ExifTool by Phil Harvey

Read, Write and Edit Meta Information!

Also available --> Utility to fix Nikon NEF images corrupted by Nikon software

Features
User Comments
Supported File Types
System Requirements
Running ExifTool
Example Output
Tag Names Explained
Tag Groups
Writing Information
Writer Limitations
Known Problems
Security Issues
Date/Time Shift
Renaming Files
Performance
ExifTool Library
Additional Resources
New Discoveries
Acknowledgements
License
Donate
Contact Me
Download Version 10.10 (3.9 MB) - Jan. 22, 2016

ExifTool is a platform-independent Perl library plus a command-line application for reading, writing and editing meta information in a wide variety of files. ExifTool supports many different metadata formats including EXIF, GPS, IPTC, XMP, JFIF, GeoTIFF, ICC Profile, Photoshop IRB, FlashPix, AFCP and ID3, as well as the maker notes of many digital cameras by Canon, Casio, FLIR, FujiFilm, GE, HP, JVC/Victor, Kodak, Leaf, Minolta/Konica-Minolta, Motorola, Nikon, Nintendo, Olympus/Epson, Panasonic/Leica, Pentax/Asahi, Phase One, Reconyx, Ricoh, Samsung, Sanyo, Sigma/Foveon and Sony.

ExifTool is also available as a stand-alone Windows executable and a Macintosh OS X package: (Note that these versions contain the executable only, and do not include the HTML documentation or other files of the full distribution above.)

Windows Executable: exiftool-10.10.zip (5.0 MB)

The stand-alone Windows executable does not require Perl. Just download and un-zip the archive then double-click on "exiftool(-k).exe" to read the application documentation, drag-and-drop files and folders to view meta information, or rename to "exiftool.exe" for command-line use. Runs on all versions of Windows (including Windows 7).

Mac OS X Package: ExifTool-10.10.dmg (2.5 MB)

The OS X package installs the ExifTool command-line application and libraries in /usr/bin. After installing, type "exiftool" in a Terminal window to run exiftool and read the application documentation.

Read the installation instructions for help installing ExifTool on Windows, Mac OS X and Unix systems.

(click here for the SHA1 and MD5 checksums to verify these distribution packages.)

Features

A Note to Unix Power-Users

If you find the need to use "find" or "awk" in conjunction with ExifTool, then you probably haven't discovered the full power of ExifTool. Read about the -ext, -if, -p and -tagsFromFile options in the application documentation. (This is common mistake number 3.)

What People are Saying about ExifTool

"In my experience, nothing but nothing is as complete, powerful, and flexible as Phil Harvey's exiftool ... I've never seen anything that's in the same ballpark for power." - dpreview forum
"While there are a lot of image tools available, nothing comes close for accessing/updating the metadata like ExifTool" - merg's blog
"Fast, reliable and amazingly comprehensive ..." - CPAN ratings
"... the one piece of free software that gets the most detailed exif data of /any/ tool I've found." - gnome mail archives
"... no program or API gets close to ExifTool in terms of robustness, feature count and support." - CE's Blog
"ExifTool makes every other EXIF reader (and writer) than I've seen, including the camera manufacturers' readers, look lame." - photo.net Nikon forum
"Insanely great tool with a long learning curve ..." - Adobe Forums
"... it's super awesome, it's super reliable and after many years of development it's still being updated!" - P_W999 blog
"... it is the mother of all EXIF utilities; the BFG of meta-data extraction; the Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster of EXIF tools ... This thing will suck the last bit of metadata out of whatever image file you throw at it!" - Open Photography Forums
"... it is total fucking gibberish to me." - Reddit Linux Questions

Supported File Types

ExifTool can Read, Write and/or Create files in the following formats. Also listed are the support levels for EXIF, IPTC, XMP, ICC_Profile and other metadata types for each file format.

