-- ExifTool 9.

59 -- 1
EXIFTOOL(1) User Contributed Perl Documentation EXIFTOOL(1)

NAME
exiftool - Read and write meta information in files

SYNOPSIS
exiftool [_
O_P_
T_IO
__N_
S] [-_
T_A_
G...] [--_T_A_
G...] _ F_I_
L_E...
exiftool [_
O_P_
T_I_
O_N_
S] -_
T_A_
G[+-<]=[_V_
A_L_
U_E]... _ F_I_
L_E...
exiftool [_
O_P_
T_I_
ON__
S] -tagsFromFile _ S_R_
C_F_
I_L_
E [-_ S_
R_C_
TA__
G[>_
D_
S_T_
T_A_
G]...] _
F_I_
L_E...
exiftool [ -ver | -list[w w|f
f|r
r|w
wf|gg[_N_U_
M]|d d|x
x] ]

For specific examples, see the EXAMPLES sections below.

This documentation is displayed if exiftool is run without an input

F_
_ I_
LE_ when one is expected.

DESCRIPTION
A command-line interface to Image::ExifTool, used for reading and
writing meta information in a variety of file types. _F_
I_L_
E is one or
more source file names, directory names, or "-" for the standard input.
Metadata is read from source files and printed in readable form to the
console (or written to output text files with -w).

To write or delete metadata, tag values are assigned using the

-_
T_A_
G=[_
V_A_
L_U_
E] syntax, or the -geotag option. To copy or move metadata,
the -tagsFromFile feature is used. By default the original files are
preserved with "_original" appended to their names -- be sure to verify
that the new files are OK before erasing the originals. Once in write
mode, exiftool will ignore any read-specific options.

Note: If _FI
__L_
E is a directory name then only supported file types in
the directory are processed (in write mode only writable types are
processed). However, files may be specified by name, or the -ext
option may be used to force processing of files with any extension.

Below is a list of file types and meta information formats currently

supported by ExifTool (r = read, w = write, c = create):

File Types
------------+-------------+-------------+-------------+------------
3FR r | EIP r | LA r | OTF r | RW2 r/w
3G2 r/w | EPS r/w | LNK r | PAC r | RWL r/w
3GP r/w | ERF r/w | M2TS r | PAGES r | RWZ r
ACR r | EXE r | M4A/V r/w | PBM r/w | RM r
AFM r | EXIF r/w/c | MEF r/w | PCD r | SEQ r
AI r/w | EXR r | MIE r/w/c | PDF r/w | SO r
AIFF r | EXV r/w/c | MIFF r | PEF r/w | SR2 r/w
APE r | F4A/V r/w | MKA r | PFA r | SRF r
ARW r/w | FFF r/w | MKS r | PFB r | SRW r/w
ASF r | FLA r | MKV r | PFM r | SVG r
AVI r | FLAC r | MNG r/w | PGF r | SWF r
BMP r | FLV r | MODD r | PGM r/w | THM r/w
BTF r | FPF r | MOS r/w | PLIST r | TIFF r/w
CHM r | FPX r | MOV r/w | PICT r | TORRENT r
COS r | GIF r/w | MP3 r | PMP r | TTC r
CR2 r/w | GZ r | MP4 r/w | PNG r/w | TTF r
CRW r/w | HDP r/w | MPC r | PPM r/w | VRD r/w/c
CS1 r/w | HDR r | MPG r | PPT r | VSD r
DCM r | HTML r | MPO r/w | PPTX r | WAV r
DCP r/w | ICC r/w/c | MQV r/w | PS r/w | WDP r/w
DCR r | IDML r | MRW r/w | PSB r/w | WEBP r
DFONT r | IIQ r/w | MXF r | PSD r/w | WEBM r
DIVX r | IND r/w | NEF r/w | PSP r | WMA r
 -- ExifTool 9.59 -- 2
DJVU r | INX r | NRW r/w | QTIF r/w | WMV r
DLL r | ITC r | NUMBERS r | RA r | WV r
DNG r/w | J2C r | ODP r | RAF r/w | X3F r/w
DOC r | JNG r/w | ODS r | RAM r | XCF r
DOCX r | JP2 r/w | ODT r | RAR r | XLS r
DPX r | JPEG r/w | OFR r | RAW r/w | XLSX r
DV r | K25 r | OGG r | RIFF r | XMP r/w/c
DVB r/w | KDC r | OGV r | RSRC r | ZIP r
DYLIB r | KEY r | ORF r/w | RTF r |

Meta Information
----------------------+----------------------+---------------------
EXIF r/w/c | CIFF r/w | Ricoh RMETA r
GPS r/w/c | AFCP r/w | Picture Info r
IPTC r/w/c | Kodak Meta r/w | Adobe APP14 r
XMP r/w/c | FotoStation r/w | MPF r
MakerNotes r/w/c | PhotoMechanic r/w | Stim r
Photoshop IRB r/w/c | JPEG 2000 r | DPX r
ICC Profile r/w/c | DICOM r | APE r
MIE r/w/c | Flash r | Vorbis r
JFIF r/w/c | FlashPix r | SPIFF r
Ducky APP12 r/w/c | QuickTime r | DjVu r
PDF r/w/c | Matroska r | M2TS r
PNG r/w/c | MXF r | PE/COFF r
Canon VRD r/w/c | PrintIM r | AVCHD r
Nikon Capture r/w/c | FLAC r | ZIP r
GeoTIFF r/w/c | ID3 r | (and more)

OPTIONS
Case is not significant for any command-line option (including tag and
group names), except for single-character options when the
corresponding upper-case option exists. Many single-character options
have equivalent long-name versions (shown in brackets), and some
options have inverses which are invoked with a leading double-dash.
Unrecognized options are interpreted as tag names (for this reason,
multiple single-character options may NOT be combined into one
argument). Contrary to standard practice, options may appear after
source file names on the exiftool command line.

Option Summary
Tag operations

-TAG or --TAG Extract or exclude specified tag

-TAG[+-]=[VALUE] Write new value for tag
-TAG[+-]<=DATFILE Write tag value from contents of file
-TAG[+-]<SRCTAG Copy tag value (see -tagsFromFile)

-tagsFromFile SRCFILE Copy tag values from file

-x TAG (-exclude) Exclude specified tag

Input-output text formatting

-args (-argFormat) Format metadata as exiftool arguments

-b (-binary) Output metadata in binary format
-c FMT (-coordFormat) Set format for GPS coordinates
-charset [[TYPE=]CHARSET] Specify encoding for special characters
-csv[=CSVFILE] Export/import tags in CSV format
-d FMT (-dateFormat) Set format for date/time values
-D (-decimal) Show tag ID numbers in decimal
-E, -ex (-escape(HTML|XML)) Escape values for HTML (-E) or XML (-ex)
-f (-forcePrint) Force printing of all specified tags
-g[NUM...] (-groupHeadings) Organize output by tag group
-G[NUM...] (-groupNames) Print group name for each tag
-h (-htmlFormat) Use HMTL formatting for output
-H (-hex) Show tag ID number in hexadecimal
 -- ExifTool 9.59 -- 3
-htmlDump[OFFSET] Generate HTML-format binary dump
-j[=JSONFILE] (-json) Export/import tags in JSON format
-l (-long) Use long 2-line output format
-L (-latin) Use Windows Latin1 encoding
-lang [LANG] Set current language
-listItem INDEX Extract specific item from a list
-n (--printConv) Read/write numerical tag values
-p FMTFILE (-printFormat) Print output in specified format
-php Export tags as a PHP Array
-s[NUM] (-short) Short output format
-S (-veryShort) Very short output format
-sep STR (-separator) Set separator string for list items
-sort Sort output alphabetically
-struct Enable output of structured information
-t (-tab) Output in tab-delimited list format
-T (-table) Output in tabular format
-v[NUM] (-verbose) Print verbose messages
-w[+|!] EXT (-textOut) Write (or overwrite!) output text files
-W[+|!] FMT (-tagOut) Write output text file for each tag
-Wext EXT (-tagOutExt) Write only specified file types with -W
-X (-xmlFormat) Use RDF/XML output format

Processing control

-a (-duplicates) Allow duplicate tags to be extracted

-e (--composite) Do not calculate composite tags
-ee (-extractEmbedded) Extract information from embedded files
-ext EXT (-extension) Process files with specified extension
-F[OFFSET] (-fixBase) Fix the base for maker notes offsets
-fast[NUM] Increase speed for slow devices
-fileOrder [-]TAG Set file processing order
-i DIR (-ignore) Ignore specified directory name
-if EXPR Conditionally process files
-m (-ignoreMinorErrors) Ignore minor errors and warnings
-o OUTFILE (-out) Set output file or directory name
-overwrite_original Overwrite original by renaming tmp file
-overwrite_original_in_place Overwrite original by copying tmp file
-P (-preserve) Preserve date/time of original file
-password PASSWD Password for processing protected files
-progress Show file progress count
-q (-quiet) Quiet processing
-r (-recurse) Recursively process subdirectories
-scanForXMP Brute force XMP scan
-u (-unknown) Extract unknown tags
-U (-unknown2) Extract unknown binary tags too
-wm MODE (-writeMode) Set mode for writing/creating tags
-z (-zip) Read/write compressed information

Special features

-geotag TRKFILE Geotag images from specified GPS log

-globalTimeShift SHIFT Shift all formatted date/time values
-use MODULE Add features from plug-in module

Utilities

-delete_original[!] Delete "_original" backups

-restore_original Restore from "_original" backups

Other options

-@ ARGFILE Read command-line arguments from file

-k (-pause) Pause before terminating
-list[w|f|wf|g[NUM]|d|x] List various exiftool capabilities
-ver Print exiftool version number
 -- ExifTool 9.59 -- 4

Advanced options

-api OPT[=VAL] Set ExifTool API option

-common_args Define common arguments
-config CFGFILE Specify configuration file name
-echo[NUM] TEXT Echo text to stdout or stderr
-execute[NUM] Execute multiple commands on one line
-srcfile FMT Set different source file name
-stay_open FLAG Keep reading -@ argfile even after EOF

Option Details
T_
_ a_
g _
o_pe
__r_
a_t_
i_o_
n_s

-_
T_A_
G Extract information for the specified tag (ie. "-CreateDate").
Multiple tags may be specified in a single command. A tag name is
the handle by which a piece of information is referenced. See
Image::ExifTool::TagNames for documentation on available tag
names. A tag name may include leading group names separated by
colons (ie. "-EXIF:CreateDate", or "-Doc1:XMP:Creator"), and each
group name may be prefixed by a digit to specify family number
(ie. "-1IPTC:City"). Use the -listg option to list available
group names by family.

A special tag name of "All" may be used to indicate all meta

information. This is particularly useful when a group name is
specified to extract all information in a group (but beware that
unless the -a option is also used, some tags in the group may be
suppressed by same-named tags in other groups). The wildcard
characters "?" and "*" may be used in a tag name to match any
single character and zero or more characters respectively. These
may not be used in a group name, with the exception that a group
name of "*" (or "All") may be used to extract all instances of a
tag (as if -a was used). Note that arguments containing wildcards
must be quoted on the command line of most systems to prevent
shell globbing.

A "#" may be appended to the tag name to disable the print

conversion on a per-tag basis (see the -n option). This may also
be used when writing or copying tags.

If no tags are specified, all available information is extracted

(as if "-All" had been specified).

Note: Descriptions, not tag names, are shown by default when

extracting information. Use the -s option to see the tag names
instead.

