| exiftool Application Documentation |
exiftool - Read and write meta information in files
exiftool [OPTIONS] [-TAG...] [--TAG...] FILE...
exiftool [OPTIONS] -TAG[+-<]=[VALUE]... FILE...
exiftool [OPTIONS] -TagsFromFile SRCFILE [-SRCTAG[>DSTTAG]...] FILE...
exiftool [ -ver | -list[w|f|g[NUM]|d] ]
For specific examples, see the EXAMPLES sections below.
A command-line interface to Image::ExifTool, used for
reading and writing meta information in image, audio and video files.
FILE is a source file name, directory name, or - for the standard
input. Information is read from the source file and output in readable form
to the console (or written to an output text file with the -w option).
To write or copy information, new values are specified with the
-TAG=[VALUE] syntax or the -TagsFromFile option. This causes
FILE to be rewritten, and by default the original file is preserved with
_original appended to the file name. (Be sure to verify that the new
file is OK before erasing the original.)
Below is a list of file types and meta information formats currently supported by ExifTool (r = read, w = write, c = create):
File Types | Meta Information
--------------------------------------- | --------------------
ACR r JP2 r/w PPT r | EXIF r/w/c
AI r JPEG r/w PS r/w | GPS r/w/c
AIFF r K25 r PSD r/w | IPTC r/w/c
APE r M4A r QTIF r | XMP r/w/c
ARW r MEF r/w RA r | MakerNotes r/w/c
ASF r MIE r/w/c RAF r | Photoshop IRB r/w/c
AVI r MIFF r RAM r | ICC Profile r/w/c
BMP r MNG r/w RAW r/w | MIE r/w/c
BTF r MOS r/w RIFF r | JFIF r/w/c
CR2 r/w MOV r RM r | Ducky APP12 r/w/c
CRW r/w MP3 r SR2 r | CIFF r/w
CS1 r/w MP4 r SRF r | AFCP r/w
DCM r MPC r SWF r | DICOM r
DCR r MPG r THM r/w | Flash r
DNG r/w MRW r/w TIFF r/w | FlashPix r
DOC r NEF r/w VRD r/w | GeoTIFF r
EPS r/w OGG r WAV r | PrintIM r
ERF r/w ORF r/w WDP r/w | ID3 r
FLAC r PBM r/w WMA r | Kodak Meta r
FLV r PDF r WMV r | Ricoh RMETA r
FPX r PEF r/w X3F r | Picture Info r
GIF r/w PGM r/w XLS r | Adobe APP14 r
HTML r PICT r XMP r/w/c | APE r
ICC r/w/c PNG r/w | Vorbis r
JNG r/w PPM r/w | (and more)
Note: If FILE is a directory name, then only file types with recognized extensions are processed when reading, and only writable types are written. However, the -ext option may be used to force processing of files with any extension.
Case is not significant for any command-line option (including tag and group names), except for single-character options if the corresponding upper case option is defined. Multiple options may NOT be combined into a single argument, because that would be interpreted as a tag name.
-CreateDate). See
Image::ExifTool::TagNames for documentation on
available tag names. A tag name may include a leading group name separated
by a colon (ie. -XMP:Creator). Any family 0 or 1 group name may be used,
and the group name may be prefixed by a digit to specify family number (ie.
-1IPTC:Keywords). Use the -listg or -listg1 option to list valid
family 0 or 1 group names.
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. (* is a synonym for All, but must be quoted
if used on the command line to prevent shell globbing.)
If no tags are specified, all available information is extracted.
-all= --exif:all deletes all but EXIF information).
-comment=wow), or delete the
tag if no VALUE is given (ie. -comment=). += and -= are used to
add or remove entries from a list, or to shift date/time values (see
Image::ExifTool::Shift.pl for details).
If a group name is not specified for TAG, then the information is written to the preferred group, which is the first group in the following list where TAG is valid: 1) EXIF, 2) IPTC, 3) XMP, 4) MakerNotes.
