ExifTool

Properties extraction, identification, metadata editing
Homepage:	http://www.sno.phy.queensu.ca/~phil/exiftool/
License:	Distributed under same terms as Perl language (GNU GPL or 'Artistic license')
Platforms:	Runs on all versions of Windows
Appears in COW:	Validation Error Analysis and Treatment for PDF-hul 133 Invalid date

Description

ExifTool is a platform-independent command-line application for reading, writing, and editing Meta information contained in a variety of visual, audio, and video 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, Nikon, Nintendo, Olympus/Epson, Panasonic/Leica, Pentax/Asahi, Phase One, Reconyx, Ricoh, Samsung, Sanyo, Sigma/Foveon and Sony. Although ExifTool is not a validator, it often reports useful information in case of defective files.

Features

• Powerful, fast, flexible and customizable
• Supports a large number of different file formats
• Reads EXIF, GPS, IPTC, XMP, JFIF, MakerNotes, GeoTIFF, ICC Profile, Photoshop IRB, FlashPix, AFCP, ID3 and more...
• Writes EXIF, GPS, IPTC, XMP, JFIF, MakerNotes, GeoTIFF, ICC Profile, Photoshop IRB, AFCP and more...
• Reads and writes maker notes of many digital cameras
• Decodes a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma
• Numerous output formatting options (including tab-delimited, HTML, XML and JSON)
• Multi-lingual output (cs, de, en, en-ca, en-gb, es, fi, fr, it, ja, ko, nl, pl, ru, sv, tr, zh-cn or zh-tw)
• Geotags images from GPS track log files (with time drift correction!)
• Generates track logs from geotagged images
• Shifts date/time values to fix timestamps in images
• Renames files and organizes in directories (by date or by any other meta information)
• Extracts thumbnail images, preview images, and large JPEG images from RAW files
• Copies meta information between files (even different-format files)
• Reads/writes structured XMP information
• Deletes meta information individually, in groups, or altogether
• Sets the file modification date (and creation date in Windows) from EXIF information
• Supports alternate language tags in XMP, PNG, ID3, Font, QuickTime, ICC Profile, MIE and MXF information
• Processes entire directory trees
• Creates text output file for each image file
• Creates binary-format metadata-only (MIE) files for metadata backup
• Automatically backs up original image when writing
• Organizes output into groups
• Conditionally processes files based on value of any meta information
• Ability to add custom user-defined tags
• Support for MWG (Metadata Working Group) recommendations
• Recognizes thousands of different tags
• Tested with images from thousands of different camera models
• Advanced verbose and HTML-based hex dump outputs

ExifTool is copyrighted 2003-2015, Phil Harvey. This is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl itself. Post any comments, suggestions, or questions to the ExifTool Forum.

Download

The stand-alone Windows executable does not require Perl. Just download and unzip 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).

Windows Executable: exiftool-9.82.zip (3.8 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.

Mac OS X Package: ExifTool-9.82.dmg (2.4 MB)

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

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

Documentation

A man page is available for Unix Power-Users. Read application documentation. A FAQ is available at http://www.sno.phy.queensu.ca/~phil/exiftool/faq.html.

User Experiences

• KOST-CECO:
  • Used in the Conversion Guide (http://www.kost-ceco.ch/cms/index.php?preservation_tiff_de) of invalid TIFF files according to KOST-Val.
  • Used in KOST-Val to validate the key properties such as compression, colour space, and multipage for TIFF files
• FITS (File Information Tool Set): Used in FITS
• merg's blog: 2005-12-18. Phil Harvey’s ExifTool: nothing comes close. http://web.archive.org/web/20080307105031/http://blog.merg.be/?p=242
• CE's Blog: 2009-06-02. Editing Metadata using Exiftool and Unicode. http://www.christian-etter.de/?p=33

Development Activity

Release Feed

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