windows_exiftool.txt

NAME
    exiftool - Read and write meta information in files

RUNNING IN WINDOWS
    Drag and drop files or folders onto the exiftool executable to display
    meta information, or rename to "exiftool.exe" and run from the command
    line to access all exiftool features.

    This stand-alone Windows version allows simple command-line options to
    be added to the name of the executable (in brackets and separated by
    spaces at the end of the name), providing a mechanism to use options
    when launched via the mouse. For example, changing the executable name
    to "exiftool(-a -u -g1 -w txt).exe" gives a drag-and-drop utility which
    generates sidecar ".txt" files with detailed meta information. As
    shipped, the -k option is added to cause exiftool to pause before
    terminating (keeping the command window open). Options may also be added
    to the "Target" property of a Windows shortcut to the executable.

SYNOPSIS
  Reading
    exiftool [*OPTIONS*] [-*TAG*...] [--*TAG*...] *FILE*...

  Writing
    exiftool [*OPTIONS*] -*TAG*[+-^<]=[*VALUE*]... *FILE*...

  Copying
    exiftool [*OPTIONS*] -tagsFromFile *SRCFILE* [-[*DSTTAG*<]*SRCTAG*...]
    *FILE*...

  Other
    exiftool [ -ver | -list[w|f|r|wf|g[*NUM*]|d|x|geo] ]

    For specific examples, see the EXAMPLES sections below.

    This documentation is displayed if exiftool is run without an input
    *FILE* when one is expected.

DESCRIPTION
    A command-line interface to Image::ExifTool, used for reading and
    writing meta information in a variety of file types. *FILE* is one or
    more source file names, directory names, or "-" for the standard input.
    Metadata is read from source files and printed in readable form to the
    console (or written to output text files with -w).

    To write or delete metadata, tag values are assigned using
    -*TAG*=[*VALUE*], and/or the -geotag, -csv= or -json= options. To copy
    or move metadata, the -tagsFromFile feature is used. By default the
    original files are preserved with "_original" appended to their names --
    be sure to verify that the new files are OK before erasing the
    originals. Once in write mode, exiftool will ignore any read-specific
    options.

    Note: If *FILE* is a directory name then only supported file types in
    the directory are processed (in write mode only writable types are
    processed). However, files may be specified by name, or the -ext option
    may be used to force processing of files with any extension. Hidden
    files in the directory are also processed. Adding the -r option causes
    subdirectories to be processed recursively, but subdirectories with
    names beginning with "." are skipped unless -r. is used.

    Below is a list of file types and meta information formats currently
    supported by ExifTool (r = read, w = write, c = create):