The special All tag may be used in this syntax only if a VALUE is NOT
given. This causes all meta information to be deleted (or all information
in a group if -GROUP:All= is used). Note that not all groups are
deletable. Also, within an image some groups may be contained within
others, and these groups are removed if the super group is deleted. Below
are lists of these group dependencies:
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.
< symbol.
+<= or -<= may also be used to add or delete specific list
entries, or to shift date/time values.
# and are ignored. Normal shell processing of
arguments is not performed, which among other things means that arguments
should not be quoted. ARGFILE may exist relative to either the current
directory or the exiftool directory unless an absolute pathname is given.
For example, the following ARGFILE will set the value of Copyright to ``Copyright YYYY, Phil Harvey'', where ``YYYY'' is the year of CreateDate:
-d
%Y
-copyright<Copyright $createdate, Phil Harvey
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" (the default)
"%d deg %.4f min" 54 deg 59.3800 min
"%.6f degrees" 54.989667 degrees
strftime man page
for FMT syntax. The default format is equivalent to ``%Y:%m:%d %H:%M:%S''.
This option has no effect on date-only or time-only tags.
exiftool -ext .JPG * # process only JPG files
exiftool --ext crw --ext dng * # process all but CRW and DNG
exiftool --ext . * # ignore if no extension
$ symbols. It
is evaluated with the tags from each FILE in turn, and processing
proceeds only if the expression returns true. Unlike Perl variable names,
tag names are not case sensitive and may contain a hyphen or a leading group
name separated by a colon. When multiple -if options are used, all
conditions must be satisfied to process the file. 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
-- press any key -- before terminating. This
option is used to prevent the command window from closing when run as a
Windows drag and drop application.
-GROUP:All to list all tags in a
specific group. With -listg, NUM may be given to specify the group
family, otherwise family 0 is assumed. For example:
-list # list all tag names
-list -EXIF:All # list all EXIF tags
-listw -XMP-dc:All # list all writable XMP-dc tags
-listf # list all recognized file extensions
-listg1 # list all groups in family 1
-listd # list all deletable groups
> exiftool -Orientation -S a.jpg
Orientation: Rotate 90 CW
> exiftool -Orientation -S -n a.jpg
Orientation: 6
and the following two writing commands have the same effect
> exiftool -Orientation='Rotate 90 CW' a.jpg
> exiftool -Orientation=6 -n a.jpg
FILE_original and output is
sent to FILE.) The output file name may also be specified using a FMT
string in which %d, %f and %e represent the directory, file name and
extension of FILE. Also, %c may be used to add a copy number. See the
-w option for FMT string examples.
The output file is taken to be a directory name if it already exists as a directory or if the name ends with '/'. Output directories are created if necessary. Existing files will not be overwritten. Combining the -overwrite_original option with -o causes the original source file to be erased after the output file is successfully written.
A special feature of this option allows it to be used to create certain types of files from scratch. Currently, this can only be done with XMP and ICC/ICM files. The file is created from a combination of information in FILE and tag values assigned on the command line. This is done by specifying a file extension of '.XMP', '.ICC' or '.ICM' for OUTFILE. The output file may be created even if no FILE is specified, provided some appropriate tag values are specified on the command line.
_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.
$ symbol and may contain an optional group name. Case is not
significant. Braces {} may be used around the tag name to separate it
from subsequent text. Use $$ to represent a $ symbol. In the file,
lines beginning with # are ignored. For example, this format file:
# this is a comment line
File $FileName was created on $DateTimeOriginal
(f/$Aperture, ${ShutterSpeed}s, ISO $EXIF:ISO)
produces output like this:
File test.jpg was created on 2003:10:31 15:44:19
(f/5.6, 1/60s, ISO 100)
If a tag does not exist, the output value is set to '-' if the -f option is used. Otherwise a minor warning is issued and the line with the missing tag is not printed. However, if the -m option is used, minor warnings are ignored and the line is printed with an empty tag value.