--T
__A_
G
Exclude specified tag from extracted information. Same as the -x
option. Once excluded from the output, a tag may not be re-
included by a subsequent option. May also be used following a
-tagsFromFile option to exclude tags from being copied (when
redirecting to another tag, it is the source tag that should be
excluded), or to exclude groups from being deleted when deleting
all information (ie. "-all= --exif:all" deletes all but EXIF
information). But note that this will not exclude individual tags
from a group delete (unless a family 2 group is specified, see
note 4 below). Instead, individual tags may be recovered using
the -tagsFromFile option (ie. "-all= -tagsfromfile @ -artist").
Wildcards are permitted as described above for -TAG.

-_
T_A_
G[+-]=
=[_
V_A_
L_UE
_]
Write a new value for the specified tag (ie. "-comment=wow"), or
delete the tag if no V
__A_
L_U_
E is given (ie. "-comment="). "+=" and
 -- ExifTool 9.59 -- 5
"-=" are used to add or remove existing entries from a list, or to
shift date/time values (see Image::ExifTool::Shift.pl for
details). "+=" may also be used to increment numerical values,
and "-=" may be used to conditionally delete or replace a tag (see
"WRITING EXAMPLES" for examples).

__
T A_
G may contain one or more leading family 0, 1 or 2 group names,
prefixed by optional family numbers, and separated colons. If no
group name is specified, the tag is created in the preferred
group, and updated in any other location where a same-named tag
already exists. The preferred group is the first group in the
following list where _T_
A_G is valid: 1) EXIF, 2) IPTC, 3) XMP.

The wildcards "*" and "?" may be used in tag names to assign the
same value to multiple tags. When specified with wildcards,
"unsafe" tags are not written. A tag name of "All" is eqivalent
to "*" (except that it doesn’t require quoting, while arguments
with wildcards do on systems with shell globbing), and is often
used when deleting all metadata (ie. "-All=") or an entire group
(ie. "-GROUP:All=", see note 4 below). Note that not all groups
are deletable, and that the JPEG APP14 "Adobe" group is not
removed by default with "-All=" because it may affect the
appearance of the image. However, this will remove color space
information, so the colors may be affected (but this may be
avoided by copying back the tags defined by the ColorSpaceTags
shortcut). Use the -listd option for a complete list of deletable
groups, and see note 5 below regarding the "APP" groups. Also,
within an image some groups may be contained within others, and
these groups are removed if the containing group is deleted:

JPEG Image:
- Deleting EXIF or IFD0 also deletes ExifIFD, GlobParamIFD,
GPS, IFD1, InteropIFD, MakerNotes, PrintIM and SubIFD.
- Deleting ExifIFD also deletes InteropIFD and MakerNotes.
- Deleting Photoshop also deletes IPTC.

TIFF Image:
- Deleting EXIF only removes ExifIFD which also deletes
InteropIFD and MakerNotes.

Notes:

1) Many tag values may be assigned in a single command. If two

assignments affect the same tag, the latter takes precedence
(except for list-type tags, where both values are written).

2) In general, MakerNotes tags are considered "Permanent", and may

be edited but not created or deleted individually. This avoids
many potential problems including the inevitable compatibility
problems with OEM software which may be very inflexible about the
information it expects to find in the maker notes.

3) Changes to PDF files are reversible because the original

information is never actually deleted from the file. So ExifTool
alone may not be used to securely edit metadata in PDF files.

4) Specifying "-GROUP:all=" deletes the entire group as a block

only if a single family 0 or 1 group is specified. Otherwise all
deletable tags in the specified group(s) are removed individually,
and in this case is it possible to exclude individual tags from a
mass delete. For example, "-time:all --Exif:Time:All" removes all
deletable Time tags except those in the EXIF. This difference
also applies if family 2 is specified when deleting all groups.
For example, "-2all:all=" deletes tags individually, while
"-all:all=" deletes entire blocks.
 -- ExifTool 9.59 -- 6

5) The "APP" group names ("APP0" through "APP15") are used to

delete JPEG application segments which are not associated with
another deletable group. For example, specifying "-APP14:All="
will NOT delete the APP14 "Adobe" segment because this is
accomplished with "-Adobe:All".

Special feature: Integer values may be specified in hexadecimal

with a leading "0x", and simple rational values may be specified
as fractions.

-_
T_A_
G<=_
D_A_
T_F_
I_L_
E or -T
__A_
G<=_
F_M_
T
Set the value of a tag from the contents of file _ D_
A_T_
F_I_
L_E. The
file name may also be given by a _ F_
M_T string where %d, %f and %e
represent the directory, file name and extension of the original
_
F_I_
L_E (see the -w option for more details). Note that quotes are
required around this argument to prevent shell redirection since
it contains a "<" symbol. "+<=" or "-<=" may also be used to add
or delete specific list entries, or to shift date/time values.

-tagsFromFile _
S_R_
CF__
I_L_
E or _
F_M_
T
Copy tag values from _ S_
R_C_
F_I_
L_E to _
F_I_
L_E. Tag names on the command
line after this option specify the tags to be copied, or excluded
from the copy. Wildcards are permitted in these tag names. If no
tags are specified, then all possible tags (see note 1 below) from
the source file are copied to same-named tags in the preferred
location of the output file (the same as specifying "-all"). More
than one -tagsFromFile option may be used to copy tags from
multiple files.

By default, this option will update any existing and writable

same-named tags in the output _
F_I_
L_E, but will create new tags only
in their preferred groups. This allows some information to be
automatically transferred to the appropriate group when copying
between images of different formats. However, if a group name is
specified for a tag then the information is written only to this
group (unless redirected to another group, see below). If "All"
is used as a group name, then each tag is written to the same
family 1 group it had in the source file (ie. the same specific
location in the metadata), but a different family may be specified
by adding a leading family number to the group name (ie.
"-0All:all").

__
S R_
C_F_
I_LE
_ may be the same as _F_
I_L_
E to move information around within
a single file. In this case, "@" may be used to represent the
source file (ie. "-tagsFromFile @"), permitting this feature to be
used for batch processing multiple files. Specified tags are then
copied from each file in turn as it is rewritten. For advanced
batch use, the source file name may also be specified using a _ F_
M_T
string in which %d, %f and %e represent the directory, file name
and extension of F __
I_L_
E. See -w option for _F_
M_T string examples.

A powerful redirection feature allows a destination tag to be

specified for each copied tag. With this feature, information may
be written to a tag with a different name or group. This is done
using "’-_ S_
R_C_
TA__
G>_
D_S_
T_T_
A_G’" or "’-_D_
S_T_
T_A_
G<_
S_R_
C_TA
__G’" on the command line
after -tagsFromFile, and causes the value of _ S_
R_C_
T_A_
G to be copied
from S
__R_
C_F_
I_LE
_ and written to _ D_
S_T_
T_A_
G in _F_I_
L_E. Note that this
argument must be quoted to prevent shell redirection, and there is
no "=" sign as when assigning new values. Source and/or
destination tags may be prefixed by a group name and/or suffixed
by "#". Wildcards are allowed in both the source and destination
tag names. A destination group and/or tag name of "All" or "*"
writes to the same family 1 group and/or tag name as the source.
If no destination group is specified, the information is written
 -- ExifTool 9.59 -- 7
to the preferred group. Whitespace around the ">" or "<" is
ignored. As a convenience, "-tagsFromFile @" is assumed for any
redirected tags which are specified without a prior -tagsFromFile
option. Copied tags may also be added or deleted from a list with
arguments of the form "’-_
S_R_
C_T_
A_G+>_
D_S_
T_T_
A_G’" or "’-_
S_R_
C_T_
A_G->_
D_S_
T_T_
A_G’".

An extension of the redirection feature allows strings involving

tag names to be used on the right hand side of the "<" symbol with
the syntax "’-_
D_S_
T_T_
A_G<_
S_T_
R’", where tag names in S
__T_
R are prefixed
with a "$" symbol. See the -p option for more details about this
syntax. Strings starting with a "=" sign must insert a single
space after the "<" to avoid confusion with the "<=" operator
which sets the tag value from the contents of a file. A single
space at the start of the string is removed if it exists, but all
other whitespace in the string is preserved.

See "COPYING EXAMPLES" for examples using -tagsFromFile.

Notes:

1) Some tags (generally tags which may affect the appearance of

the image) are considered "unsafe" to write, and are only copied
if specified explicitly (ie. no wildcards). See the tag name
documentation for more details about "unsafe" tags.

2) Be aware of the difference between excluding a tag from being

copied (--_
T_A_
G), and deleting a tag (-_
T_A_
G=). Excluding a tag
prevents it from being copied to the destination image, but
deleting will remove a pre-existing tag from the image.

3) The maker note information is copied as a block, so it isn’t

affected like other information by subsequent tag assignments on
the command line. Also, since the PreviewImage referenced from
the maker notes may be rather large, it is not copied, and must be
transferred separately if desired.

4) The order of operations is to copy all specified tags at the

point of the -tagsFromFile option in the command line. Any tag
assignment to the right of the -tagsFromFile option is made after
all tags are copied. For example, new tag values are set in the
order One, Two, Three then Four with this command:

exiftool -One=1 -tagsFromFile s.jpg -Two -Four=4 -Three d.jpg

This is significant in the case where an overlap exists between

the copied and assigned tags because later operations may override
earlier ones.

5) The normal behaviour of copied tags differs subtly from that of

assigned tags for list-type tags. When copying to a list, each
copied tag overrides any previous operations on the list. While
this avoids duplicate list items when copying groups of tags from
a file containing redundant information, it also prevents values
of different tags from being copied into the same list when this
is the intent. So a -addTagsFromFile option is provided which
allows copying of multiple tags into the same list. ie)

exiftool -addtagsfromfile @ ’-subject<make’ ’-subject<model’ ...

Other than this difference, the -tagsFromFile and -addTagsFromFile

options are equivalent.

6) The -a option (allow duplicate tags) is always in effect when

copying tags from _
S_R_
C_F_
I_L_
E.
 -- ExifTool 9.59 -- 8
7) Structured tags are copied by default when copying tags. See
the -struct option for details.

-x _
T_A_
G (-
-exclude)
Exclude the specified tag. There may be multiple -x options.
This has the same effect as --_
T_A_
G on the command line. May also
be used following a -tagsFromFile option to exclude tags from
being copied.

I_
_ n_
p_u_
t_-o
__u_
tp__
u_t _
te__
x_t _
f_o_
r_m_
a_t_
t_i_
n_g

Note that trailing spaces are removed from extracted values for most
output text formats. The exceptions are "-b", "-csv", "-j" and "-X".

-args (-
-argFormat)
Output information in the form of exiftool arguments, suitable for
use with the -@ option when writing. May be combined with the -G
option to include group names. This feature may be used to
effectively copy tags between images, but allows the metadata to
be altered by editing the intermediate file ("out.args" in this
example):

exiftool -args -G1 --filename --directory src.jpg > out.args

exiftool -@ out.args dst.jpg

Note: Be careful when copying information with this technique

since it is easy to write tags which are normally considered
"unsafe". For instance, the FileName and Directory tags are
excluded in the example above to avoid renaming and moving the
destination file. Also note that the second command above will
produce warning messages for any tags which are not writable.

-b (-
-binary)
Output requested metadata in binary format without tag names or
descriptions. This option is mainly used for extracting embedded
images or other binary data, but it may also be useful for some
text strings since control characters (such as newlines) are not
replaced by ’.’ as they are in the default output. List items are
separated by a newline when extracted with the -b option. May be
combined with "-j", "-php" or "-X" to extract binary data in JSON,
PHP or XML format.