      File Types
      ------------+-------------+-------------+-------------+------------
      360   r/w   | DR4   r/w/c | JP2   r/w   | ODS   r     | RW2   r/w
      3FR   r     | DSF   r     | JPEG  r/w   | ODT   r     | RWL   r/w
      3G2   r/w   | DSS   r     | JSON  r     | OFR   r     | RWZ   r
      3GP   r/w   | DV    r     | JXL   r/w   | OGG   r     | RM    r
      7Z    r     | DVB   r/w   | K25   r     | OGV   r     | SEQ   r
      A     r     | DVR-MS r    | KDC   r     | ONP   r     | SKETCH r
      AA    r     | DYLIB r     | KEY   r     | OPUS  r     | SO    r
      AAC   r     | EIP   r     | KVAR  r     | ORF   r/w   | SR2   r/w
      AAE   r     | EPS   r/w   | LA    r     | ORI   r/w   | SRF   r
      AAX   r/w   | EPUB  r     | LFP   r     | OTF   r     | SRW   r/w
      ACR   r     | ERF   r/w   | LIF   r     | PAC   r     | SVG   r
      AFM   r     | EXE   r     | LNK   r     | PAGES r     | SWF   r
      AI    r/w   | EXIF  r/w/c | LRV   r/w   | PBM   r/w   | THM   r/w
      AIFF  r     | EXR   r     | M2TS  r     | PCAP  r     | TIFF  r/w
      APE   r     | EXV   r/w/c | M4A/V r/w   | PCAPNG r    | TNEF  r
      ARQ   r/w   | F4A/V r/w   | MACOS r     | PCD   r     | TORRENT r
      ARW   r/w   | FFF   r/w   | MAX   r     | PCX   r     | TTC   r
      ASF   r     | FITS  r     | MEF   r/w   | PDB   r     | TTF   r
      AVI   r     | FLA   r     | MIE   r/w/c | PDF   r/w   | TXT   r
      AVIF  r/w   | FLAC  r     | MIFF  r     | PEF   r/w   | URL   r
      AZW   r     | FLIF  r/w   | MKA   r     | PFA   r     | VCF   r
      BMP   r     | FLV   r     | MKS   r     | PFB   r     | VNT   r
      BPG   r     | FPF   r     | MKV   r     | PFM   r     | VRD   r/w/c
      BTF   r     | FPX   r     | MNG   r/w   | PGF   r     | VSD   r
      C2PA  r     | GIF   r/w   | MOBI  r     | PGM   r/w   | VSDX  r
      CHM   r     | GLV   r/w   | MODD  r     | PLIST r     | WAV   r
      COS   r     | GPR   r/w   | MOI   r     | PICT  r     | WDP   r/w
      CR2   r/w   | GZ    r     | MOS   r/w   | PMP   r     | WEBP  r/w
      CR3   r/w   | HDP   r/w   | MOV   r/w   | PNG   r/w   | WEBM  r
      CRM   r/w   | HDR   r     | MP3   r     | PPM   r/w   | WMA   r
      CRW   r/w   | HEIC  r/w   | MP4   r/w   | PPT   r     | WMV   r
      CS1   r/w   | HEIF  r/w   | MPC   r     | PPTX  r     | WOFF  r
      CSV   r     | HTML  r     | MPG   r     | PS    r/w   | WOFF2 r
      CUR   r     | ICC   r/w/c | MPO   r/w   | PSB   r/w   | WPG   r
      CZI   r     | ICO   r     | MQV   r/w   | PSD   r/w   | WTV   r
      DCM   r     | ICS   r     | MRC   r     | PSP   r     | WV    r
      DCP   r/w   | IDML  r     | MRW   r/w   | QTIF  r/w   | X3F   r/w
      DCR   r     | IIQ   r/w   | MXF   r     | R3D   r     | XCF   r
      DFONT r     | IND   r/w   | NEF   r/w   | RA    r     | XISF  r
      DIVX  r     | INSP  r/w   | NKA   r     | RAF   r/w   | XLS   r
      DJVU  r     | INSV  r     | NKSC  r/w   | RAM   r     | XLSX  r
      DLL   r     | INX   r     | NRW   r/w   | RAR   r     | XMP   r/w/c
      DNG   r/w   | ISO   r     | NUMBERS r   | RAW   r/w   | ZIP   r
      DOC   r     | ITC   r     | NXD   r     | RIFF  r     |
      DOCX  r     | J2C   r     | O     r     | RSRC  r     |
      DPX   r     | JNG   r/w   | ODP   r     | RTF   r     |

      Meta Information
      ----------------------+----------------------+---------------------
      EXIF           r/w/c  |  CIFF           r/w  |  Ricoh RMETA    r
      GPS            r/w/c  |  AFCP           r/w  |  Picture Info   r
      IPTC           r/w/c  |  Kodak Meta     r/w  |  Adobe APP14    r
      XMP            r/w/c  |  FotoStation    r/w  |  MPF            r
      MakerNotes     r/w/c  |  PhotoMechanic  r/w  |  Stim           r
      Photoshop IRB  r/w/c  |  JPEG 2000      r    |  DPX            r
      ICC Profile    r/w/c  |  DICOM          r    |  APE            r
      MIE            r/w/c  |  Flash          r    |  Vorbis         r
      JFIF           r/w/c  |  FlashPix       r    |  SPIFF          r
      Ducky APP12    r/w/c  |  QuickTime      r    |  DjVu           r
      PDF            r/w/c  |  Matroska       r    |  M2TS           r
      PNG            r/w/c  |  MXF            r    |  PE/COFF        r
      Canon VRD      r/w/c  |  PrintIM        r    |  AVCHD          r
      Nikon Capture  r/w/c  |  FLAC           r    |  ZIP            r
      GeoTIFF        r/w/c  |  ID3            r    |  (and more)

OPTIONS
    Case is not significant for any command-line option (including tag and
    group names), except for single-character options when the corresponding
    upper-case option exists. Many single-character options have equivalent
    long-name versions (shown in brackets), and some options have inverses
    which are invoked with a leading double-dash. Unrecognized options are
    interpreted as tag names (for this reason, multiple single-character
    options may NOT be combined into one argument). Contrary to standard
    practice, options may appear after source file names on the exiftool
    command line.