File TypeSupportDescriptionEXIFIPTCXMPICC1Other
3FRRHasselblad RAW (TIFF-based)RRRR-
3G2, 3GP2R/W3rd Gen. Partnership Project 2 a/v (QuickTime-based)R/W3R/W3R/W/C-R/W QuickTime4
3GP, 3GPPR/W3rd Gen. Partnership Project a/v (QuickTime-based)R/W3R/W3R/W/C-R/W QuickTime4
AARAudible Audiobook----R Audible
AAXR/WAudible Enhanced Audiobook (QuickTime-based)R/W3R/W3R/W/C-R/W QuickTime4
ACRRAmerican College of Radiology ACR-NEMA (DICOM-like)----R DICOM
AFM, ACFM, AMFMRAdobe [Composite/Multiple Master] Font Metrics----R Font
AI, AITR/WAdobe Illustrator [Template] (PS or PDF)R/W/C5R/W/C5R/W/C6R/W/C5R/W/C PDF PostScript, R Photoshop
AIFF, AIF, AIFCRAudio Interchange File Format [Compressed]----R AIFF ID3
APERMonkey's Audio----R APE ID3
ARWR/WSony Alpha RAW (TIFF-based)R/W/CR/W/CR/W/CR/W/CR/W Sony SonyIDC
ASFRMicrosoft Advanced Systems Format--R-R ASF
AVIRAudio Video Interleaved (RIFF-based)R3-R-R RIFF
BMP, DIBRWindows BitMaP / Device Independent Bitmap----R BMP
BTFRBigTIFF (64-bit Tagged Image File Format)RRRR-
CHMRMicrosoft Compiled HTML format----R EXE
COSRCapture One Settings (XML-based)----R XML
CR2R/WCanon RAW 2 (TIFF-based)R/W/CR/W/CR/W/CR/W/CR/W/C CanonVRD2, R/W Canon
CRW, CIFFR/WCanon RAW Camera Image File Format (CRW spec.)--R/W/C-R/W/C CanonVRD2, R/W CanonRaw
CS1R/WSinar CaptureShop 1-shot RAW (PSD-based)R/W/CR/W/CR/W/CR/W/CR Photoshop
DCM, DC3, DIC, DICMRDICOM - Digital Imaging and Communications in Medicine----R DICOM
DCPR/WDNG Camera Profile (DNG-like)R/W/CR/W/CR/W/CR/W/C-
DCRRKodak Digital Camera RAW (TIFF-based)RRRR-
DFONTRMacintosh Data Fork Font----R Font
DIVXRDivX media format (ASF-based)--R-R ASF
DJVU, DJVRDjVu image (AIFF-like)--R-R DJVU
DNGR/WDigital Negative (TIFF-based)R/W/CR/W/CR/W/CR/W/C-
DOC, DOTRMicrosoft Word Document/Template (FPX-like)--RRR FlashPix
DOCX, DOCMROffice Open XML Document [Macro-enabled]----R XML ZIP
DOTX, DOTMROffice Open XML Document Template [Macro-enabled]----R XML ZIP
DPXRDigital Picture Exchange----R DPX
DR4R/W/C2Canon DPP version 4 Recipe----R/W/C CanonVRD2
DSS, DS2RDigital Speech Standard [2]----R Olympus
DYLIBRMac OS X Mach-O executable and library files----R EXE
DVRDigital Video----R DV
DVBR/WDigital Video Broadcasting (QuickTime-based)R/W3R/W3R/W/C-R/W QuickTime4
EIPRCapture One Enhanced Image Package (ZIP-based)R---R XML ZIP
EPS, EPSF, PSR/W[Encapsulated] PostScript FormatR/W/CR/W/CR/W/CR/W/CR/W/C PostScript, R Photoshop
EPUBRElectronic Publication (ZIP/XML-based)----R XML ZIP
ERFR/WEpson RAW Format (TIFF-based)R/W/CR/W/CR/W/CR/W/CR/W Olympus
EXE, DLLRDOS/Windows executable and library files----R EXE
EXIFR/W/CExchangable Image File Format metadata (TIFF-based)R/W/C----
EXRROpen EXR (Extended Range)----R OpenEXR
EXVR/W/CExiv2 metadata file (JPEG-based)R/W/CR/W/CR/W/CR/W/CSupported JPEG Meta Information
F4A, F4B, F4P, F4VR/WAdobe Flash Player 9+ Audio/Video (QuickTime-based)R/W3R/W3R/W/C-R/W QuickTime4
FFFR/WHasselblad Flexible File Format (TIFF-based)R/W/CR/W/CR/W/CR/W/C-
FFFRFLIR Systems thermal image File Format----R FLIR
FLARMacromedia/Adobe Flash project (FPX-like)--RRR FlashPix
FLACRFree Lossless Audio Codec----R FLAC ID3
FLVRFlash Video--R-R Flash
FPFRFLIR Public image Format----R FLIR
FPXRFlashPix image--RRR FlashPix
GIFR/WCompuserve Graphics Interchange Format--R/W/CR/W/CR/W/C GIF
GZ, GZIPRGNU ZIP compressed archive----R ZIP
HDP, WDP, JXRR/WWindows HD Photo / Media Photo / JPEG XR (TIFF-based)R/W/CR/W/CR/W/CR/W/C-
HDRRRadiance RGBE High Dynamic-Range----R Radiance
HTML, HTM, XHTMLR[Extensible] HyperText Markup Language----R HTML
ICC, ICMR/W/C1International Color Consortium color profile---R/W/C-
ICS, ICALRiCalendar Schedule----R VCalendar
IDMLRAdobe InDesign Markup Language (ZIP/XML-based)----R XML ZIP
IIQR/WPhase One Intelligent Image Quality RAW (TIFF-based)R/W/CR/W/CR/W/CR/W/CR/W PhaseOne
IND, INDD, INDTR/WAdobe InDesign Document/Template--R/W/C--
INXRAdobe InDesign Interchange (XML-based)--R--
ITCRiTunes Cover Flow artwork----R ITC
J2C, JPCRJPEG 2000 codestreamR3R3RRR Jpeg2000 Photoshop3
JP2, JPF, J2K, JPM, JPXR/WJPEG 2000 image [Compound/Extended]R/W/C3R/W/C3R/W/CRR/W/C Jpeg2000, R Photoshop3
JPEG, JPG, JPER/WJoint Photographic Experts Group imageR/W/CR/W/CR/W/CR/W/CSupported JPEG Meta Information
K25RKodak DC25 RAW (TIFF-based)RRRR-
KDCRKodak Digital Camera RAW (TIFF-based)RRRRR Kodak
KEY, KTHRApple iWork '09 Keynote presentation/Theme----R XML ZIP
LARLossless Audio (RIFF-based)R3-R-R RIFF
LFP, LFRRLytro Light Field Picture----R Lytro
LNKRMicrosoft Shell Link (Windows shortcut)----R LNK
M2TS, MTS, M2T, TSRMPEG-2 Transport Stream (used for AVCHD video)----R M2TS H264
M4A, M4B, M4P, M4VR/WMPEG-4 Audio/Video (QuickTime-based)R/W3R/W3R/W/C-R/W QuickTime4
MEFR/WMamiya (RAW) Electronic Format (TIFF-based)R/W/CR/W/CR/W/CR/W/C-
MIER/W/CMeta Information Encapsulation (MIE specification)R/W/CR/W/CR/W/CR/W/CR/W/C MIE
MIFF, MIFRMagick Image File FormatRRRRR MIFF Photoshop
MKA, MKV, MKSRMatroska Audio/Video/Subtitle----R Matroska
MOBI, AZW, AZW3RMobipocket electronic book (Palm-based)----R Palm MOBI