-c _
F_M_
T (-
-coordFormat)
Set the print format for GPS coordinates. _F_
M_T uses the same
syntax as the "printf" format string. The specifiers correspond
to degrees, minutes and seconds in that order, but minutes and
seconds are optional. For example, the following table gives the
output for the same coordinate using various formats:

FMT Output
------------------- ------------------
"%d deg %d’ %.2f"\" 54 deg 59’ 22.80" (default for reading)
"%d %d %.8f" 54 59 22.80000000 (default for copying)
"%d deg %.4f min" 54 deg 59.3800 min
"%.6f degrees" 54.989667 degrees

Notes:

1) To avoid loss of precision, the default coordinate format is

different when copying tags using the -tagsFromFile option.

2) If the hemisphere is known, a reference direction (N, S, E or

W) is appended to each printed coordinate, but adding a "+" to the
format specifier (ie. "%+.6f") prints a signed coordinate instead.
 -- ExifTool 9.59 -- 9
3) This print formatting may be disabled with the -n option to
extract coordinates as signed decimal degrees.

-charset [[_T_Y_
P_E=]_
C_H_
A_R_
S_E_
T]
If _
T_Y_
P_E is "ExifTool" or not specified, this option sets the
ExifTool character encoding for output tag values when reading and
input values when writing. The default ExifTool encoding is
"UTF8". If no _ C_
H_A_
R_S_
E_T is given, a list of available character
sets is returned. Valid _ C_
H_A_
R_S_
E_T values are:

CHARSET Alias(es) Description

---------- --------------- ----------------------------------
UTF8 cp65001, UTF-8 UTF-8 characters (default)
Latin cp1252, Latin1 Windows Latin1 (West European)
Latin2 cp1250 Windows Latin2 (Central European)
Cyrillic cp1251, Russian Windows Cyrillic
Greek cp1253 Windows Greek
Turkish cp1254 Windows Turkish
Hebrew cp1255 Windows Hebrew
Arabic cp1256 Windows Arabic
Baltic cp1257 Windows Baltic
Vietnam cp1258 Windows Vietnamese
Thai cp874 Windows Thai
MacRoman cp10000, Roman Macintosh Roman
MacLatin2 cp10029 Macintosh Latin2 (Central Europe)
MacCyrillic cp10007 Macintosh Cyrillic
MacGreek cp10006 Macintosh Greek
MacTurkish cp10081 Macintosh Turkish
MacRomanian cp10010 Macintosh Romanian
MacIceland cp10079 Macintosh Icelandic
MacCroatian cp10082 Macintosh Croatian

Other values of _
T_Y_
P_E listed below are used to specify the internal
encoding of various meta information formats.

TYPE Description Default

--------- ------------------------------------------- -------
EXIF Internal encoding of EXIF "ASCII" strings (none)
ID3 Internal encoding of ID3v1 information Latin
IPTC Internal IPTC encoding to assume when Latin
IPTC:CodedCharacterSet is not defined
Photoshop Internal encoding of Photoshop IRB strings Latin
QuickTime Internal encoding of QuickTime strings MacRoman

See <http://owl.phy.queensu.ca/˜phil/exiftool/faq.html#Q10> for

more information about coded character sets.

-csv[=_
C_S_
V_F_
I_L_
E]
Export information in CSV format, or import information if _C_S_
V_F_
I_L_
E
is specified. When importing, the CSV file must be in exactly the
same format as the exported file. The first row of the _C_
S_V_
F_I_
L_E
must be the ExifTool tag names (with optional group names) for
each column of the file, and values must be separated by commas.
A special "SourceFile" column specifies the files associated with
each row of information (a SourceFile of "*" may be used to match
any source file name). The following examples demonstrate basic
use of this option:

# generate CSV file with common tags from all images in a directory
exiftool -common -csv dir > out.csv

# update metadata for all images in a directory from CSV file

exiftool -csv=a.csv dir

Empty values are ignored when importing. Also, FileName and

 -- ExifTool 9.59 -- 10
Directory columns are ignored if they exist (ie. ExifTool will not
attempt to write these tags with a CSV import). To force a tag to
be deleted, use the -f option and set the value to "-" in the CSV
file (or to the MissingTagValue if this API option was used).
Multiple databases may be imported in a single command.

When exporting a CSV file, the -g or -G option to add group names

to the tag headings. If the -a option is used to allow duplicate
tag names, the duplicate tags are only included in the CSV output
if the column headings are unique. Adding the -G4 option ensures
a unique column heading for each tag. When exporting specific
tags, the CSV columns are arranged in the same order as the
specified tags provided the column headings exactly match the
specified tag names, otherwise the columns are sorted in
alphabetical order.

When importing from a CSV file, only files specified on the

command line are processed. Any extra entries in the CSV file are
ignored.

List-type tags are stored as simple strings in a CSV file, but the
-sep option may be used to split them back into separate items
when importing.

Special feature: -csv+=_C_

S_V_
F_I_
L_E may be used to add items to
existing lists. This affects only list-type tags. Also applies to
the -j option.

Note that this option is fundamentally different than all other

output format options because it requires information from all
input files to be buffered in memory before the output is written.
This may result in excessive memory usage when processing a very
large number of files with a single command. Also, it makes this
option incompatible with the -w option.

-d _
F_M_
T (-
-dateFormat)
Set the format for date/time tag values. The specifics of the _F_
M_T
syntax are system dependent -- consult the "strftime" man page on
your system for details. The default format is equivalent to
"%Y:%m:%d %H:%M:%S". This option has no effect on date-only or
time-only tags and ignores timezone information if present. Only
one -d option may be used per command. The inverse operation (ie.
un-formatting a date/time value) is currently not applied when
writing a date/time tag.

-D (-
-decimal)
Show tag ID number in decimal when extracting information.

-E, -ex (-
-escapeHTML, -escapeXML)
Escape characters in output values for HTML (-
-E) or XML (-
-ex).
For HTML, all characters with Unicode code points above U+007F are
escaped as well as the following 5 characters: & (&amp;) ’ (&#39;)
" (&quot;) > (&gt;) and < (&lt;). For XML, only these 5
characters are escaped. The -E option is implied with -h, and -ex
is implied with -X. The inverse conversion is applied when
writing tags.

-f (-
-forcePrint)
Force printing of tags even if their values are not found. This
option only applies when tag names are specified. With this
option, a dash ("-") is printed for the value of any missing tag
(but this may be configured via the API MissingTagValue option).
May also be used to add a ’flags’ attribute to the -listx output,
or to allow tags to be deleted when writing with the -csv=_
C_S_
V_F_
I_L_
E
feature.
 -- ExifTool 9.59 -- 11

-g[_
N_U_
M][:_
N_U_
M...] (-
-groupHeadings)
Organize output by tag group. _ N_
U_M specifies a group family
number, and may be 0 (general location), 1 (specific location), 2
(category), 3 (document number) or 4 (instance number). Multiple
families may be specified by separating them with colons. By
default the resulting group name is simplified by removing any
leading "Main:" and collapsing adjacent identical group names, but
this can be avoided by placing a colon before the first family
number (ie. -g:3:1). If _ N_
U_M is not specified, -g0 is assumed.
Use the -listg option to list group names for a specified family.

-G[_
N_UM
_][:_
NU__
M...] (-
-groupNames)
Same as -g but print group name for each tag.

-h (-
-htmlFormat)
Use HTML table formatting for output. Implies the -E option. The
formatting options -D, -H, -g, -G, -l and -s may be used in
combination with -h to influence the HTML format.

-H (-
-hex)
Show tag ID number in hexadecimal when extracting information.

-htmlDump[_
O_F_
F_S_
E_T]
Generate a dynamic web page containing a hex dump of the EXIF
information. This can be a very powerful tool for low-level
analysis of EXIF information. The -htmlDump option is also
invoked if the -v and -h options are used together. The verbose
level controls the maximum length of the blocks dumped. An _O_F_
F_S_
E_T
may be given to specify the base for displayed offsets. If not
provided, the EXIF/TIFF base offset is used. Use -htmlDump0 for
absolute offsets. Currently only EXIF/TIFF and JPEG information
is dumped, but the -u option can be used to give a raw hex dump of
other file formats.

-j[=_
J_S_
ON__
F_IL
__E] (-
-json)
Use JSON (JavaScript Object Notation) formatting for console
output, or import JSON file if J__
S_O_
N_F_
I_L_
E is specified. This option
may be combined with -g to organize the output into objects by
group, or -G to add group names to each tag. List-type tags with
multiple items are output as JSON arrays unless -sep is used. By
default XMP structures are flattened into individual tags in the
JSON output, but the original structure may be preserved with the
-struct option (this also causes all list-type XMP tags to be
output as JSON arrays, otherwise single-item lists are output as
simple strings). The -a option is implied if the -g or -G options
are used, otherwise it is ignored and duplicate tags are
suppressed. Adding the -D or -H option changes tag values to JSON
objects with "val" and "id" fields, and adding -l adds a "desc"
field, and a "num" field if the numerical value is different from
the converted "val". The -b option may be added to output binary
data, encoded in base64 if necessary (indicated by "base64:" as
the first 7 bytes of the value). The -L and -charset options have
no effect on the JSON output.

If _
J_SO
__N_
F_I_
L_E is specified, the file is imported and the tag
definitions from the file are used to set tag values on a per-file
basis. The special "SourceFile" entry in each JSON object
associates the information with a specific target file (see the
-csv option for details). The imported JSON file must have the
same format as the exported JSON files with the exception that the
-g option is not compatible with the import file format (use -G
instead). Additionally, tag names in the input JSON file may be
suffixed with a "#" to disable print conversion.
 -- ExifTool 9.59 -- 12
-l (-
-long)
Use long 2-line Canon-style output format. Adds a description and
unconverted value (if it is different from the converted value) to
the XML, JSON or PHP output when -X, -j or -php is used.

-L (-
-latin)
Use Windows Latin1 encoding (cp1252) for output tag values instead
of the default UTF-8. When writing, -L specifies that input text
values are Latin1 instead of UTF-8. Equivalent to "-charset
latin".

-lang [_L_A_
N_G]
Set current language for tag descriptions and converted values.
L_
_ AN
__G is "de", "fr", "ja", etc. Use -lang with no other arguments
to get a list of available languages. The default language is
"en" if -lang is not specified. Note that tag/group names are
always English, independent of the -lang setting, and translation
of warning/error messages has not yet been implemented.

By default, ExifTool uses UTF-8 encoding for special characters,

but the the -L or -charset option may be used to invoke other
encodings.

Currently, the language support is not complete, but users are

welcome to help improve this by submitting their own translations.
To submit a set of translations, first use the -listx option and
redirect the output to a file to generate an XML tag database,
then add entries for other languages, zip this file, and email it
to phil at owl.phy.queensu.ca for inclusion in ExifTool.

-listItem I
__N_
D_EX
_
For list-type tags, this causes only the item with the specified
index to be extracted. _I_
N_D_
E_X is 0 for the first item in the list.
Has no effect when writing or copying tags, in a -if condition, or
in combination with structured output options.

