Overview

ExifTool by Phil Harvey is the standard command-line tool for reading, writing, and editing metadata (EXIF, IPTC, XMP, and more) in image, video, PDF, and audio files. As of this writing, the current production release is 13.55, with newer point releases (up through 13.59) available as they roll out — check exiftool.org/history.html for the latest before installing.

Installation

Windows

  1. Download the Windows Executable zip from exiftool.org.
  2. Extract it, and rename exiftool(-k).exe to exiftool.exe.
  3. Move exiftool.exe into a folder on your PATH (e.g., C:\Windows or a dedicated C:\Tools folder added to PATH).

  4. Confirm it works:

    exiftool -ver

macOS

brew install exiftool

Or download the macOS .pkg installer from exiftool.org.

Linux

# Debian/Ubuntu
sudo apt install libimage-exiftool-perl

# Fedora
sudo dnf install perl-Image-ExifTool

To get the latest version directly from source instead of a distro package:

curl -LO https://exiftool.org/Image-ExifTool-13.55.tar.gz
tar -xzf Image-ExifTool-13.55.tar.gz
cd Image-ExifTool-13.55
perl Makefile.PL
make test
sudo make install

Basic Usage

Read all metadata from a file

exiftool photo.jpg

Read specific tags

exiftool -DateTimeOriginal -Model -LensModel photo.jpg

Read metadata for every file in a directory

exiftool /path/to/folder

Add -r to recurse into subfolders:

exiftool -r /path/to/folder

Output Formatting

Flag Description
-s Short tag names (no descriptions)
-s3 Values only, no tag names
-j Output as JSON
-csv Output as CSV (good for batch exports)
-X Output as XML
-G Show group names (e.g., EXIF, XMP, IPTC)
-a Allow duplicate tags
-u Show unknown/undefined tags too

Example — export a folder’s metadata to CSV:

exiftool -csv -r /path/to/folder > metadata.csv

Example — get JSON for scripting:

exiftool -j photo.jpg

Writing and Editing Tags

Set a single tag

exiftool -Artist="Preston Powell" photo.jpg

Set multiple tags at once

exiftool -Artist="Preston Powell" -Copyright="© 2026 Preston Powell" photo.jpg

Copy metadata from one file to another

exiftool -TagsFromFile source.jpg target.jpg

Remove all metadata

exiftool -all= photo.jpg

Remove metadata but keep a few tags

exiftool -all= --DateTimeOriginal --GPS:all photo.jpg

Apply changes to every file in a folder

exiftool -Artist="Preston Powell" -r /path/to/folder

Note: By default, ExifTool keeps a backup of the original file (e.g., photo.jpg_original). Add -overwrite_original to skip creating backups once you’re confident in your command.

exiftool -overwrite_original -Artist="Preston Powell" photo.jpg

Working with Dates and Times

View all date/time tags

exiftool -time:all -a -G0:1 photo.jpg

Shift all dates by a fixed offset (e.g., camera clock was wrong)

exiftool "-AllDates+=1:0:0 0:15:0" photo.jpg

This shifts by 1 hour, 0 minutes for the date and 15 minutes for the time — adjust as needed.

Set the file’s modification date from EXIF DateTimeOriginal

exiftool "-FileModifyDate<DateTimeOriginal" photo.jpg

Batch Renaming Files by Date Taken

exiftool "-FileName<DateTimeOriginal" -d "%Y-%m-%d_%H%M%S.%%e" /path/to/folder

This renames files like 2026-09-14_143022.jpg based on when the photo was actually taken.

GPS and Location Data

View GPS coordinates

exiftool -gpslatitude -gpslongitude photo.jpg

Remove GPS data (useful before sharing photos publicly)

exiftool -gps:all= photo.jpg

Geotag photos from a GPX track log

exiftool -geotag track.gpx photo.jpg

Common Tag Groups

Group Contents
EXIF Camera settings, date/time, lens info
IPTC Captions, keywords, copyright (news/stock photo standard)
XMP Adobe’s extensible metadata (ratings, keywords, edit history)
GPS Location coordinates and altitude
Composite Calculated tags derived from multiple sources
File Filesystem-level info (size, permissions, dates)
MakerNotes Manufacturer-specific proprietary data

List all tags in a group:

exiftool -G1 -a -s photo.jpg | grep IPTC

Useful One-Liners

Find all files missing GPS data:

exiftool -if 'not $gpslatitude' -filename -r /path/to/folder

List camera models used across a photo library:

exiftool -Model -r -csv /path/to/folder | cut -d, -f1 | sort -u

Extract embedded thumbnail:

exiftool -b -ThumbnailImage photo.jpg > thumb.jpg

Compare two files’ metadata:

exiftool -a -G1 -s file1.jpg file2.jpg

Batch add copyright to an entire folder, recursively, no backups:

exiftool -overwrite_original -r -Copyright="© 2026 Preston Powell" /path/to/folder

Config Files

ExifTool supports a .ExifTool_config file (placed in your home directory or specified with -config) to define custom tags, shortcuts, and print conversions. Useful for repeatable workflows — e.g., a shortcut tag that pulls your most-used fields in one command.

Example shortcut definition:

%Image::ExifTool::UserDefined::Shortcuts = (
    MyShoot => ['Model', 'LensModel', 'DateTimeOriginal', 'GPSLatitude', 'GPSLongitude'],
);

Then run:

exiftool -MyShoot photo.jpg

Reference