By default, this option will commute information between same-named tags in
different groups and write each tag to the preferred group. This allows
information to be automatically translated when copying between images of
different formats. However, if a group name is specified for a tag then the
information is written to the original group (unless redirected to another
group, see below). This works even if All is used as a group name, so
-All:All is used to specify that all information be copied to the same
group in the destination file.
SRCFILE may be the same as FILE to move information around within a
file. In this case, @ may be used to represent the source file (ie.
-TagsFromFile @), permitting this feature to be used for batch processing
multiple files (see note 3 below). Specified tags are then copied from each
file in turn as it is rewritten. For advanced batch use, the source file
name may also be specified using a FMT string in which %d, %f and %e
represent the directory, file name and extension of FILE. See -w
option for FMT string examples.
A powerful redirection feature allows a destination tag to be specified for
each extracted tag. With this feature, information may be written to a tag
with a different name or group. This is done using
"'-SRCTAG>DSTTAG'" on the command line after
-TagsFromFile ("'-DSTTAG<SRCTAG'" also works).
Note that this argument must be quoted to prevent shell redirection, and
there is no = sign as when setting new values. Both source and
destination tags may be prefixed by a group name, and All or * may be
used as a tag or group name. If no destination group is specified, the
information is written to the preferred group. As a convenience,
-TagsFromFile @ is assumed for any redirected tags which are specified
without a prior -TagsFromFile option. Copied tags may also be added or
deleted from a list with arguments of the form
"'-SRCTAG+>DSTTAG'" or
"'-SRCTAG->DSTTAG'".
An extension of the redirection feature allows strings involving tag names
to be used on the right hand side of the < symbol with the syntax
"'-DSTTAG<STR'", where tag names in STR are
prefixed with a $ symbol. See the -p option for more details about
this syntax. Strings starting with a = sign must insert a single space
after the < to avoid confusion with the <= syntax which would
otherwise attempt to set the tag value from the contents of a file. A
single space at the start of the string is removed if it exists, but all
other whitespace is preserved.
See COPYING EXAMPLES for examples using -TagsFromFile.
Notes:
1) Be aware of the difference between excluding a tag from being copied (--TAG), and deleting a tag (-TAG=). Excluding a tag prevents it from being copied to the destination image, but deleting will remove a pre-existing tag from the image.
2) 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.
3) When performing complex batch processing, it is important to note that the order of operations is different for tags copied in batch mode. In general, tags are copied from batch-mode files after all other command-line arguments have been applied. (The exception is that a group delete is always performed last if there are no subsequent tag assignments on the command line.) For example, the following two commands are not equivalent:
# (not batch mode): Sets xmp:title to 'NEW'
exiftool -tagsfromfile a.jpg -xmp:title -xmp:title=NEW a.jpg
# (batch mode): Preserves original title if it exists
exiftool -tagsfromfile @ -xmp:title -xmp:title=NEW a.jpg
-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, and output directories are created automatically if necessary.
Note: In a Windows BAT file the '%' character is represented by ``%%'', so an argument like ``%d%f.txt'' is written as ``%%d%%f.txt''.
Advanced features: A substring of the original file name, directory or extension may be taken by specifying a field width immediately following the '%' character. If the width is negative, the substring is taken from the end. The substring position (characters to ignore at the start or end of the string) may be given by a second optional value after a decimal point. For example:
Input File Name Format Specifier Output File Name
---------------- ---------------- ----------------
Picture-123.jpg %7f.txt Picture.txt
Picture-123.jpg %-.4f.out Picture.out
Picture-123.jpg %7f.%-3f Picture.123
Picture-123a.jpg Meta%-3.1f.txt Meta123.txt
For %c, these modifiers have a different effects. If a field width is given, the copy number is padded with zeros to the specified width. A leading '-' adds a dash before the copy number, and a '+' adds an underline. By default, a copy number of zero is omitted, but this can be changed by adding a decimal point to the modifier. For example:
-w A%-cZ.txt # AZ.txt, A-1Z.txt, A-2Z.txt ...