-n (-
--printConv)
Read and write values as numbers instead of words. By default,
extracted values are converted to a more human-readable format for
printing, but the -n option disables this print conversion for all
tags. For example:

> exiftool -Orientation -S a.jpg

Orientation: Rotate 90 CW
> exiftool -Orientation -S -n a.jpg
Orientation: 6

The print conversion may also be disabled on a per-tag basis by

suffixing the tag name with a "#" character:

> exiftool -Orientation# -Orientation -S a.jpg

Orientation: 6
Orientation: Rotate 90 CW

These techniques may also be used to disable the inverse print

conversion when writing. For example, the following commands all
have the same effect:

> exiftool -Orientation=’Rotate 90 CW’ a.jpg

> exiftool -Orientation=6 -n a.jpg
> exiftool -Orientation#=6 a.jpg

-p _
F_M_
TF__
I_L_
E or _
S_T_
R (-
-printFormat)
Print output in the format specified by the given file or string
(and ignore other format options). Tag names in the format file
 -- ExifTool 9.59 -- 13
or string begin with a "$" symbol and may contain a leading group
names and/or a trailing "#". Case is not significant. Braces
"{}" may be used around the tag name to separate it from
subsequent text. Use $$ to represent a "$" symbol, and $/ for a
newline. Multiple -p options may be used, each contributing a
line of text to the output. Lines beginning with "#[HEAD]" and
"#[TAIL]" are output only for the first and last processed files
respectively. Lines beginning with "#[BODY]" and lines not
beginning with "#" are output for each processed file. Other
lines beginning with "#" are ignored. For example, this format
file:

# this is a comment line

#[HEAD]-- Generated by ExifTool $exifToolVersion --
File: $FileName - $DateTimeOriginal
(f/$Aperture, ${ShutterSpeed}s, ISO $EXIF:ISO)
#[TAIL]-- end --

with this command:

exiftool -p test.fmt a.jpg b.jpg

produces output like this:

-- Generated by ExifTool 9.59 --

File: a.jpg - 2003:10:31 15:44:19
(f/5.6, 1/60s, ISO 100)
File: b.jpg - 2006:05:23 11:57:38
(f/8.0, 1/13s, ISO 100)
-- end --

When -ee (-
-extractEmbedded) is combined with -p, embedded
documents are effectively processed as separate input files.

If a specified tag does not exist, a minor warning is issued and

the line with the missing tag is not printed. However, the -f
option may be used to set the value of missing tags to ’-’ (but
this may be configured via the MissingTagValue API option), or the
-m option may be used to ignore minor warnings and leave the
missing values empty.

An advanced formatting feature allows an arbitrary Perl expression

to be applied to the value of any tag by placing it inside the
braces after a semicolon following the tag name. The expression
has access to the value of this tag through the default input
variable ($_), and the full API through the current ExifTool
object ($self). It may contain any valid Perl code, including
translation ("tr///") and substitution ("s///") operations, but
note that braces within the expression must be balanced. The
example below prints the camera Make with spaces translated to
underlines, and multiple consecutive underlines replaced by a
single underline:

exiftool -p ’${make;tr/ /_/;s/__+/_/g}’ image.jpg

A default expression of "tr(/\\?*:|"<>\0)()d" is assumed if the

expression is empty, which removes the characters / \ ? * : | < >
and null from the printed value.

-php Format output as a PHP Array. The -g, -G, -D, -H, -l, -sep and
-struct options combine with -php, and duplicate tags are handled
in the same way as with the -json option. As well, the -b option
may be added to output binary data. Here is a simple example
showing how this could be used in a PHP script:
 -- ExifTool 9.59 -- 14
<?php
eval(’$array=’ . ‘exiftool -php -q image.jpg‘);
print_r($array);
?>

-s[_
N_U_
M] (-
-short)
Short output format. Prints tag names instead of descriptions.
Add _
N_U_
M or up to 3 -s options for even shorter formats:

-s1 or -s - print tag names instead of descriptions

-s2 or -s -s - no extra spaces to column-align values
-s3 or -s -s -s - print values only (no tag names)

Also effective when combined with -t, -h, -X or -listx options.

-S (-
-veryShort)
Very short format. The same as -s2 (or two -s options). Tag
names are printed instead of descriptions, and no extra spaces are
added to column-align values.

-sep S
__T_
R (-
-separator)
Specify separator string for items in list-type tags. When
reading, the default is to join list items with ", ". When
writing, this option causes values assigned to list-type tags to
be split into individual items at each substring matching _ S_
T_R
(otherwise they are not split by default). Space characters in
S_
_ T_
R match zero or more whitespace characters in the value.

Note that an empty separator ("") is allowed, and will join items
with no separator when reading, or split the value into individual
characters when writing.

-sort
Sort output by tag description, or by tag name if the -s option is
used. Tags are sorted within each group when combined with the -g
or -G option. When sorting by description, the sort order will
depend on the -lang option setting. Without the -sort option,
tags appear in the order they were specified on the command line,
or if not specified, the order they were extracted from the file.

-struct, --struct
Output structured XMP information instead of flattening to
individual tags. This option works well when combined with the
XML (-
-X) and JSON (-
-j) output formats. For other output formats,
the structures are serialized into the same format as when writing
structured information (see
<http://owl.phy.queensu.ca/˜phil/exiftool/struct.html> for
details). When copying, structured tags are copied by default
unless --struct is used to disable this feature (although
flattened tags may still be copied by specifying them individually
unless -struct is used). These options have no effect when
assigning new values since both flattened and structured tags may
always be used when writing.

-t (-
-tab)
Output a tab-delimited list of description/values (useful for
database import). May be combined with -s to print tag names
instead of descriptions, or -S to print tag values only, tab-
delimited on a single line. The -t option may also be used to add
tag table information to the -X option output.

-T (-
-table)
Output tag values in table form. Equivalent to -t -S -q -f.

-v[_
N_U_
M] (-
-verbose)
 -- ExifTool 9.59 -- 15
Print verbose messages. _N_
U_M specifies the level of verbosity in
the range 0-5, with higher numbers being more verbose. If _ N_
U_M is
not given, then each -v option increases the level of verbosity by
1. With any level greater than 0, most other options are ignored
and normal console output is suppressed unless specific tags are
extracted. Using -v0 causes the console output buffer to be
flushed after each line (which may be useful to avoid delays when
piping exiftool output), and prints the name of each processed
file when writing. Also see the -progress option.

-w[+|!] E
__X_
T or _
F_M_
T (-
-textOut)
Write console output to files with names ending in E __
X_T, one for
each source file. The output file name is obtained by replacing
the source file extension (including the ’.’) with the specified
extension (and a ’.’ is added to the start of E__
X_T if it doesn’t
already contain one). Alternatively, a F__
MT_ string may be used to
give more control over the output file name and directory. In the
format string, %d, %f and %e represent the directory, filename and
extension of the source file, and %c represents a copy number
which is automatically incremented if the file already exists. %d
includes the trailing ’/’ if necessary, but %e does not include
the leading ’.’. For example:

-w %d%f.txt # same effect as "-w txt"

-w dir/%f_%e.out # write files to "dir" as "FILE_EXT.out"
-w dir2/%d%f.txt # write to "dir2", keeping dir structure
-w a%c.txt # write to "a.txt" or "a1.txt" or "a2.txt"...

Existing files will not be overwritten unless an exclamation point

is added to the option name (ie. -w! or -textOut!), or a plus sign
to append to the existing file (ie. -w+ or -textOut+). Both may
be used (ie. -w+! or -textOut+!) to overwrite output files that
didn’t exist before the command was run, and append the output
from multiple source files. For example, to write one output file
for all source files in each directory:

exiftool -filename -createdate -T -w+! %d/out.txt -r DIR

Notes:

1) In a Windows BAT file the "%" character is represented by "%%",

so an argument like "%d%f.txt" is written as "%%d%%f.txt".

2) If the argument for -w does not contain a format code (%d, %f

or %e), then it is interpreted as a file extension. Therefore it
is not possible to specify a simple filename as an argument, so
creating a single output file from multiple source files is
typically done by shell redirection, ie)

exiftool FILE1 FILE2 ... > out.txt

But if necessary, an empty format code may be used to force the

argument to be interpreted as a format string, and the same result
may be obtained without the use of shell redirection:

exiftool -w+! %0fout.txt FILE1 FILE2 ...

Advanced features:

A substring of the original file name, directory or extension may

be taken by specifying a field width immediately following the ’%’
character. If the width is negative, the substring is taken from
the end. The substring position (characters to ignore at the
start or end of the string) may be given by a second optional
value after a decimal point. For example:
 -- ExifTool 9.59 -- 16

Input File Name Format Specifier Output File Name

---------------- ---------------- ----------------
Picture-123.jpg %7f.txt Picture.txt
Picture-123.jpg %-.4f.out Picture.out
Picture-123.jpg %7f.%-3f Picture.123
Picture-123a.jpg Meta%-3.1f.txt Meta123.txt

For %d, the field width/position specifiers may be applied to the

directory levels instead of substring position by using a colon
instead of a decimal point in the format specifier. For example:

Source Dir Format Result Notes

------------ ------ ---------- ------------------
pics/2012/02 %2:d pics/2012/ take top 2 levels
pics/2012/02 %-:1d pics/2012/ up one directory level
pics/2012/02 %:1d 2012/02/ ignore top level
pics/2012/02 %1:1d 2012/ take 1 level after top
/Users/phil %:2d phil/ ignore top 2 levels

(Note that the root directory counts as one level when an absolute
path is used as in the last example above.)

For %c, these modifiers have a different effects. If a field

width is given, the copy number is padded with zeros to the
specified width. A leading ’-’ adds a dash before the copy
number, and a ’+’ adds an underline. By default, the copy number
is omitted from the first file of a given name, but this can be
changed by adding a decimal point to the modifier. For example:

-w A%-cZ.txt # AZ.txt, A-1Z.txt, A-2Z.txt ...

-w B%5c.txt # B.txt, B00001.txt, B00002.txt ...
-w C%.c.txt # C0.txt, C1.txt, C2.txt ...
-w D%-.c.txt # D-0.txt, D-1.txt, D-2.txt ...
-w E%-.4c.txt # E-0000.txt, E-0001.txt, E-0002.txt ...
-w F%-.4nc.txt # F-0001.txt, F-0002.txt, F-0003.txt ...
-w G%+c.txt # G.txt, G_1.txt G_2.txt ...
-w H%-lc.txt # H.txt, H-b.txt, H-c.txt ...

A special feature allows the copy number to be incremented for

each processed file by using %C (upper case) instead of %c. This
allows a sequential number to be added to output file names, even
if the names are different. For %C, a copy number of zero is not
omitted as it is with %c. The number before the decimal place
gives the starting index, the number after the decimal place gives
the field width. The following examples show the output filenames
when used with the command "exiftool rose.jpg star.jpg jet.jpg
...":

-w %C%f.txt # 0rose.txt, 1star.txt, 2jet.txt

-w %f-%10C.txt # rose-10.txt, star-11.txt, jet-12.txt
-w %.3C-%f.txt # 000-rose.txt, 001-star.txt, 002-jet.txt
-w %57.4C%f.txt # 0057rose.txt, 0058star.txt, 0059jet.txt

All format codes may be modified by ’l’ or ’u’ to specify lower or

upper case respectively (ie. %le for a lower case file extension).
When used to modify %c or %C, the numbers are changed to an
alphabetical base (see example H above). Also, %c may be modified
by ’n’ to count using natural numbers starting from 1, instead of
0 (see example F above).

This same _
F_M_
T syntax is used with the -o and -tagsFromFile
options, although %c is only valid for output file names.

-W[!|+] _
F_MT
_ (-
-tagOut)
 -- ExifTool 9.59 -- 17
This enhanced version of the -w option allows a separate output
file to be created for each extracted tag. The differences
between -W and -w are as follows:

1) With -W, a new output file is created for each extracted tag.

2) -W supports three additional format codes: %t, %g and %s

represent the tag name, group name, and suggested extension for
the output file (based on the format of the data). The %g code
may be followed by a single digit to specify the group family
number (ie. %g1), otherwise family 0 is assumed. The substring
width/position/case specifiers may be used with these format codes
in exactly the same way as with %f and %e.

3) The argument for -W is interpreted as a file name if it

contains no format codes. (For -w, this would be a file
extension.) This change allows a simple file name to be
specified, which, when combined with the append feature, provides
a method to write metadata from multiple source files to a single
output file without the need for shell redirection.

