invalid in Windows file names to be
2618 deleted from the tag value (see the "Advanced formatting feature"
2619 for an explanation).
2620 exiftool '-FileName<CreateDate' -d %Y%m%d_%H%M%S%%-c.%%e dir
2622 Rename all images in "dir" according to the "CreateDate" date and
2623 time, adding a copy number with leading '-' if the file already
2624 exists ("%-c"), and preserving the original file extension (%e).
2625 Note the extra '%' necessary to escape the filename codes (%c and
2626 %e) in the date format string.
2627 exiftool -r '-FileName<CreateDate' -d %Y-%m-%d/%H%M_%%f.%%e dir
2629 Both the directory and the filename may be changed together via
2630 the "FileName" tag if the new "FileName" contains a '/'. The
2631 example above recursively renames all images in a directory by
2632 adding a "CreateDate" timestamp to the start of the filename, then
2633 moves them into new directories named by date.
2634 exiftool '-FileName<${CreateDate}_$filenumber.jpg' -d %Y%m%d -ext jpg .
2636 Set the filename of all JPG images in the current directory from
2637 the CreateDate and FileNumber tags, in the form
2638 "20060507_118-1861.jpg".
2639
2641 ExifTool implements geotagging via 3 special tags: Geotag (which for
2642 convenience is also implemented as an exiftool option), Geosync and
2643 Geotime. The examples below highlight some geotagging features. See
2644 <https://exiftool.org/geotag.html> for additional documentation.
2645 exiftool -geotag track.log a.jpg
2647 Geotag an image ("a.jpg") from position information in a GPS track
2648 log ("track.log"). Since the "Geotime" tag is not specified, the
2649 value of DateTimeOriginal is used for geotagging. Local system
2650 time is assumed unless DateTimeOriginal contains a timezone.
2651 exiftool -geotag t.log -geotime='2009:04:02 13:41:12-05:00' a.jpg
2653 Geotag an image with the GPS position for a specific time.
2654 exiftool -geotag log.gpx '-xmp:geotime<createdate' dir
2656 Geotag all images in directory "dir" with XMP tags instead of EXIF
2657 tags, based on the image CreateDate.
2658 exiftool -geotag a.log -geosync=-20 dir
2660 Geotag images in directory "dir", accounting for image timestamps
2661 which were 20 seconds ahead of GPS.
2662 exiftool -geotag a.log -geosync=1.jpg -geosync=2.jpg dir
2664 Geotag images using time synchronization from two previously
2665 geotagged images (1.jpg and 2.jpg), synchronizing the image and
2666 GPS times using a linear time drift correction.
2667 exiftool -geotag a.log '-geotime<${createdate}+01:00' dir
2669 Geotag images in "dir" using CreateDate with the specified
2670 timezone. If CreateDate already contained a timezone, then the
2671 timezone specified on the command line is ignored.
2672 exiftool -geotag= a.jpg
2674 Delete GPS tags which may have been added by the geotag feature.
2675 Note that this does not remove all GPS tags -- to do this instead
2676 use "-gps:all=".
2677 exiftool -xmp:geotag= a.jpg
2679 Delete XMP GPS tags which were added by the geotag feature.
2680 exiftool -xmp:geotag=track.log a.jpg
2682 Geotag an image with XMP tags, using the time from
2683 DateTimeOriginal.
2684 exiftool -geotag a.log -geotag b.log -r dir
2686 Combine multiple track logs and geotag an entire directory tree of
2687 images.
2688 exiftool -geotag 'tracks/*.log' -r dir
2690 Read all track logs from the "tracks" directory.
2691 exiftool -p gpx.fmt -d %Y-%m-%dT%H:%M:%SZ dir > out.gpx
2693 Generate a GPX track log from all images in directory "dir". This
2694 example uses the "gpx.fmt" file included in the full ExifTool
2695 distribution package and assumes that the images in "dir" have all
2696 been previously geotagged.
2697
2699 cat a.jpg | exiftool -
2700 Extract information from stdin.
2701 exiftool image.jpg -thumbnailimage -b | exiftool -
2703 Extract information from an embedded thumbnail image.
2704 cat a.jpg | exiftool -iptc:keywords+=fantastic - > b.jpg
2706 Add an IPTC keyword in a pipeline, saving output to a new file.
2707 curl -s http://a.domain.com/bigfile.jpg | exiftool -fast -
2709 Extract information from an image over the internet using the cURL
2710 utility. The -fast option prevents exiftool from scanning for
2711 trailer information, so only the meta information header is
2712 transferred.
2713 exiftool a.jpg -thumbnailimage -b | exiftool -comment=wow - | exiftool
2715 a.jpg -thumbnailimage'<=-'
2716 Add a comment to an embedded thumbnail image. (Why anyone would
2717 want to do this I don't know, but I've included this as an example
2718 to illustrate the flexibility of ExifTool.)
2719
2721 Interrupting exiftool with a CTRL-C or SIGINT will not result in
2722 partially written files or temporary files remaining on the hard disk.
2723 The exiftool application traps SIGINT and defers it until the end of
2724 critical processes if necessary, then does a proper cleanup before
2725 exiting.
2726
2728 The exiftool application exits with a status of 0 on success, or 1 if
2729 an error occurred, or 2 if all files failed the -if condition (for any
2730 of the commands if -execute was used).
2731
2733 Copyright 2003-2021, Phil Harvey
2734 This is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under
2736 the same terms as Perl itself.
2737
2739 Image::ExifTool(3pm), Image::ExifTool::TagNames(3pm),
2740 Image::ExifTool::Shortcuts(3pm), Image::ExifTool::Shift.pl
2741perl v5.34.0 2022-01-25 EXIFTOOL(1)