MODDRSony Picture Motion metadata (XML PLIST-based)----R PLIST
MOIRMOD Information file----R MOI
MOSR/WCreo Leaf Mosaic (TIFF-based)R/W/CR/W/CR/W/CR/W/CR Leaf
MOV, QTR/WApple QuickTime MovieR/W3R/W3R/W/C-R/W QuickTime4
MP3RMPEG-1 layer 3 audio----R MPEG ID3 APE
MP4R/WMotion Picture Experts Group version 4 (QuickTime-based)R/W3R/W3R/W/C-R/W QuickTime4
MPCRMusepack Audio----R MPC ID3 APE
MPEG, MPG, M2VRMotion Picture Experts Group version 1 or 2----R MPEG ID3
MPOR/WExtended Multi-Picture format (JPEG with MPF extensions)R/W/CR/W/CR/W/CR/W/CSupported JPEG Meta Information
MQVR/WSony Mobile QuickTime VideoR/W3R/W3R/W/C-R/W QuickTime4
MRWR/WMinolta RAWR/W/CR/W/CR/W/CR/W/CR/W MinoltaRaw Minolta
MXFRMaterial Exchange Format----R MXF
NEFR/WNikon (RAW) Electronic Format (TIFF-based)R/W/CR/W/CR/W/CR/W/CR/W Nikon NikonCapture
NMBTEMPLATERApple iWork '09 Numbers Template----R XML ZIP
NRWR/WNikon RAW (2) (TIFF-based)R/W/CR/W/CR/W/CR/W/CR/W Nikon NikonCapture
NUMBERSRApple iWork '09 Numbers spreadsheet----R XML ZIP
ODB, ODC, ODF, ODG,
ODI, ODP, ODS, ODT
ROpen Document Database/Chart/Formula/Graphics/
Image/Presentation/Spreadsheet/Text (ZIP/XML-based)
----R XML ZIP
OFRROptimFROG audio (RIFF-based)R3-R-R RIFF
OGG, OGVROgg bitstream container----R FLAC ID3 Theora Vorbis
ORFR/WOlympus RAW Format (TIFF-based)R/W/CR/W/CR/W/CR/W/CR/W Olympus
OTFROpen Type Font----R Font
PACRLossless Predictive Audio Compression (RIFF-based)R3-R-R RIFF
PAGESRApple iWork '09 Pages document----R XML ZIP
PCDRKodak Photo CD Image Pac----R PhotoCD
PDB, PRCRPalm Database----R Palm
PDFR/WAdobe Portable Document FormatR3R3R/W/CR3R/W/C PDF, R Photoshop
PEFR/WPentax (RAW) Electronic Format (TIFF-based)R/W/CR/W/CR/W/CR/W/CR/W Pentax
PFA, PFBRPostScript Font ASCII/Binary----R Font
PFMRPrinter Font Metrics----R Font
PGFRProgressive Graphics File----R PGF PNG
PICT, PCTRApple Picture file---RR PICT Photoshop
PLISTRApple Property List (binary and XML formats)----R PLIST
PMPRSony DSC-F1 Cyber-Shot image----R Sony
PNG, JNG, MNGR/WPortable/JPEG/Multiple-image Network GraphicsR/W/C3R/W/C3R/W/CR/W/CR/W/C PNG
PPM, PBM, PGMR/WPortable Pixel/Bit/Gray Map----R PPM
PPT, PPS, POTRPowerPoint Presentation/Slideshow/Template (FPX-like)--RRR FlashPix
POTX, POTMROffice Open XML Presentation Template [Macro-enabled]----R XML ZIP
PPSX, PPSMROffice Open XML Presentation Slideshow [Macro-enabled]----R XML ZIP
PPTX, PPTMROffice Open XML Presentation [Macro-enabled]----R XML ZIP
PSD, PSBR/WPhotoShop Document / Large DocumentR/W/CR/W/CR/W/CR/W/CR Photoshop
PSP, PSPIMAGERPaint Shop ProR---R PSP
QTIF, QTI, QIFR/WQuickTime Image FileR/W3R/W3R/W/C-R/W QuickTime4
RARReal Audio----R Real ID3
RAFR/WFujiFilm RAW FormatR/W/CR/W/CR/W/CR/W/CR/W FujiFilm
RAM, RPMRReal Audio/Plug-in Metafile----R Real
RARRRAR Archive----R ZIP
RAWRKyocera Contax N Digital RAW----R KyoceraRaw
RAWR/WPanasonic RAW (TIFF-based)R/W/CR/W/CR/W/CR/W/CR/W PanasonicRaw Panasonic
RIFF, RIFRResource Interchange File FormatR3-R-R RIFF
RM, RV, RMVBRReal Media/Video [Variable Bitrate]----R Real
RSRCRMac OS Resource----R RSRC Photoshop PostScript Font
RTFRRich Text Format----R RTF
RW2R/WPanasonic RAW 2 (TIFF-based)R/W/CR/W/CR/W/CR/W/CR/W PanasonicRaw Panasonic
RWLR/WLeica RAW (TIFF-based)R/W/CR/W/CR/W/CR/W/CR/W PanasonicRaw Panasonic
RWZRRawzor compressed imageRRRRR Rawzor
SEQRFLIR Systems image Sequence----R FLIR
SORUnix ELF executable and Shared Object files----R EXE
SR2R/WSony RAW 2 (TIFF-based)R/W/CR/W/CR/W/CR/W/CR/W Sony
SRFRSony RAW Format (TIFF-based)RRRRR Sony
SRWR/WSamsung RAW format (TIFF-based)R/W/CR/W/CR/W/CR/W/CR/W Samsung
SVGRScalable Vector Graphics (XML-based)----R SVG
SWFRShockwave Flash--R-R Flash
THMR/WCanon Thumbnail (JPEG)R/W/CR/W/CR/W/CR/W/CSupported JPEG Meta Information
THMXROffice Open XML Theme----R XML ZIP
TIFF, TIFR/WTagged Image File FormatR/W/CR/W/CR/W/CR/W/CR/W/C GeoTIFF1, R/W Trailers
TTF, TTCRTrue Type Font/Collection----R Font
TORRENTRBitTorrent description file----R Torrent
VCF, VCARDRVirtual Card----R VCard
VOBRVideo Object (MPEG-based)----R MPEG
VRDR/W/C2Canon DPP Recipe Data--R/W/C-R/W/C CanonVRD2
VSDRMicrosoft Visio Drawing (FPX-like)--RRR FlashPix
WAVRWindows digital audio WAVeform (RIFF-based)R3-R-R RIFF
WEBMRGoogle Web Movie (Matroska-based)----R Matroska
WEBPRGoogle Web Picture (RIFF-based)R3-R-R RIFF
WMA, WMVRWindows Media Audio/Video (ASF-based)--R-R ASF
WVRWavePack lossless audio (RIFF-based)R3-R-R RIFF
X3FR/WSigma/Foveon RAWR/W/CR/W/CR/W/CR/W/CR/W Sigma, R SigmaRaw
XCFRGIMP native image formatRRRRR GIMP
XLS, XLTRMicrosoft Excel Spreadsheet/Template (FPX-like)--RRR FlashPix
XLSX, XLSM, XLSBROffice Open XML Spreadsheet [Macro-enabled/Binary]----R XML ZIP
XLTX, XLTMROffice Open XML Spreadsheet Template [Macro-enabled]----R XML ZIP
XMPR/W/CExtensible Metadata Platform sidecar file--R/W/C--
ZIPRZIP archive----R ZIP
1 Block write only, 2 Block create only, 3 Non-standard format, 4 Writes only some date/time tags, 5 Only writable for PostScript-format file type, 6 Only writable for PDF-format file type