  Option Overview
    Tag operations

      -TAG or --TAG                    Extract or exclude specified tag
      -TAG[+-^]=[VALUE]                Write new value for tag
      -TAG[+-]<=DATFILE                Write tag value from contents of file
      -[+]TAG[+-]<SRCTAG               Copy tag value (see -tagsFromFile)

      -tagsFromFile SRCFILE            Copy tag values from file
      -x TAG      (-exclude)           Exclude specified tag

    Input-output text formatting

      -args       (-argFormat)         Format metadata as exiftool arguments
      -b          (-binary)            Output metadata in binary format
      -c FMT      (-coordFormat)       Set format for GPS coordinates
      -charset [[TYPE=]CHARSET]        Specify encoding for special characters
      -csv[[+]=CSVFILE]                Export/import tags in CSV format
      -csvDelim STR                    Set delimiter for CSV file
      -d FMT      (-dateFormat)        Set format for date/time values
      -D          (-decimal)           Show tag ID numbers in decimal
      -E,-ex,-ec  (-escape(HTML|XML|C))Escape tag values for HTML, XML or C
      -f          (-forcePrint)        Force printing of all specified tags
      -g[NUM...]  (-groupHeadings)     Organize output by tag group
      -G[NUM...]  (-groupNames)        Print group name for each tag
      -h          (-htmlFormat)        Use HTML formatting for output
      -H          (-hex)               Show tag ID numbers in hexadecimal
      -htmlDump[OFFSET]                Generate HTML-format binary dump
      -j[[+]=JSONFILE] (-json)         Export/import tags in JSON format
      -l          (-long)              Use long 2-line output format
      -L          (-latin)             Use Windows Latin1 encoding
      -lang [LANG]                     Set current language
      -listItem INDEX                  Extract specific item from a list
      -n          (--printConv)        No print conversion
      -p[-] STR   (-printFormat)       Print output in specified format
      -php                             Export tags as a PHP Array
      -plot                            Output tags as SVG plot file
      -s[NUM]     (-short)             Short output format (-s for tag names)
      -S          (-veryShort)         Very short output format
      -sep STR    (-separator)         Set separator string for list items
      -sort                            Sort output alphabetically
      -struct                          Enable output of structured information
      -t          (-tab)               Output in tab-delimited list format
      -T          (-table)             Output in tabular format
      -v[NUM]     (-verbose)           Print verbose messages
      -w[+|!] EXT (-textOut)           Write (or overwrite!) output text files
      -W[+|!] FMT (-tagOut)            Write output text file for each tag
      -Wext EXT   (-tagOutExt)         Write only specified file types with -W
      -X          (-xmlFormat)         Use RDF/XML output format

    Processing control

      -a          (-duplicates)        Allow duplicate tags to be extracted
      -e          (--composite)        Do not generate composite tags
      -ee[NUM]    (-extractEmbedded)   Extract information from embedded files
      -ext[+] EXT (-extension)         Process files with specified extension
      -F[OFFSET]  (-fixBase)           Fix the base for maker notes offsets
      -fast[NUM]                       Increase speed when extracting metadata
      -fileOrder[NUM] [-]TAG           Set file processing order
      -i DIR      (-ignore)            Ignore specified directory name
      -if[NUM] EXPR                    Conditionally process files
      -m          (-ignoreMinorErrors) Ignore minor errors and warnings
      -o OUTFILE  (-out)               Set output file or directory name
      -overwrite_original              Overwrite original by renaming tmp file
      -overwrite_original_in_place     Overwrite original by copying tmp file
      -P          (-preserve)          Preserve file modification date/time
      -password PASSWD                 Password for processing protected files
      -progress[NUM][:[TITLE]]         Show file progress count
      -q          (-quiet)             Quiet processing
      -r[.]       (-recurse)           Recursively process subdirectories
      -scanForXMP                      Brute force XMP scan
      -u          (-unknown)           Extract unknown tags
      -U          (-unknown2)          Extract unknown binary tags too
      -wm MODE    (-writeMode)         Set mode for writing/creating tags
      -z          (-zip)               Read/write compressed information

    Other options

      -@ ARGFILE                       Read command-line arguments from file
      -k          (-pause)             Pause before terminating
      -list[w|f|wf|g[NUM]|d|x]         List various exiftool capabilities
      -ver                             Print exiftool version number
      --                               End of options

    Special features

      -diff FILE2                      Compare metadata with another file
      -geotag TRKFILE                  Geotag images from specified GPS log
      -globalTimeShift SHIFT           Shift all formatted date/time values
      -use MODULE                      Add features from plug-in module

    Utilities

      -delete_original[!]              Delete "_original" backups
      -restore_original                Restore from "_original" backups