4) Adding the -v option to -W generates a list of the tags and

output file names instead of giving a verbose dump of the entire
file. (Unless appending all output to one file for each source
file by using -W+ with an output file _
F_M_
T that does not contain
%t, $g or %s.)

5) Individual list items are stored in separate files when -W is

combined with -b, but note that for separate files to be created
%c must be used in _
F_M_
T to give the files unique names.

-Wext E
__X_
T, --Wext _
E_X_
T (-
-tagOutExt)
This option is used to specify the type of output file(s) written
by the -W option. An output file is written only if the suggested
extension matches _ E_X_
T. Multiple -Wext options may be used to
write more than one type of file. Use --Wext to write all but the
specified type(s).

-X (-
-xmlFormat)
Use ExifTool-specific RDF/XML formatting for console output.
Implies the -a option, so duplicate tags are extracted. The
formatting options -b, -D, -H, -l, -s, -sep, -struct and -t may be
used in combination with -X to affect the output, but note that
the tag ID (-
-D, -H and -t), binary data (-
-b) and structured output
(-
-struct) options are not effective for the short output (-
-s).
Another restriction of -s is that only one tag with a given group
and name may appear in the output. Note that the tag ID options
(-
-D, -H and -t) will produce non-standard RDF/XML unless the -l
option is also used. By default, list-type tags with multiple
values are formatted as an RDF Bag, but they are combined into a
single string when -s or -sep is used. Using -L changes the XML
encoding from "UTF-8" to "windows-1252". Other -charset settings
change the encoding only if there is a corresponding standard XML
character set. The -b option causes binary data values to be
written, encoded in base64 if necessary. The -t option adds tag
table information to the output (table "name", decimal tag "id",
and "index" for cases where multiple conditional tags exist with
the same ID).

Note: This output is NOT the same as XMP because it uses

dynamically-generated property names corresponding to the ExifTool
tag names, and not the standard XMP properties. To write XMP
instead, use the -o option with an XMP extension for the output
file.
 -- ExifTool 9.59 -- 18
P_
_ r_
o_c_
e_ss
__i_
ng_ _
c_o_
nt__
r_o_
l

-a, --a (-
-duplicates, --duplicates)
Allow (-
-a) or suppress (-
--a) duplicate tag names to be extracted.
By default, duplicate tags are suppressed unless the -ee or -X
options are used or the Duplicates option is enabled in the
configuration file.

-e (-
--composite)
Extract existing tags only -- don’t calculate composite tags.

-ee (-
-extractEmbedded)
Extract information from embedded documents in EPS files, embedded
EPS information and JPEG and Jpeg2000 images in PDF files,
embedded MPF images in JPEG and MPO files, streaming metadata in
AVCHD videos, and the resource fork of Mac OS files. Implies the
-a option. Use -g3 or -G3 to identify the originating document
for extracted information. Embedded documents containing sub-
documents are indicated with dashes in the family 3 group name.
(ie. "Doc2-3" is the 3rd sub-document of the 2nd embedded
document.) Note that this option may increase processing time
substantially, especially for PDF files with many embedded images.

-ext E
__X_
T, --ext _
E_X_
T (-
-extension)
Process only files with (- -ext) or without (-
--ext) a specified
extension. There may be multiple -ext and --ext options.
Extensions may begin with a leading ’.’, and case is not
significant. For example:

exiftool -ext .JPG DIR # process only JPG files

exiftool --ext cr2 --ext dng DIR # supported files but CR2/DNG
exiftool --ext . DIR # ignore if no extension
exiftool -ext "*" DIR # process all files
exiftool -ext "*" --ext xml DIR # process all but XML files

The extension may be "*" as in the last two examples above to

force processing files with any extension (not just supported
files).

Using this option has two main advantages over specifying "*.EXT"
on the command line: 1) It applies to files in subdirectories
when combined with the -r option. 2) The -ext option is case-
insensitive, which is useful when processing files on case-
sensitive filesystems.

-F[_
O_F_
F_SE
__T] (-
-fixBase)
Fix the base for maker notes offsets. A common problem with some
image editors is that offsets in the maker notes are not adjusted
properly when the file is modified. This may cause the wrong
values to be extracted for some maker note entries when reading
the edited file. This option allows an integer _O_
F_F_
S_E_
T to be
specified for adjusting the maker notes base offset. If no _ O_
F_F_
S_E_
T
is given, ExifTool takes its best guess at the correct base. Note
that exiftool will automatically fix the offsets for images which
store original offset information (ie. newer Canon models).
Offsets are fixed permanently if -F is used when writing EXIF to
an image. ie)

exiftool -F -exif:resolutionunit=inches image.jpg

-fast[_
N_U_
M]
Increase speed of extracting information from JPEG images. With
this option, ExifTool will not scan to the end of a JPEG image to
check for an AFCP or PreviewImage trailer, or past the first
comment in GIF images or the audio/video data in WAV/AVI files to
 -- ExifTool 9.59 -- 19
search for additional metadata. These speed benefits are small
when reading images directly from disk, but can be substantial if
piping images through a network connection. For more substantial
speed benefits, -fast2 also causes exiftool to avoid extracting
any EXIF MakerNote information.

-fileOrder [-]_
T_A_
G
Set file processing order according to the sorted value of the
specified _
T_A_
G. For example, to process files in order of date:

exiftool -fileOrder DateTimeOriginal DIR

Additional -fileOrder options may be added for secondary sort

keys. Floating point values are sorted numerically, and all other
values are sorted alphabetically. The sort order may be reversed
by prefixing the tag name with a "-" (ie. "-fileOrder
-createdate"). A "#" may be appended to the tag name to disable
print conversion for the sorted values. Note that the -fileOrder
option has a large performance impact since it involves an
additional processing pass of each file.

-i _
D_I_
R (-
-ignore)
Ignore specified directory name. Use multiple -i options to
ignore more than one directory name. A special _D_
I_R value of
"SYMLINKS" (case sensitive) may be specified to ignore symbolic
links when the -r option is used.

-if _
E_XP
__R
Specify a condition to be evaluated before processing each _ F_I_L_
E.
E_
_ XP
__R is a Perl-like logic expression containing tag names prefixed
by "$" symbols. It is evaluated with the tags from each _ F_
I_L_
E in
turn, and the file is processed only if the expression returns
true. Unlike Perl variable names, tag names are not case
sensitive and may contain a hyphen. As well, tag names may have a
leading group names separated by colons, and/or a trailing "#"
character to disable print conversion. The expression $GROUP:all
evaluates to 1 if any tag exists in the specified "GROUP", or 0
otherwise (see note 2 below). When multiple -if options are used,
all conditions must be satisfied to process the file. Returns an
exit status of 1 if all files fail the condition. Below are a few
examples:

# extract shutterspeed from all Canon images in a directory

exiftool -shutterspeed -if ’$make eq "Canon"’ dir

# add one hour to all images created on or after Apr. 2, 2006

exiftool -alldates+=1 -if ’$CreateDate ge "2006:04:02"’ dir

# set EXIF ISO value if possible, unless it is set already

exiftool ’-exif:iso<iso’ -if ’not $exif:iso’ dir

# find images containing a specific keyword (case insensitive)

exiftool -if ’$keywords =˜ /harvey/i’ -filename dir

Notes:

1) The -n and -b options also apply to tags used in E

__X_
P_R.

2) Some binary data blocks are not extracted unless specified

explicitly. These tags are not available for use in the -if
condition unless they are also specified on the command line. The
alternative is to use the $GROUP:all syntax. (ie. Use $exif:all
instead of $exif in _
E_X_
P_R to test for the existence of EXIF tags.)

3) Tags in the string are interpolated the same way as with -p

 -- ExifTool 9.59 -- 20
before the expression is evaluated. In this interpolation, $/ is
converted to a newline and $$ represents a single "$" symbol (so
Perl variables, if used, require a double "$").

4) The condition may only test tags from the file being processed.
To process one file based on tags from another, two steps are
required. For example, to process XMP sidecar files in directory
"DIR" based on tags from the associated NEF:

exiftool -if EXPR -p ’$directory/$filename’ -ext nef DIR > nef.txt

exiftool -@ nef.txt -srcfile %d%f.xmp ...

5) The -a option has no effect on the evaluation of the

expression, and the values of duplicate tags are accessible only
by specifying a group name (such as a family 4 instance number,
ie. $Copy1:TAG, $Copy2:TAG, etc).

-m (-
-ignoreMinorErrors)
Ignore minor errors and warnings. This enables writing to files
with minor errors and disables some validation checks which could
result in minor warnings. Generally, minor errors/warnings
indicate a problem which usually won’t result in loss of metadata
if ignored. However, there are exceptions, so ExifTool leaves it
up to you to make the final decision. Minor errors and warnings
are indicated by "[minor]" at the start of the message. Warnings
which affect processing when ignored are indicated by "[Minor]"
(with a capital "M").

-o _
O_U_
T_F_
I_LE
_ or _
F_M_
T (-
-out)
Set the output file or directory name when writing information.
Without this option, when any "real" tags are written the original
file is renamed to "FILE_original" and output is written to _
F_I_
L_E.
When writing only FileName and/or Directory "pseudo" tags, -o
causes the file to be copied instead of moved, but directories
specified for either of these tags take precedence over that
specified by the -o option.

O_
_ UT
__F_
I_L_
E may be "-" to write to stdout. The output file name may
also be specified using a _ F_
M_T string in which %d, %f and %e
represent the directory, file name and extension of _ F_
I_L_
E. Also,
%c may be used to add a copy number. See the -w option for _ F_
M_T
string examples.

The output file is taken to be a directory name if it already

exists as a directory or if the name ends with ’/’. Output
directories are created if necessary. Existing files will not be
overwritten. Combining the -overwrite_original option with -o
causes the original source file to be erased after the output file
is successfully written.

A special feature of this option allows the creation of certain

types of files from scratch, or with the metadata from another
type of file. The following file types may be created using this
technique:

XMP, ICC/ICM, MIE, VRD, EXIF

The output file type is determined by the extension of _ O_

U_T_
F_I_
L_E
(specified as "-.EXT" when writing to stdout). The output file is
then created from a combination of information in _F_
I_L_
E (as if the
-tagsFromFile option was used), and tag values assigned on the
command line. If no _F_
I_L_
E is specified, the output file may be
created from scratch using only tags assigned on the command line.

-overwrite_original
 -- ExifTool 9.59 -- 21
Overwrite the original _
F_I_
L_E (instead of preserving it by adding
"_original" to the file name) when writing information to an
image. Caution: This option should only be used if you already
have separate backup copies of your image files. The overwrite is
implemented by renaming a temporary file to replace the original.
This deletes the original file and replaces it with the edited
version in a single operation. When combined with -o, this option
causes the original file to be deleted if the output file was
successfully written (ie. the file is moved instead of copied).

-overwrite_original_in_place
Similar to -overwrite_original except that an extra step is added
to allow the original file attributes to be preserved. For
example, on a Mac this causes the original file creation date,
type, creator, label color, icon, Finder tags and hard links to
the file to be preserved (but note that the Mac OS resource fork
is always preserved unless specifically deleted with
"-rsrc:all="). This is implemented by opening the original file
in update mode and replacing its data with a copy of a temporary
file before deleting the temporary. The extra step results in
slower performance, so the -overwrite_original option should be
used instead unless necessary.

-P (-
-preserve)
Preserve the filesystem modification date/time of the original
file ("FileModifyDate") when writing. Note that some filesystems
store a creation date which is not preserved by this option, with
the exception of Windows systems where Win32API::File::Time is
available. For other systems, the -overwrite_original_in_place
option may be used if necessary to preserve the creation date.

