Exiftool tips and tricks

Organize images

Organize images by years/months

exiftool -d "%Y/%m/%Y-%m-%d %H.%M.%S%%-c.%%le" "-filename<CreateDate" -r ./Photos

Download RAW files from SD card to current folder:

exiftool -d "%Y/%m/%Y-%m-%d %H.%M.%S%%-c.%%le" "-filename<CreateDate" --ext raf -r /Volumes/SD

Move all Olympus images to directory Olympus:

exiftool -r '-directory=Olympus' -if '$make eq "OLYMPUS CORPORATION"' .

Rename files to datestamp:

Filename looks like 2014-01-01 12:00:00.jpg and will append -NUM if DateTimeOriginal is the same for multiple files

exiftool '-FileName<DateTimeOriginal' -d "%Y-%m-%d %H.%M.%S%%-c.%%e" .

Date & time

Find images in a directory that don’t have a DateTimeOriginal:

exiftool -filename -filemodifydate -createdate -r -if '(not $datetimeoriginal) and $filetype eq "JPEG"' .

Update any photo that doesn’t have DateTimeOriginal to have it based on file modify date:

exiftool '-datetimeoriginal<filemodifydate' -if '(not $datetimeoriginal or ($datetimeoriginal eq "0000:00:00 00:00:00")) and ($filetype eq "JPEG")' .

Set date by filename:

exiftool "-alldates<filename" $@

All metadata

Remove all metadata of a image file:

exiftool -all= -overwrite_original photo.jpg

Remove all metadata of all *.jpg files in current directory:

exiftool -all= -overwrite_original -ext *.jpg

GPS

Strip all metadata except for location (GPS):

exiftool -all= -tagsfromfile @ -gps:all *.jpg

Remove all GPS metadata of *.jpg files in current directory:

exiftool -gps:all= *.jpg

Create KML from geotagged photos:

DESKTOP=$HOME/Desktop
cat $DESKTOP/kml-start.fmt > out.kml
exiftool -n -r -q -p $DESKTOP/kml-placemark.fmt . >> out.kml
cat $DESKTOP/kml-end.fmt >> out.kml

Create CSV of Geo Information:

exiftool -csv -filename -imagesize -gps:GPSLatitude -gps:GPSLongitude ./ > long.csv

Extra

Check Shutter Count:

exiftool -ImageCount [filename]

JSON

Outputs a grouped collection of records as JSON in a directory:

exiftool -json -g /path > collectionprofile.json