Supported JPEG Meta Information

ExifTool can Read, Write and/or Create the following types of meta information in JPEG images:

JPEG Meta InformationSupportDescription
APP0 - JFIFR/W/CJPEG File Interchange Format
APP0 - JFXXRExtended JFIF
APP0 - CIFFR/WCamera Image File Format (used by some Canon models)
APP0 - AVI1RJPEG AVI information
APP0 - OcadRPhotobucket Ocad segment
APP1 - EXIFR/W/CExchangeable Image File Format (including maker notes)
APP1 - XMPR/W/CExtensible Metadata Platform (multi-segment)
APP1 - QVCIRCasio QV-7000SX QVCI information
APP1 - FLIRRFLIR thermal imaging data (multi-segment)
APP2 - ICCR/W/CInternational Color Consortium (multi-segment)
APP2 - FPXRRFlashPix Ready (multi-segment)
APP2 - MPFRMulti-Picture Format
APP2 - PreviewImageRSamsung/GE APP2 preview image (multi-segment)
APP3 - Kodak MetaR/WKodak Meta information (EXIF-like)
APP3 - StimRStereo Still Image format
APP3 - PreviewImageRSamsung/HP preview image (multi-segment)
APP4 - ScaladoR(presumably written by Scalado mobile software)
APP4 - FPXRRFlashPix Ready in non-standard location (multi-segment)
APP4 - PreviewImageR(continued from APP3)
APP5 - Ricoh RMETARRicoh custom fields
APP5 - PreviewImageR(continued from APP4)
APP6 - EPPIMRToshiba PrintIM
APP6 - NITFRNational Imagery Transmission Format
APP6 - HP TDHDRHewlett-Packard Photosmart R837 TDHD information
APP7 - PentaxRPentax APP7 maker notes
APP7 - QualcommRQualcomm Camera Attributes
APP8 - SPIFFRStill Picture Interchange File Format
APP9 - Media JukeboxRMedia Jukebox XML information
APP10 - CommentRPhotoStudio Unicode Comment
APP11 - JPEG-HDRRJPEG-HDR compressed ratio image
APP12 - Picture InfoRASCII-based Picture Information
APP12 - DuckyR/W/CPhotoshop "Save for Web"
APP13 - Photoshop IRBR/W/CImage Resource Block (multi-segment, includes IPTC)
APP13 - Adobe CMRAdobe Color Management
APP14 - AdobeR/W/CAdobe DCT filter
APP15 - GraphicConverterRGraphicConverter quality
COMR/W/CJPEG Comment (multi-segment)
DQTR(used to calculate the Extra:JPEGDigest tag value)
SOFRJPEG Start Of Frame
Trailers 1
AFCP trailerR/WAXS File Concatenation Protocol (includes IPTC)
CanonVRD trailerR/W/CCanon DPP Recipe Data (includes DR4)
FotoStation trailerR/WFotoWare FotoStation (includes IPTC)
PhotoMechanic trailerR/WCamera Bits Photo Mechanic
MIE trailerR/WMeta Information Encapsulation
Samsung trailerRSamsung Galaxy trailer
PreviewImage trailerR/W/C(preview image written after JPEG EOI)
1 All trailers except Samsung and PreviewImage also have R/W support in TIFF images.