-password P
__A_
S_S_
W_D
Specify password to allow processing of password-protected PDF
documents. If a password is required but not given, a warning is
issued and the document is not processed. Ignored if a password
is not required.

-progress
Show file progress count in messages. The progress count appears
in brackets after then name of each processed file, and gives the
current file number and the total number of files to be processed.
Implies the -v0 option, which prints the name of each processed
file when writing. When combined with the [tt]-if[/tt] option,
the total count includes all files before the condition is
applied, but files that fail the condition will not have their
names printed.

-q (-
-quiet)
Quiet processing. One -q suppresses normal informational
messages, and a second -q suppresses warnings as well. Error
messages can not be suppressed, although minor errors may be
downgraded to warnings with the -m option.

-r (-
-recurse)
Recursively process files in subdirectories. Only meaningful if
F_
_ I_
L_E is a directory name. By default, exiftool will also follow
symbolic links to directories if supported by the system, but this
may be disabled with "-i SYMLINKS" (see the -i option for
details).

-scanForXMP
Scan all files (even unsupported formats) for XMP information
unless found already. When combined with the -fast option, only
unsupported file types are scanned. Warning: It can be time
consuming to scan large files.
 -- ExifTool 9.59 -- 22

-u (-
-unknown)
Extract values of unknown tags. Add another -u to also extract
unknown information from binary data blocks. This option applies
to tags with numerical tag ID’s, and causes tag names like
"Exif_0xc5d9" to be generated for unknown information. It has no
effect on information types which have human-readable tag ID’s
(such as XMP), since unknown tags are extracted automatically from
these formats.

-U (-
-unknown2)
Extract values of unknown tags as well as unknown information from
some binary data blocks. This is the same as two -u options.

-wm M
__OD
__E (-
-writeMode)
Set mode for writing/creating tags. M__
O_D_
E is a string of one or
more characters from the list below. Write mode is "wcg" unless
otherwise specified.

w - Write existing tags

c - Create new tags
g - create new Groups as necessary

The level of the group is the SubDirectory level in the metadata

structure. For XMP or IPTC this is the full XMP/IPTC block (the
family 0 group), but for EXIF this is the individual IFD (the
family 1 group).

-z (-
-zip)
When reading, causes information to be extracted from .gz and .bz2
compressed images. (Only one image per archive. Requires gzip
and bzip2 to be installed on the system.) When writing, causes
compressed information to be written if supported by the image
format. (ie. The PNG format supports compressed text.) This
option also disables the recommended padding in embedded XMP,
saving 2424 bytes when writing XMP in a file.

S_
_ p_
ec__
i_a_
l _
f_e_
at__
u_r_
e_s

-geotag _
T_R_
K_F_
I_L_
E
Geotag images from the specified GPS track log file. Using the
-geotag option is equivalent to writing a value to the "Geotag"
tag. After the -geotag option has been specified, the value of
the "Geotime" tag is written to define a date/time for the
position interpolation. If "Geotime" is not specified, the value
is copied from "DateTimeOriginal". For example, the following two
commands are equivalent:

exiftool -geotag track.log image.jpg

exiftool -geotag "-Geotime<DateTimeOriginal" image.jpg

When the "Geotime" value is converted to UTC, the local system

timezone is assumed unless the date/time value contains a
timezone. Writing "Geotime" causes the following tags to be
written (provided they can be calculated from the track log, and
they are supported by the destination metadata format):
GPSLatitude, GPSLatitudeRef, GPSLongitude, GPSLongitudeRef,
GPSAltitude, GPSAltitudeRef, GPSDateStamp, GPSTimeStamp,
GPSDateTime, GPSTrack, GPSTrackRef, GPSSpeed, GPSSpeedRef,
GPSImgDirection, GPSImgDirectionRef, GPSPitch and GPSRoll. By
default, tags are created in EXIF, and updated in XMP only if they
already exist. However, "EXIF:Geotime" or "XMP:Geotime" may be
specified to write only EXIF or XMP tags respectively. Note that
GPSPitch and GPSRoll are non-standard, and require user-defined
tags in order to be written.
 -- ExifTool 9.59 -- 23

The "Geosync" tag may be used to specify a time correction which

is applied to each "Geotime" value for synchronization with GPS
time. For example, the following command compensates for image
times which are 1 minute and 20 seconds behind GPS:

exiftool -geosync=+1:20 -geotag a.log DIR

"Geosync" must be set before "Geotime" (if specified) to be

effective. Advanced "Geosync" features allow a linear time drift
correction and synchronization from previously geotagged images.
See "geotag.html" in the full ExifTool distribution for more
information.

Multiple -geotag options may be used to concatinate GPS track log

data. Also, a single -geotag option may be used to load multiple
track log files by using wildcards in the _ T_
R_K_
F_I_
L_E name, but note
that in this case _
T_R_
K_F_
I_L_
E must be quoted on most systems (with the
notable exception of Windows) to prevent filename expansion. For
example:

exiftool -geotag "TRACKDIR/*.log" IMAGEDIR

Currently supported track file formats are GPX, NMEA RMC/GGA/GLL,

KML, IGC, Garmin XML and TCX, Magellan PMGNTRK, Honeywell PTNTHPR,
and Winplus Beacon text files. See "GEOTAGGING EXAMPLES" for
examples. Also see "geotag.html" in the full ExifTool
distribution and the Image::ExifTool Options for more details and
for information about geotag configuration options.

-globalTimeShift _
S_H_
I_F_
T
Shift all formatted date/time values by the specified amount when
reading. Does not apply to unformatted (--n) output. _S_
H_I_
F_T takes
the same form as the date/time shift when writing (see
Image::ExifTool::Shift.pl for details), with a negative shift
being indicated with a minus sign ("-") at the start of the _ S_
H_I_
F_T
string. For example:

# return all date/times, shifted back by 1 hour

exiftool -globalTimeShift -1 -time:all a.jpg

# set the file name from the shifted CreateDate (-1 day) for
# all images in a directory
exiftool "-filename<createdate" -globaltimeshift "-0:0:1 0:0:0" \
-d %Y%m%d-%H%M%S.%%e dir

-use M
__OD
__U_
L_E
Add features from specified plug-in _
M_O_
D_U_
L_E. Currently, the MWG
module is the only plug-in module distributed with exiftool. This
module adds read/write support for tags as recommended by the
Metadata Working Group. To save typing, "-use MWG" is assumed if
the "MWG" group is specified for any tag on the command line. See
the MWG Tags documentation for more details. Note that this
option is not reversible, and remains in effect until the
application terminates, even across the "-execute" option.

U_
_ t_
i_l_
i_ti
__e_
s

-restore_original
-delete_original[!]
These utility options automate the maintenance of the "_original"
files created by exiftool. They have no effect on files without
an "_original" copy. The -restore_original option restores the
specified files from their original copies by renaming the
"_original" files to replace the edited versions. For example,
 -- ExifTool 9.59 -- 24
the following command restores the originals of all JPG images in
directory "DIR":

exiftool -restore_original -ext jpg DIR

The -delete_original option deletes the "_original" copies of all

files specified on the command line. Without a trailing "!" this
option prompts for confirmation before continuing. For example,
the following command deletes "a.jpg_original" if it exists, after
asking "Are you sure?":

exiftool -delete_original a.jpg

These options may not be used with other options to read or write
tag values in the same command, but may be combined with options
such -ext, -if, -r, -q and -v.

O_
_ t_
he__
r _
o_pt
__i_
o_n_
s

-@ _
A_R_
G_F_
IL__
E
Read command-line arguments from the specified file. The file
contains one argument per line (NOT one option per line -- some
options require additional arguments, and all arguments must be
placed on separate lines). Blank lines and lines beginning with
"#" and are ignored. Normal shell processing of arguments is not
performed, which among other things means that arguments should
not be quoted and spaces are treated as any other character.
A_
_ R_
GF__
I_L_
E may exist relative to either the current directory or the
exiftool directory unless an absolute pathname is given.

For example, the following _

A_R_
G_F_
I_L_
E will set the value of Copyright
to "Copyright YYYY, Phil Harvey", where "YYYY" is the year of
CreateDate:

-d
%Y
-copyright<Copyright $createdate, Phil Harvey

-k (-
-pause)
Pause with the message "-- press any key --" or "-- press RETURN
--" (depending on your system) before terminating. This option is
used to prevent the command window from closing when run as a
Windows drag and drop application.

-list, -listw, -listf, -listr, -listwf, -listg[_

N_U_
M], -listd, -listx
Print a list of all valid tag names (-
-list), all writable tag
names (-
-listw), all supported file extensions (--listf), all
recognized file extensions (-
-listr), all writable file extensions
(-
-listwf), all tag groups [in a specified family] (--listg[_
N_U_
M]),
all deletable tag groups (-
-listd), or an XML database of tag
details including language translations (-
-listx). The -list,
-listw and -listx options may be followed by an additional
argument of the form "-GROUP:All" to list only tags in a specific
group, where "GROUP" is one or more family 0-2 group names
(excepting EXIF IFD groups) separated by colons. With -listg, N __U_
M
may be given to specify the group family, otherwise family 0 is
assumed. Here are some examples:

-list # list all tag names

-list -EXIF:All # list all EXIF tags
-list -xmp:time:all # list all XMP tags relating to time
-listw -XMP-dc:All # list all writable XMP-dc tags
-listf # list all supported file extensions
-listr # list all recognized file extensions
-listwf # list all writable file extensions
 -- ExifTool 9.59 -- 25
-listg1 # list all groups in family 1
-listd # list all deletable groups
-listx -EXIF:All # list database of EXIF tags in XML format
-listx -XMP:All -s # list short XML database of XMP tags

When combined with -listx, the -s option shortens the output by

omitting the descriptions and values (as in the last example
above), and -f adds a ’flags’ attribute if applicable. The flags
are formatted as a comma-separated list of the following possible
values: Avoid, Binary, List, Mandatory, Permanent, Protected,
Unknown and Unsafe (see the Tag Name documentation). For XMP List
tags, the list type (Alt, Bag or Seq) is added to the flags, and
flattened structure tags are indicated by a Flattened flag.

Note that none of the -list options require an input _

F_I_
L_E.

-ver Print exiftool version number.

A_
_ dv
__a_
nc__
e_d _
op__
t_i_
o_n_
s

Among other things, the advanced options allow complex processing to be

performed from a single command without the need for additional
scripting. This may be particularly useful for implementations such as
Windows drag-and-drop applications. These options may also be used to
improve performance in multi-pass processing by reducing the overhead
required to load exiftool for each invocation.

-api _
O_P_
T_[_
=_V_
A_L_
]
Set ExifTool API option. _ O_
P_T is an API option name. The option
value is set to 1 if _
=_V_
A_L is omitted. See Image::ExifTool Options
for a list of available API options. This overrides API options
set via the config file.

-common_args
Specifies that all arguments following this option are common to
all executed commands when -execute is used. This and the -config
option are the only options that may not be used inside a -@
A_
_ RG
__F_
I_L_
E. Note that by definition this option and its arguments
MUST come after all other options on the command line.

-config C
__F_
G_F_
IL__
E
Load specified configuration file instead of the default
".ExifTool_config". If used, this option must come before all
other arguments on the command line. The _C_
F_G_
F_I_
L_E name may contain
a directory specification (otherwise the file must exist in the
current directory), or may be set to an empty string ("") to
disable loading of the config file. See the sample configuration
file and "config.html" in the full ExifTool distribution for more
information about the ExifTool configuration file.

