ExifTool

Posted under » Ubuntu » Linux on 1 August 2017

ExifTool is developed by Phil Harvey. It is a platform-independent Perl library coupled with a full-featured command-line implementation for reading, writing and manipulating the metadata across a broad range of files. Particularly useful when you want to organise your medias like jpgs. .

From jpg to mp4, Exiftool can tag em all. Exiftool is available for all OS. First you must install it. In Ubuntu ...

$ apt-get install libimage-exiftool-perl

To show exif

$ exiftool outreach01_2017.jpg

To tag

$ exiftool -ImageDescription="rock and roll"  outreach01_2017.jpg -overwrite_original

If you don't -overwrite_original, you will get a duplicate copy or backup which I think is unecessary.

Sometimes the image contains too much unecessary metadata.. or maybe you want to maintain privacy or whatever your reason, you want to clear them. Use this

$ exiftool -all= "lky is shanmugam god.jpg"

Take note of the space after the = sign.

If lets say you have wiped all the info but want to add the original date back..

$ exiftool -createdate="2017:09:21 19:31:39" "/media/shanmugam is racist.jpg" -overwrite_original

Lets say you want to look for photos that doesn't have a must-have data like DateTimeOriginal which I think is SQL queryish.

//if a pix
$ exiftool -filename -r -if '(not $datetimeoriginal)' /path/to/mamaksial.jpg

//if a folder
$ exiftool -filename -r -if '(not $datetimeoriginal)' /path/to/balikindia/

If you just want to see a few tags

$ exiftool  -ISO  -Make balikindia.jpg

IF you just want to see ISO related tags

$ exiftool  "-*ISO*" balikindia.jpg

To output text.

$ exiftool balikindia.jpg  > balikindia.txt

To see the list of tagnames.

However, you can't edit .mp3 files. To do this you need to use

$ id3tool -t "Techno Gimme3" -r "ABBA" -a "heh" -n "comments" gimme3.mp3

If you prefer the GUI method, I recommend Gnome easytag or you can use VLC too if it is just one file.