System Requirements

Requires Perl 5.004 or later. No other libraries or software required.

Windows users: A stand-alone Windows executable version of ExifTool is available which doesn't require Perl. You can also use the pure Perl version if you already have Perl installed. (You can get a good, free Perl interpreter from activeperl.com.)

Everyone else (Mac, Unix, etc): Don't worry, you already have Perl installed.

Running ExifTool

The exiftool application provides a convenient command-line interface for the Image::ExifTool Perl package (both included in the full distribution). Once you have downloaded and extracted the distribution, you can immediately run exiftool (without building or installing) by typing "DIR/exiftool FILE" (or "perl DIR/exiftool FILE" in Windows), where DIR is the exiftool directory and FILE is the name of an image file, including directory name. Read the installation instructions or the README file included in the full distribution for help installing ExifTool.

Many command-line options are available to allow you to access a wide range of features. Run exiftool with no arguments for a complete list of available options with examples.

Running in Windows

i) From the command line:

The Perl application ("exiftool") is run by typing "perl exiftool". Alternately, you may be able to rename it to "exiftool.pl" and type "exiftool.pl", but this requires that the proper Windows associations have been made for the the ".pl" extension.

The stand-alone version ("exiftool(-k).exe") should be renamed to "exiftool.exe" to allow it to be run by typing "exiftool" at the command line.

If the exiftool executable ("exiftool.pl" or "exiftool.exe") is not in the current directory or your system PATH, then its directory must be specified on the command line (eg. by typing "c:\path_to_exiftool\exiftool.pl" or "c:\path_to_exiftool\exiftool").

Note that when typing commands in the "cmd.exe" shell, you should use double quotes instead of single quotes as shown in some examples.

ii) Stand-alone version in the Windows GUI:

Double-click on "exiftool(-k).exe" to read the application documentation, or drag-and-drop files and folders to run exiftool on the selected files.

Simple options may be added inside brackets in the name of the stand-alone executable. (But note that the characters /\?*:|"<> may not be used because they are invalid in Windows file names.) In this way, the behaviour of the drag-and-drop application can be customized. For example:

Executable NameOperation
exiftool(-k).exe
Print meta information in window and pause before terminating.
exiftool(-k -a -u -g1 -w txt).exe
Generate output ".txt" files with detailed meta information.
exiftool(-k -o %d%f.xmp).exe
Generate sidecar ".xmp" files.
exiftool(-copyright='Phil Harvey').exe
Add copyright information (and don't pause before terminating).

Hint: Options may also be added to the "Target" property of a Windows shortcut for the executable. Using a shortcut has 3 advantages over adding options in the file name: 1) different shortcuts may be created without requiring multiple copies of the executable, 2) characters which are invalid in file names may be used, and 3) the shortcuts can be given more meaningful (and convenient) file names.

As well, it may be useful to increase the window and buffer sizes to display more information: Right-click on the window's title bar then select "Properties" from the menu and change the window layout settings.

Example Output

> exiftool -h -canon pics/IMG_0315.JPG
 
File NameCanon.jpg
Camera Model NameCanon EOS DIGITAL REBEL
Date/Time Original2003:12:04 06:46:52
Shooting ModeBulb
Shutter Speed4
Aperture14.0
Metering ModeCenter-weighted average
Exposure Compensation0
ISO100
Lens18.0 - 55.0 mm
Focal Length34.0 mm
Image Size8x8
QualityRAW
FlashNo Flash
White BalanceAuto
Focus ModeManual Focus (3)
Contrast+1
Sharpness+1
Saturation+1
Color ToneNormal
Color SpacesRGB
File Size2.6 kB
File Number118-1861
Drive ModeContinuous Shooting
Owner NamePhil Harvey
Serial Number0560018150
> exiftool -lang de -h -canon t/images/Canon.jpg
 
DateinameCanon.jpg
KameramodellCanon EOS DIGITAL REBEL
Erstellungsdatum/-uhrzeit2003:12:04 06:46:52
AufnahmemodusBulb
Belichtungsdauer4
Blende14.0
BelichtungsmessmethodeMittenbetont
Belichtungskorrektur0
ISO-Empfindlichkeit100
Objektiv18.0 - 55.0 mm
Brennweite34.0 mm
Bildgröße8x8
BildqualitätRAW
BlitzBlitz wurde nicht ausgelöst
WeißabgleichAutomatisch
Fokus-ModusManueller Fokus (3)
Kontrast+1
Schärfe+1
Farbsättigung+1
FarbtonNormal
FarbraumsRGB
Dateigröße2.6 kB
Dateinummer118-1861
AufnahmeartSerienaufnahme
Name des BesitzersPhil Harvey
Seriennummer0560018150

Verbose and HtmlDump Output

The Verbose (-v) and HtmlDump (-htmlDump) options print additional information that can be very useful for debugging or when decoding new tags.

Tag Names Explained

A tag name is a "handle" that is used to refer to a specific piece of meta information. Tag names are entered on the command line with a leading '-', in the order you want them displayed. Case is not significant. The tag name may be prefixed by a group name (separated by a colon) to identify a specific information type or location. A special tag name of "All" may be used to represent all tags, or all tags in a specified group. For example:

exiftool -filename -imagesize -exif:fnumber -xmp:all image.jpg

A complete list of ExifTool Tag Names accompanies this documentation. As well, current lists of available tag names and writable tag names may be obtained using the exiftool -list and -listw options. But perhaps the easiest way to determine a tag name is to use the -s option to print the tag names instead of descriptions for all information in a file. It may also be helpful to use the -G option to display the group names, and the -H or -D option to print the numerical tag ID's for reference.