-echo[_
N_U_
M] _
TE__
X_T
Echo text to stdout (--echo or -echo1) or stderr (-
-echo2). Text is
output as the command line is parsed, before the processing of any
input files. _N_
U_M may also be 3 or 4 to output text (to stdout or
stderr respectively) after processing is complete.

-execute[_
N_
U_M]
Execute command for all arguments up to this point on the command
line. Allows multiple commands to be executed from a single
command line. N__
U_M is an optional number that is echoed in the
"{ready}" message when using the -stay_open feature.

-srcfile _
F_M_
T
Specify a different source file to be processed based on the name
of the original _
F_I_
L_E. This may be useful in some special
 -- ExifTool 9.59 -- 26
situations for processing related preview images or sidecar files.
See the -w option for a description of the _ F_
M_T syntax. Note that
file name _ F_
M_T strings for all options are based on the original
F_
_ I_
L_E specified from the command line, not the name of the source
file specified by -srcfile.

If than one -srcfile option is specified, the files are tested in

order and the first existing source file is processed. If none of
the source files already exist, then exiftool uses the first
-srcfile specified.

A _
F_M_
T of "@" may be used to represent the original _F_
I_L_
E, which may
be useful when specifying multiple -srcfile options (ie. to fall
back to processing the original _F_
I_L_
E if no sidecar exists).

-stay_open _ F_L_
A_G
If _ F_
LA__
G is 1 or "True", causes exiftool keep reading from the -@
A_
_ RG
__F_
IL__
E even after reaching the end of file. This feature allows
calling applications to pre-load exiftool, thus avoiding the
overhead of loading exiftool for each command. The procedure is
as follows:

1) Execute "exiftool -stay_open True -@ ARGFILE", where A

__R_
G_F_
I_L_
E is
the name of an existing (possibly empty) argument file or "-" to
pipe arguments from the standard input.

2) Write exiftool command-line arguments to _

A_R_
G_F_
I_L_
E, one argument
per line (see the -@ option for details).

3) Write "-execute\n" to _ A_
R_G_
F_I_
L_E, where "\n" represents a newline
sequence. (Note: You may need to flush your write buffers here if
using buffered output.) Exiftool will then execute the command
with the arguments received up to this point, send a "{ready}"
message to stdout when done (unless the -q or -T option is used),
and continue trying to read arguments for the next command from
A_
_ R_
G_F_
I_LE
_. To aid in command/response synchronization, any number
appended to the "-execute" option is echoed in the "{ready}"
message. For example, "-execute613" results in "{ready613}".

4) Repeat steps 2 and 3 for each command.

5) Write "-stay_open\nFalse\n" to _
A_R_
G_F_
I_L_
E when done. This will
cause exiftool to process any remaining command-line arguments
then exit normally.

The input A
__R_
G_F_
I_L_
E may be changed at any time before step 5 above
by writing the following lines to the currently open _ A_
R_G_
F_I_
L_E:

-stay_open
True
-@
NEWARGFILE

This causes _ AR
__G_
F_I_
L_E to be closed, and _ N_
E_W_
AR__
G_F_
I_L_
E to be kept open.
(Without the -stay_open here, exiftool would have returned to
reading arguments from _ A_
R_G_
F_I_
L_E after reaching the end of
N_
_ E_
W_A_
R_G_
FI__
L_E.)

Note: When writing arguments to a disk file there is a delay of

up to 0.01 seconds after writing "-execute\n" before exiftool
starts processing the command. This delay may be avoided by
sending a CONT signal to the exiftool process immediately after
writing "-execute\n". (There is no associated delay when writing
arguments via a pipe with "-@ -", so the signal is not necessary
when using this technique.)
 -- ExifTool 9.59 -- 27

READING EXAMPLES
Note: Beware when cutting and pasting these examples into your
terminal! Some characters such as single and double quotes and hyphens
may have been changed into similar-looking yet functionally-different
characters by the text formatter used to display this documentation.
Also note that Windows users must use double quotes instead of single
quotes as below around arguments containing special characters.

exiftool -a -u -g1 a.jpg

Print all meta information in an image, including duplicate and
unknown tags, sorted by group (for family 1).

exiftool -common dir

Print common meta information for all images in "dir". "-common"
is a shortcut tag representing common EXIF meta information.

exiftool -T -createdate -aperture -shutterspeed -iso dir > out.txt

List specified meta information in tab-delimited column form for
all images in "dir" to an output text file named "out.txt".

exiftool -s -ImageSize -ExposureTime b.jpg

Print ImageSize and ExposureTime tag names and values.

exiftool -l -canon c.jpg d.jpg

Print standard Canon information from two image files.

exiftool -r -w .txt -common pictures

Recursively extract common meta information from files in
"pictures" directory, writing text output to ".txt" files with the
same names.

exiftool -b -ThumbnailImage image.jpg > thumbnail.jpg

Save thumbnail image from "image.jpg" to a file called
"thumbnail.jpg".

exiftool -b -JpgFromRaw -w _JFR.JPG -ext NEF -r .

Recursively extract JPG image from all Nikon NEF files in the
current directory, adding "_JFR.JPG" for the name of the output
JPG files.

exiftool -d ’%r %a, %B %e, %Y’ -DateTimeOriginal -S -s -ext jpg .

Print formatted date/time for all JPG files in the current
directory.

exiftool -IFD1:XResolution -IFD1:YResolution image.jpg

Extract image resolution from EXIF IFD1 information (thumbnail
image IFD).

exiftool ’-*resolution*’ image.jpg

Extract all tags with names containing the word "Resolution" from
an image.

exiftool -xmp:author:all -a image.jpg

Extract all author-related XMP information from an image.

exiftool -xmp -b a.jpg > out.xmp

Extract complete XMP data record intact from "a.jpg" and write it
to "out.xmp" using the special "XMP" tag (see the Extra tags in
Image::ExifTool::TagNames).

exiftool -p ’$filename has date $dateTimeOriginal’ -q -f dir

Print one line of output containing the file name and
DateTimeOriginal for each image in directory "dir".
 -- ExifTool 9.59 -- 28
exiftool -ee -p ’$gpslatitude, $gpslongitude, $gpstimestamp’ a.m2ts
Extract all GPS positions from an AVCHD video.

exiftool -icc_profile -b -w icc image.jpg

Save complete ICC_Profile from an image to an output file with the
same name and an extension of ".icc".

exiftool -htmldump -w tmp/%f_%e.html t/images

Generate HTML pages from a hex dump of EXIF information in all
images from the "t/images" directory. The output HTML files are
written to the "tmp" directory (which is created if it didn’t
exist), with names of the form ’FILENAME_EXT.html’.

exiftool -a -b -ee -embeddedimage -W Image_%.3g3.%s file.pdf

Extract embedded JPG and JP2 images from a PDF file. The output
images will have file names like "Image_#.jpg" or "Image_#.jp2",
where "#" is the ExifTool family 3 embedded document number for
the image.

WRITING EXAMPLES
Note that quotes are necessary around arguments which contain certain
special characters such as ">", "<" or any white space. These quoting
techniques are shell dependent, but the examples below will work for
most Unix shells. With the Windows cmd shell however, double quotes
should be used (ie. -Comment="This is a new comment").

exiftool -Comment=’This is a new comment’ dst.jpg

Write new comment to a JPG image (replaces any existing comment).

exiftool -comment= -o newdir -ext jpg .

Remove comment from all JPG images in the current directory,
writing the modified images to a new directory.

exiftool -keywords=EXIF -keywords=editor dst.jpg

Replace existing keyword list with two new keywords ("EXIF" and
"editor").

exiftool -Keywords+=word -o newfile.jpg src.jpg

Copy a source image to a new file, and add a keyword ("word") to
the current list of keywords.

exiftool -exposurecompensation+=-0.5 a.jpg

Decrement the value of ExposureCompensation by 0.5 EV. Note that
+= with a negative value is used for decrementing because the -=
operator is used for conditional deletion (see next example).

exiftool -credit-=xxx dir

Delete Credit information from all files in a directory where the
Credit value was ("xxx").

exiftool -xmp:description-de=’k&uuml;hl’ -E dst.jpg

Write alternate language for XMP:Description, using HTML character
escaping to input special characters.

exiftool -all= dst.jpg

Delete all meta information from an image. Note: You should NOT
do this to RAW images (except DNG) since proprietary RAW image
formats often contain information in the makernotes that is
necessary for converting the image.

exiftool -all= -comment=’lonely’ dst.jpg

Delete all meta information from an image and add a comment back
in. (Note that the order is important: "-comment=’lonely’ -all="
would also delete the new comment.)
 -- ExifTool 9.59 -- 29
exiftool -all= --jfif:all dst.jpg
Delete all meta information except JFIF group from an image.

exiftool -Photoshop:All= dst.jpg

Delete Photoshop meta information from an image (note that the
Photoshop information also includes IPTC).

exiftool -r -XMP-crss:all= DIR

Recursively delete all XMP-crss information from images in a
directory.

exiftool ’-ThumbnailImage<=thumb.jpg’ dst.jpg

Set the thumbnail image from specified file (Note: The quotes are
necessary to prevent shell redirection).

exiftool ’-JpgFromRaw<=%d%f_JFR.JPG’ -ext NEF -r .

Recursively write JPEG images with filenames ending in "_JFR.JPG"
to the JpgFromRaw tag of like-named files with extension ".NEF" in
the current directory. (This is the inverse of the "-JpgFromRaw"
command of the "READING EXAMPLES" section above.)

exiftool -DateTimeOriginal-=’0:0:0 1:30:0’ dir

Adjust original date/time of all images in directory "dir" by
subtracting one hour and 30 minutes. (This is equivalent to
"-DateTimeOriginal-=1.5". See Image::ExifTool::Shift.pl for
details.)

exiftool -createdate+=3 -modifydate+=3 a.jpg b.jpg

Add 3 hours to the CreateDate and ModifyDate timestamps of two
images.

exiftool -AllDates+=1:30 -if ’$make eq "Canon"’ dir

Shift the values of DateTimeOriginal, CreateDate and ModifyDate
forward by 1 hour and 30 minutes for all Canon images in a
directory. (The AllDates tag is provided as a shortcut for these
three tags, allowing them to be accessed via a single tag.)

exiftool -xmp:city=Kingston image1.jpg image2.nef

Write a tag to the XMP group of two images. (Without the "xmp:"
this tag would get written to the IPTC group since "City" exists
in both, and IPTC is preferred by default.)

exiftool -LightSource-=’Unknown (0)’ dst.tiff

Delete "LightSource" tag only if it is unknown with a value of 0.

exiftool -whitebalance-=auto -WhiteBalance=tung dst.jpg

Set "WhiteBalance" to "Tungsten" only if it was previously "Auto".

exiftool -comment-= -comment=’new comment’ a.jpg

Write a new comment only if the image doesn’t have one already.

exiftool -o %d%f.xmp dir

Create XMP meta information data files for all images in "dir".

exiftool -o test.xmp -owner=Phil -title=’XMP File’

Create an XMP data file only from tags defined on the command
line.

exiftool ’-ICC_Profile<=%d%f.icc’ image.jpg

Write ICC_Profile to an image from a ".icc" file of the same name.

exiftool -hierarchicalkeywords=’{keyword=one,children={keyword=B}}’
Write structured XMP information. See
<http://owl.phy.queensu.ca/˜phil/exiftool/struct.html> for more
details.
 -- ExifTool 9.59 -- 30

exiftool -trailer:all= image.jpg

Delete any trailer found after the end of image (EOI) in a JPEG
file. A number of digital cameras store a large PreviewImage
after the JPEG EOI, and the file size may be reduced significantly
by deleting this trailer. See the JPEG Tags documentation for a
list of recognized JPEG trailers.