-w B%5c.txt # B.txt, B00001.txt, B00002.txt ...
-w C%.c.txt # C0.txt, C1.txt, C2.txt ...
-w D%-.c.txt # D-0.txt, D-1.txt, D-2.txt ...
-w E%-.4c.txt # E-0000.txt, E-0001.txt, E-0002.txt ...
-w F%+c.txt # F.txt, F_1.txt F_2.txt ...
-w G%-lc.txt # G.txt, G-b.txt, G-c.txt ...
All format codes may also 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 the copy number, the numbers are changed to an alphabetical base (ie. as with ``%lc'' in the last example above).
This same FMT syntax is used with the -o and -TagsFromFile options, although %c is only valid for output file names.
The following options allow complex processing to be performed with 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.
dir.
pictures
directory, writing text output into files with the same names but with a
.txt extension.
dir.
image.jpg to a file called thumbnail.jpg.
preview.jpg.
_JFR.JPG for the name of the output JPG files.
a.jpg and write it to
out.xmp using the special XMP tag (see the Extra tags in
Image::ExifTool::TagNames).
.icc.
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'.
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'').
EXIF and editor).
word) to the
current list of keywords.
xxx).
-comment='lonely' -all= would also delete
the new comment.)
_JFR.JPG to the
JpgFromRaw tag of like-named files with extension .CRW in the current
directory. (This is the inverse of the -JpgFromRaw command of the
READING EXAMPLES section above.)
dir by subtracting
one hour and 30 minutes. (This is equivalent to -DateTimeOriginal-=1.5.
See Image::ExifTool::Shift.pl for details.)
xmp: this tag
would get written to the IPTC group since City exists in both, and IPTC
is preferred by default.)
LightSource tag only if it is unknown with a value of 0.
WhiteBalance to Tungsten only if it was previously Auto.
dir.
.icc file of the same name.
These examples demonstrate the ability to copy tag values between files.
src.crw to dst.jpg, writing
the information to the preferred groups.
src.jpg to dst.jpg,
preserving the original tag groups.
dst.jpg image, then copy EXIF tags from
src.jpg.
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.
a.jpg to b.jpg, deleting all XMP
information and the thumbnail image from the destination.
-TagsFromFile @ is assumed if no other -TagsFromFile is specified when
redirecting information as in this example.)
src.jpg and write in XMP format to
dst.jpg.
JPG images in dir with information copied from
the corresponding CRW images in the same directories.
dir from the values of the EXIF:ISO
and ShutterSpeed tags. The resulting comment will be in the form ``ISO=100
Exposure=1/60''.
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).
By writing the FileName and Directory tags, files are renamed and/or
moved to new directories. This can be particularly useful and powerful for
organizing files by date when combined with the -d option. New
directories are created as necessary, but existing files will not be
overwritten. The format codes %d, %f and %e may be used in the new file
name to represent the directory, name and extension of the original file,
and %c may be used to add a copy number if the file already exists (see the
-w option for details). Note that if used within a date format string,
an extra '%' must be added to pass these codes through the date/time parser.
(And further note that in a Windows batch file, all '%' characters must also
be escaped, so in this extreme case '%%%%f' is necessary to pass a simple
'%f' through the two levels of parsing.)
old.jpg to new.jpg in directory dir.
dir into directories named by the original
file extensions.
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.
dir by adding FocalLength to the file name.
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.
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 does not handle information stored in the resource fork on Macintosh filesystems.
Copyright 2003-2007, Phil Harvey
This is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl itself.
Image::ExifTool(3pm), Image::ExifTool::TagNames(3pm), Image::ExifTool::Shortcuts(3pm), Image::ExifTool::Shift.pl
| exiftool Application Documentation |