Notes:

  1. Tag names sometimes differ from their descriptions. Use the -s command-line option to see the actual tag names instead of the descriptions shown when extracting information.
  2. When extracting information, tags will not appear in the output unless they exist in the file, even if they are specified on the command line. The -f option may be used to force all specified tags to be displayed (not including tags specified with wildcards or by -GROUP:all).
  3. Information for a given tag name may occur in multiple locations within a single file. By default these duplicate tags are suppressed, but the -a option may be used to extract all tags.
  4. Tag names may be suffixed by a '#' character to disable the print conversion on a per-tag basis. See the -n option in the application documentation for more information.

Shortcut Tags

Shortcut tags represent one or more other tags, and are used like any other tag when reading, writing or copying information.

ExifTool defines a few shortcut tags in the Image::ExifTool::Shortcuts module, and allows users to define their own shortcuts in a configuration file called ".ExifTool_config" in their home directory or exiftool application directory. Here is a simple example that defines two shortcuts:

%Image::ExifTool::UserDefined::Shortcuts = (
    MyShortcut => ['createdate','exposuretime','aperture'],
    MyAlias => 'FocalLengthIn35mmFormat',
);

In this example, MyShortcut is a shortcut for the CreateDate, ExposureTime and Aperture tags, and MyAlias is a shortcut for FocalLengthIn35mmFormat.

The current shortcuts may be listed with the -list option.

The ~/.ExifTool_config file may also be used to define new tags. For more information about the configuration file, see the sample configuration file included with the ExifTool distribution.

Windows tip: You may have difficulty generating a filename beginning with a '.' in the Windows GUI, but it can be done with the "rename" command at the cmd.exe prompt.

Tag Groups

ExifTool classifies tags into groups in five different families. These groups are:

FamilyGroup Names
0 (Information Type) AFCP, AIFF, APE, APP0, APP1, APP11, APP12, APP13, APP14, APP15, APP4, APP5, APP6, APP8, ASF, Audible, CanonVRD, Composite, DICOM, DNG, DV, DjVu, Ducky, EXE, EXIF, ExifTool, FLAC, FLIR, File, Flash, FlashPix, Font, FotoStation, GIF, GIMP, GeoTiff, H264, HTML, ICC_Profile, ID3, IPTC, ITC, JFIF, JPEG, Jpeg2000, LNK, Leaf, Lytro, M2TS, MIE, MIFF, MNG, MOI, MPC, MPEG, MPF, MXF, MakerNotes, Matroska, Meta, Ogg, OpenEXR, PDF, PICT, PLIST, PNG, PSP, Palm, PanasonicRaw, PhotoCD, PhotoMechanic, Photoshop, PostScript, PrintIM, QuickTime, RAF, RIFF, RSRC, RTF, Radiance, Rawzor, Real, SVG, SigmaRaw, Stim, Theora, Torrent, VCard, Vorbis, XML, XMP, ZIP
1 (Specific Location) AC3, AFCP, AIFF, APE, ASF, AVI1, Adobe, AdobeCM, AdobeDNG, Apple, Audible, CIFF, Canon, CanonCustom, CanonRaw, CanonVRD, Casio, Chapter#, Composite, DICOM, DNG, DV, DjVu, DjVu-Meta, Ducky, EPPIM, EXE, EXIF, ExifIFD, ExifTool, FLAC, FLIR, File, Flash, FlashPix, Font, FotoStation, FujiFilm, FujiIFD, GE, GIF, GIMP, GPS, GeoTiff, GlobParamIFD, GraphConv, H264, HP, HTC, HTML, HTML-dc, HTML-ncc, HTML-office, HTML-prod, HTML-vw96, HTTP-equiv, ICC-chrm, ICC-clrt, ICC-header, ICC-meas, ICC-meta, ICC-view, ICC_Profile, ICC_Profile#, ID3, ID3v1, ID3v1_Enh, ID3v2_2, ID3v2_3, ID3v2_4, IFD0, IFD1, IPTC, IPTC#, ITC, InteropIFD, JFIF, JPEG, JPEG-HDR, JVC, Jpeg2000, KDC_IFD, Kodak, KodakBordersIFD, KodakEffectsIFD, KodakIFD, KyoceraRaw, LNK, Leaf, LeafSubIFD, Leica, Lytro, M2TS, MAC, MIE-Audio, MIE-Camera, MIE-Canon, MIE-Doc, MIE-Extender, MIE-Flash, MIE-GPS, MIE-Geo, MIE-Image, MIE-Lens, MIE-Main, MIE-MakerNotes, MIE-Meta, MIE-Orient, MIE-Preview, MIE-Thumbnail, MIE-UTM, MIE-Unknown, MIE-Video, MIFF, MNG, MOBI, MOI, MPC, MPEG, MPF0, MPImage, MXF, MakerNotes, MakerUnknown, Matroska, MediaJukebox, MetaIFD, Microsoft, Minolta, MinoltaRaw, Motorola, NITF, Nikon, NikonCapture, NikonCustom, NikonScan, Nintendo, Ocad, Ogg, Olympus, OpenEXR, PDF, PICT, PNG, PNG-pHYs, PSP, Palm, Panasonic, PanasonicRaw, Pentax, PhaseOne, PhotoCD, PhotoMechanic, Photoshop, PictureInfo, PostScript, PreviewIFD, PrintIM, ProfileIFD, Qualcomm, QuickTime, RAF, RAF2, RIFF, RMETA, RSRC, RTF, Radiance, Rawzor, Real, Real-CONT, Real-MDPR, Real-PROP, Real-RA3, Real-RA4, Real-RA5, Real-RJMD, Reconyx, Ricoh, SPIFF, SR2, SR2DataIFD, SR2SubIFD, SRF#, SVG, Samsung, Sanyo, Scalado, Sigma, SigmaRaw, Sony, SonyIDC, Stim, SubIFD, System, Theora, Torrent, Track#, VCard, VCalendar, Version0, Vorbis, XML, XMP, XMP-DICOM, XMP-GPano, XMP-MP, XMP-MP1, XMP-PixelLive, XMP-aas, XMP-acdsee, XMP-album, XMP-apple-fi, XMP-aux, XMP-cc, XMP-cell, XMP-crs, XMP-dc, XMP-dex, XMP-digiKam, XMP-dwc, XMP-exif, XMP-exifEX, XMP-expressionmedia, XMP-extensis, XMP-fpv, XMP-getty, XMP-ics, XMP-iptcCore, XMP-iptcExt, XMP-lr, XMP-mediapro, XMP-microsoft, XMP-mwg-coll, XMP-mwg-kw, XMP-mwg-rs, XMP-pdf, XMP-pdfx, XMP-photomech, XMP-photoshop, XMP-plus, XMP-prism, XMP-prl, XMP-pur, XMP-rdf, XMP-swf, XMP-tiff, XMP-x, XMP-xmp, XMP-xmpBJ, XMP-xmpDM, XMP-xmpMM, XMP-xmpNote, XMP-xmpPLUS, XMP-xmpRights, XMP-xmpTPg, ZIP
2 (Category) Audio, Author, Camera, Document, ExifTool, Image, Location, Other, Preview, Printing, Time, Unknown, Video
3 (Document Number) Doc#, Main
4 (Instance Number) Copy#