COPYING EXAMPLES
These examples demonstrate the ability to copy tag values between
files.

exiftool -tagsFromFile src.cr2 dst.jpg

Copy the values of all writable tags from "src.cr2" to "dst.jpg",
writing the information to same-named tags in the preferred
groups.

exiftool -TagsFromFile src.jpg -all:all dst.jpg

Copy the values of all writable tags from "src.jpg" to "dst.jpg",
preserving the original tag groups.

exiftool -all= -tagsfromfile src.jpg -exif:all dst.jpg

Erase all meta information from "dst.jpg" image, then copy EXIF
tags from "src.jpg".

exiftool -exif:all= -tagsfromfile @ -all:all -unsafe bad.jpg

Rebuild all EXIF meta information from scratch in an image. This
technique can be used in JPEG images to repair corrupted EXIF
information which otherwise could not be written due to errors.
The "Unsafe" tag is a shortcut for unsafe EXIF tags in JPEG images
which are not normally copied. See the tag name documentation for
more details about unsafe tags.

exiftool -Tagsfromfile a.jpg out.xmp

Copy meta information from "a.jpg" to an XMP data file. If the
XMP data file "out.xmp" already exists, it will be updated with
the new information. Otherwise the XMP data file will be created.
Only XMP, ICC and MIE files may be created like this (other file
types may be edited but not created). See "WRITING EXAMPLES"
above for another technique to generate XMP files.

exiftool -tagsFromFile a.jpg -XMP:All= -ThumbnailImage= -m b.jpg

Copy all meta information from "a.jpg" to "b.jpg", deleting all
XMP information and the thumbnail image from the destination.

exiftool -TagsFromFile src.jpg -title -author=Phil dst.jpg

Copy title from one image to another and set a new author name.

exiftool -TagsFromFile a.jpg -ISO -TagsFromFile b.jpg -comment dst.jpg

Copy ISO from one image and Comment from another image to a
destination image.

exiftool -tagsfromfile src.jpg -exif:all --subifd:all dst.jpg

Copy only the EXIF information from one image to another,
excluding SubIFD tags.

exiftool ’-FileModifyDate<DateTimeOriginal’ dir

Use the original date from the meta information to set the same
file’s filesystem modification date for all images in a directory.
(Note that "-TagsFromFile @" is assumed if no other -TagsFromFile
is specified when redirecting information as in this example.)

exiftool -TagsFromFile src.jpg ’-xmp:all<all’ dst.jpg

Copy all possible information from "src.jpg" and write in XMP
format to "dst.jpg".
 -- ExifTool 9.59 -- 31

exiftool -@ iptc2xmp.args -iptc:all= a.jpg

Translate IPTC information to XMP with appropriate tag name
conversions, and delete the original IPTC information from an
image. This example uses iptc2xmp.args, which is a file included
with the ExifTool distribution that contains the required
arguments to convert IPTC information to XMP format. Also
included with the distribution are xmp2iptc.args (which performs
the inverse conversion) and a few more .args files for other
conversions between EXIF, IPTC and XMP.

exiftool -tagsfromfile %d%f.CR2 -r -ext JPG dir

Recursively rewrite all "JPG" images in "dir" with information
copied from the corresponding "CR2" images in the same
directories.

exiftool ’-keywords+<make’ image.jpg

Add camera make to list of keywords.

exiftool ’-comment<ISO=$exif:iso Exposure=${shutterspeed}’ dir

Set the Comment tag of all images in "dir" from the values of the
EXIF:ISO and ShutterSpeed tags. The resulting comment will be in
the form "ISO=100 Exposure=1/60".

exiftool -TagsFromFile src.jpg -icc_profile dst.jpg

Copy ICC_Profile from one image to another.

exiftool -TagsFromFile src.jpg -all:all dst.mie

Copy all meta information in its original form from a JPEG image
to a MIE file. The MIE file will be created if it doesn’t exist.
This technique can be used to store the metadata of an image so it
can be inserted back into the image (with the inverse command)
later in a workflow.

exiftool -o dst.mie -all:all src.jpg

This command performs exactly the same task as the command above,
except that the -o option will not write to an output file that
already exists.

exiftool -if ’$jpgfromraw’ -b -jpgfromraw -w %d%f_%ue.jpg -execute -if

’$previewimage’ -b -previewimage -w %d%f_%ue.jpg -execute -tagsfromfile
@ -srcfile %d%f_%ue.jpg -overwrite_original -common_args --ext jpg DIR
[Advanced] Extract JpgFromRaw or PreviewImage from all but JPG
files in DIR, saving them with file names like "image_EXT.jpg",
then add all meta information from the original files to the
extracted images. Here, the command line is broken into three
sections (separated by -execute options), and each is executed as
if it were a separate command. The -common_args option causes the
"--ext jpg DIR" arguments to be applied to all three commands, and
the -srcfile option allows the extracted JPG image to be the
source file for the third command (whereas the RAW files are the
source files for the other two commands).

RENAMING EXAMPLES
By writing the "FileName" and "Directory" tags, files are renamed
and/or moved to new directories. This can be particularly useful and
powerful for organizing files by date when combined with the -d option.
New directories are created as necessary, but existing files will not
be overwritten. The format codes %d, %f and %e may be used in the new
file name to represent the directory, name and extension of the
original file, and %c may be used to add a copy number if the file
already exists (see the -w option for details). Note that if used
within a date format string, an extra ’%’ must be added to pass these
codes through the date/time parser. (And further note that in a
Windows batch file, all ’%’ characters must also be escaped, so in this
 -- ExifTool 9.59 -- 32
extreme case ’%%%%f’ is necessary to pass a simple ’%f’ through the two
levels of parsing.) See
<http://owl.phy.queensu.ca/˜phil/exiftool/filename.html> for additional
documentation and examples.

exiftool -filename=new.jpg dir/old.jpg

Rename "old.jpg" to "new.jpg" in directory "dir".

exiftool -directory=%e dir

Move all files from directory "dir" into directories named by the
original file extensions.

exiftool ’-Directory<DateTimeOriginal’ -d %Y/%m/%d dir

Move all files in "dir" into a directory hierarchy based on year,
month and day of "DateTimeOriginal". ie) This command would move
the file "dir/image.jpg" with a "DateTimeOriginal" of "2005:10:12
16:05:56" to "2005/10/12/image.jpg".

exiftool -o . ’-Directory<DateTimeOriginal’ -d %Y/%m/%d dir

Same effect as above except files are copied instead of moved.

exiftool ’-filename<%f_${model;}.%e’ dir

Rename all files in "dir" by adding the camera model name to the
file name. The semicolon after the tag name inside the braces
causes characters which are invalid in Windows file names to be
deleted from the tag value (see the -p option documentation for an
explanation).

exiftool ’-FileName<CreateDate’ -d %Y%m%d_%H%M%S%%-c.%%e dir

Rename all images in "dir" according to the "CreateDate" date and
time, adding a copy number with leading ’-’ if the file already
exists ("%-c"), and preserving the original file extension (%e).
Note the extra ’%’ necessary to escape the filename codes (%c and
%e) in the date format string.

exiftool -r ’-FileName<CreateDate’ -d %Y-%m-%d/%H%M_%%f.%%e dir

Both the directory and the filename may be changed together via
the "FileName" tag if the new "FileName" contains a ’/’. The
example above recursively renames all images in a directory by
adding a "CreateDate" timestamp to the start of the filename, then
moves them into new directories named by date.

exiftool ’-FileName<${CreateDate}_$filenumber.jpg’ -d %Y%m%d -ext jpg .

Set the filename of all JPG images in the current directory from
the CreateDate and FileNumber tags, in the form
"20060507_118-1861.jpg".

GEOTAGGING EXAMPLES
ExifTool implements geotagging via 3 special tags: Geotag (which for
convenience is also implemented as an exiftool option), Geosync and
Geotime. The examples below highlight some geotagging features. See
<http://owl.phy.queensu.ca/˜phil/exiftool/geotag.html> for additional
documentation.

exiftool -geotag track.log a.jpg

Geotag an image ("a.jpg") from position information in a GPS track
log ("track.log"). Since the "Geotime" tag is not specified, the
value of DateTimeOriginal is used for geotagging. Local system
time is assumed unless DateTimeOriginal contains a timezone.

exiftool -geotag t.log -geotime=’2009:04:02 13:41:12-05:00’ a.jpg

Geotag an image with the GPS position for a specific time. (Note
that the "Geotag" tag must be assigned before "Geotime" for the
GPS data to be available when "Geotime" is set.)
 -- ExifTool 9.59 -- 33
exiftool -geotag log.gpx ’-xmp:geotime<createdate’ dir
Geotag all images in directory "dir" with XMP tags instead of EXIF
tags, based on the image CreateDate. (In this case, the order of
the arguments doesn’t matter because tags with values copied from
other tags are always set after constant values.)

exiftool -geotag a.log -geosync=-20 dir

Geotag images in directory "dir", accounting for image timestamps
which were 20 seconds ahead of GPS.

exiftool -geotag a.log -geosync=1.jpg -geosync=2.jpg dir

Geotag images using time synchronization from two previously
geotagged images (1.jpg and 2.jpg), synchronizing the image and
GPS times using a linear time drift correction.

exiftool -geotag a.log ’-geotime<${createdate}+01:00’ dir

Geotag images in "dir" using CreateDate with the specified
timezone. If CreateDate already contained a timezone, then the
timezone specified on the command line is ignored.

exiftool -geotag= a.jpg

Delete GPS tags which may have been added by the geotag feature.
Note that this does not remove all GPS tags -- to do this instead
use "-gps:all=".

exiftool -xmp:geotag= a.jpg

Delete XMP GPS tags which were added by the geotag feature.

exiftool -xmp:geotag=track.log a.jpg

Geotag an image with XMP tags, using the time from
DateTimeOriginal.

exiftool -geotag a.log -geotag b.log -r dir

Combine multiple track logs and geotag an entire directory tree of
images.

exiftool -geotag ’tracks/*.log’ -r dir

Read all track logs from the "tracks" directory.

exiftool -p gpx.fmt -d %Y-%m-%dT%H:%M:%SZ dir > out.gpx

Generate a GPX track log from all images in directory "dir". This
example uses the "gpx.fmt" file included in the full ExifTool
distribution package and assumes that the images in "dir" have all
been previously geotagged.

PIPING EXAMPLES
cat a.jpg | exiftool -
Extract information from stdin.

exiftool image.jpg -thumbnailimage -b | exiftool -

Extract information from an embedded thumbnail image.

cat a.jpg | exiftool -iptc:keywords+=fantastic - > b.jpg

Add an IPTC keyword in a pipeline, saving output to a new file.

curl -s http://a.domain.com/bigfile.jpg | exiftool -fast -

Extract information from an image over the internet using the cURL
utility. The -fast option prevents exiftool from scanning for
trailer information, so only the meta information header is
transferred.

exiftool a.jpg -thumbnailimage -b | exiftool -comment=wow - | exiftool

a.jpg -thumbnailimage’<=-’
Add a comment to an embedded thumbnail image. (Why anyone would
want to do this I don’t know, but I’ve included this as an example
 -- ExifTool 9.59 -- 34
to illustrate the flexibility of ExifTool.)

DIAGNOSTICS
The exiftool application exits with a status of 0 on success, or 1 if
an error occured or if all files failed the -if condition.

AUTHOR
Copyright 2003-2014, Phil Harvey

This is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under

the same terms as Perl itself.

SEE ALSO
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perl v5.12.4 2014-05-01 EXIFTOOL(1)