The exiftool output can be organized based on these groups using the -g or -G option. See the GetGroup function in the ExifTool library for a description of the group families.

Writing Meta Information

When writing information, ExifTool preserves the original file by adding "_original" to the file name. Be sure to keep a copy of the original, or thoroughly validate the new file before erasing the original. (Read here for some ramblings on the subject of writing meta information.)

Syntax

Tag values are written rather than being extracted if any tag name ends with a '=' symbol (or if the -tagsFromFile or -geotag options are used). The '=' may be prefixed by '+', '-' or '<' to add a value, remove a value or set a value from file. The following table outlines the different write syntaxes:

SyntaxResult
-TAG=Deletes all occurrences of TAG
-all=Deletes all meta information!
-GROUP:TAG=Deletes TAG only in specified group
-GROUP:all=Deletes all information in specified group
-[GROUP:]TAG=VALUESets value of TAG (only in GROUP if specified)
-[GROUP:]TAG+=VALUEAdds item to a list, shifts a date/time, or increments a number
-[GROUP:]TAG-=VALUERemoves item from a list, shifts a date/time, or deletes TAG if it has the specified value
-[GROUP:]TAG<=FILESets tag value from contents of specified file
See the Writer Limitations for some limitations of this feature.

Quotes are required around VALUE if it contains spaces or other special characters, and around the whole argument if the '<=' syntax is used (to prevent shell redirection).

A special feature allows the print conversion to be disabled on a per-tag basis by suffixing any tag name (including 'all') with the '#' character. This has the same effect as the -n option, but for a single tag. See the -n option in the application documentation for more details.

Note: Changes to PDF files are reversible because the original metadata is never actually deleted from these files. See the PDF Tags documentation for details.

Group Priorities

ExifTool prioritizes the following types of meta information when writing:

1) EXIF,   2) IPTC,   3) XMP

Many tag names are valid for more than one of these groups. If a group name is not specified when writing information, then the information is added only to the highest priority group for which the tag name is valid (however, the information is updated in all groups where the tag already existed). The priority of the groups is given by the list above. Specifically, this means that new information is added preferentially to the EXIF group, or to the IPTC group if no corresponding EXIF tag exists, or finally to the XMP group.

Alternatively, information may be written to a specific group only, bypassing these priorities, by providing a group name for the tag. The "Writing Meta Information" section above gave the syntax rules for exiftool command-line arguments to do this. Any family 0, 1 or 2 group name may be used when writing information, although not all groups are writable.

The "-tagsFromFile" Option

A special ExifTool option allows copying tags from one file to another. The command-line syntax for doing this is "-tagsFromFile SRCFILE". Any tags specified after this option on the command line are extracted from source file and written to the destination file. If no tags are specified, then all writable tags are copied. This option is very simple, yet very powerful. Depending on the formats of the source and destination files, some of tags read may not be valid in the destination file, in which case they aren't written.

This option may also be used to transfer information between different tags within a single image or between different images. See the -tagsFromFile option in the application documentation for more details.

Writer Limitations

Known Problems

Security Issues

Some ExifTool options (-if, -p, and copying arguments like "-DSTTAG<STR") have the ability to execute Perl code from within command-line arguments. This may be a security problem if ExifTool is executed from another application that blindly passes untrusted file names on the command line (since they may be interpreted as ExifTool options if they begin with a dash). To be secure, the calling application must ensure that input file names do not start with a dash (U+002D) or a Unicode minus sign (U+2212). The easiest way to accomplish this is to prefix input file names with a known directory name, eg.) "./FILENAME".

Date/Time Shift Feature

Have you ever forgotten to set the date/time on your digital camera before taking a bunch of pictures? ExifTool has a time shift feature that makes it easy to apply a batch fix to the timestamps of the images (eg. change the "Date Picture Taken" reported by Windows Explorer). Say for example that your camera clock was reset to 2000:01:01 00:00:00 when you put in a new battery at 2005:11:03 10:48:00. Then all of the pictures you took subsequently have timestamps that are wrong by 5 years, 10 months, 2 days, 10 hours and 48 minutes. To fix this, put all of the images in the same directory ("DIR") and run exiftool:

exiftool "-DateTimeOriginal+=5:10:2 10:48:0" DIR

The example above changes only the DateTimeOriginal tag, but any writable date or time tag can be shifted, and multiple tags may be written with a single command line. Commonly, in JPEG images, the DateTimeOriginal, CreateDate and ModifyDate values must all be changed. For convenience, a shortcut tag called AllDates has been defined to represent these three tags. So, for example, if you forgot to set your camera clock back 1 hour at the end of daylight savings time in the fall, you can fix the images with:

exiftool -AllDates-=1 DIR

See Image::ExifTool::Shift.pl (download in PDF format) for details about the syntax of the time shift string.

Note: Not all date/time information is covered by the AllDates shortcut. Specifically, the filesystem date/time tags are not included, and this command will reset FileModifyDate to the current date/time as it should when the file is modified, unless either the -P option is used, or FileModifyDate is set to something else. To shift FileModifyDate along with the other tags, add -FileModifyDate-=1 to the command above.

Renaming and/or Moving Files

By writing a new value to the FileName and/or Directory tags, files can be renamed and/or moved to different directories. This can be a very powerful tool in combination with the -d (date format) option for organizing images by date/time. For example, the following command renames all images in directory "DIR" according to the individual file's creation date in the form "YYYYmmdd_HHMMSS.ext".

exiftool "-FileName<CreateDate" -d "%Y%m%d_%H%M%S.%%e" DIR

Or a new directory can be specified by setting the value of the Directory tag. For example, the following command moves all images originally in directory "DIR" into a directory hierarchy organized by year/month/day:

exiftool "-Directory<DateTimeOriginal" -d "%Y/%m/%d" DIR

Read here for more details about this powerful feature.

Improving Performance

There is a significant overhead in loading ExifTool, so performance may be greatly improved by taking advantage of ExifTool's batch processing capabilities (the ability to process multiple files or entire directories with a single command) to reduce the number of executed commands when performing complex operations or processing multiple files. [One exiftool user documented a 60x speed increase by processing a large number of files with a single command instead of running exiftool separately on each file.] Also, the -execute option may be used to perform multiple independent operations with a single invocation of exiftool, and together with the -stay_open option provides a method for calling applications to avoid this startup overhead.

The processing speed of ExifTool can be improved when extracting information by reducing the amount of work that it must do. Decrease the number of extracted tags by specifying them individually (-TAG) or by group (-GROUP:all), and disable the composite tags (-e) and the print conversions (-n) if these features aren't required. Note that the exclude options (-x or --TAG) are not very efficient, and may have a negative impact on performance if a large number of tags are excluded individually.

The -fast option can significantly increase speed when extracting information from JPEG images which are piped across a slow network connection. However, with this option any information in a JPEG trailer is not extracted. For more substantial speed benefits, -fast2 may be used to also avoid extracting MakerNote information if this is not required.

When writing, avoid copying tags (with -tagsFromFile) or using the -if or -fileOrder option because these will add the extra step of extracting tags from the file. Without these the write operation is accomplished with a single pass of each file.

However, note that when the -csv option is used, information from all files is buffered in memory before the CSV output is written. This may be very memory intensive and result in poor performance when reading a large number of files in a single command.

The Image::ExifTool Perl Library Module

The "exiftool" script provides a command-line interface to the Image::ExifTool Perl library module which is part of the ExifTool distribution. The Image::ExifTool module can be used in any Perl script to provide easy access to meta information. Here is an example of a very simple script that uses Image::ExifTool to print out all recognized meta information in a file:

#!/usr/bin/perl -w
use Image::ExifTool ':Public';
my $file = shift or die "Please specify filename";
my $info = ImageInfo($file);
foreach (keys %$info) {
    print "$_ : $info->{$_}\n";
}

Note that some tag values may be returned as SCALAR references indicating binary data. The simple script above does not handle this case.

See the Image::ExifTool Documentation for more details.

Additional Documentation and Resources

User-contributed Documentation

Related Utilities

Below are some free utilities which take advantage of the ExifTool engine:

Windows

Mac OS X

Linux

Multi-Platform

Online

Lightroom Plugins

Programming

Other Links

Boldly Go where No Man has Gone Before...

There is still much unknown information in the maker notes for many camera models. (To see this information, run exiftool with the -U option.) In this area, ExifTool is very much a collaborative effort, and development relies heavily on the input from camera owners to help decode new meta information. If you manage to figure out what any of it means, send me an e-mail (phil at owl.phy.queensu.ca) and I'll add your new discoveries to ExifTool. Many thanks to all who have helped so far...

Acknowledgements

Thanks to everyone who has sent in bug reports, comments, or suggestions, and special thanks to the following people for their valuable input and/or additions to the code:

License

This is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl itself.

Donate

ExifTool is free, but due to popular request I am providing a way for those who feel the need to send me some money. It is really not necessary, but thank you very much if you decide to make a contribution:

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Contact Me

If you have any comments, suggestions or questions, please post to the ExifTool Forum so other people may benefit from your experiences. (I check the forum at least as often as my email.) Otherwise, if you must contact me directly, my e-mail address is on the first line of the README file in the full distribution. Thanks.   - Phil Harvey