    Advanced options

      -api OPT[[^]=[VAL]]              Set ExifTool API option
      -common_args                     Define common arguments
      -config CFGFILE                  Specify configuration file name
      -echo[NUM] TEXT                  Echo text to stdout or stderr
      -efile[NUM][!] TXTFILE           Save names of files with errors
      -execute[NUM]                    Execute multiple commands on one line
      -fileNUM ALTFILE                 Load tags from alternate file
      -list_dir                        List directories, not their contents
      -srcfile FMT                     Process a different source file
      -stay_open FLAG                  Keep reading -@ argfile even after EOF
      -userParam PARAM[[^]=[VAL]]      Set user parameter (API UserParam opt)

  Option Details
   Tag operations
    -*TAG*
         Extract information for the specified tag (eg. "-CreateDate").
         Multiple tags may be specified in a single command. A tag name is
         the handle by which a piece of information is referenced. See
         Image::ExifTool::TagNames for documentation on available tag names.
         A tag name may include leading group names separated by colons (eg.
         "-EXIF:CreateDate", or "-Doc1:XMP:Creator"), and each group name
         may be prefixed by a digit to specify family number (eg.
         "-1IPTC:City"). (Note that the API SavePath and SaveFormat options
         must be used for the family 5 and 6 groups respectively to be
         available.) Use the -listg option to list available group names by
         family.

         A special tag name of "All" may be used to indicate all meta
         information (ie. -All). This is particularly useful when a group
         name is specified to extract all information in a group (but beware
         that unless the -a option is also used, some tags in the group may
         be suppressed by same-named tags in other groups). The wildcard
         characters "?" and "*" may be used in a tag name to match any
         single character and zero or more characters respectively. These
         may not be used in a group name, with the exception that a group
         name of "*" (or "All") may be used to extract all instances of a
         tag (as if -a was used). Note that arguments containing wildcards
         must be quoted on the command line of most systems to prevent shell
         globbing.

         A "#" may be appended to the tag name to disable the print
         conversion on a per-tag basis (see the -n option). This may also be
         used when writing or copying tags.

         If no tags are specified, all available information is extracted
         (as if "-All" had been specified).

         Note: Descriptions, not tag names, are shown by default when
         extracting information. Use the -s option to see the tag names
         instead.

    --*TAG*
         Exclude specified tag from extracted information. Same as the -x
         option. Group names and wildcards are permitted as described above
         for -TAG. Once excluded from the output, a tag may not be
         re-included by a subsequent option. May also be used following a
         -tagsFromFile option to exclude tags from being copied (when
         redirecting to another tag, it is the source tag that should be
         excluded), or to exclude groups from being deleted when deleting
         all information (eg. "-all= --exif:all" deletes all but EXIF
         information). But note that this will not exclude individual tags
         from a group delete (unless a family 2 group is specified, see note
         4 below). Instead, individual tags may be recovered using the
         -tagsFromFile option (eg. "-all= -tagsfromfile @ -artist").

         To speed processing when reading XMP, exclusions in XMP groups also
         bypass processing of the corresponding XMP property and any
         contained properties. For example, "--xmp-crs:all" may speed
         processing significantly in cases where a large number of XMP-crs
         tags exist. To use this feature to bypass processing of a specific
         XMP property, the property name must be used instead of the
         ExifTool tag name (eg. "--xmp-crs:dabs"). Also, "XMP-all" may be
         used to to indicate any XMP namespace (eg. "--xmp-all:dabs").

    -*TAG*[+-^]=[*VALUE*]
         Write a new value for the specified tag (eg. "-comment=wow"), or
         delete the tag if no *VALUE* is given (eg. "-comment="). "+=" and
         "-=" are used to add or remove existing entries from a list, or to
         shift date/time values (see Image::ExifTool::Shift.pl and notes 6
         and 7 below for more details). "+=" may also be used to increment
         numerical values (or decrement if *VALUE* is negative), and "-="
         may be used to conditionally delete or replace a tag (see "WRITING
         EXAMPLES" for examples). "^=" is used to write an empty string
         instead of deleting the tag when no *VALUE* is given, but otherwise
         it is equivalent to "=". (Note that the caret must be quoted in the
         Windows CMD shell.)

         *TAG* may contain one or more leading family 0, 1, 2 or 7 group
         names, prefixed by optional family numbers, and separated colons.
         If no group name is specified, the tag is created in the preferred
         group, and updated in any other location where a same-named tag
         already exists. The preferred group in JPEG and TIFF-format images
         is the first group in the following list where *TAG* is valid: 1)
         EXIF, 2) IPTC, 3) XMP.

         The wildcards "*" and "?" may be used in tag names to assign the
         same value to multiple tags. When specified with wildcards,
         "Unsafe" tags are not written. A tag name of "All" is equivalent to
         "*" (except that it doesn't require quoting, while arguments with
         wildcards do on systems with shell globbing), and is often used
         when deleting all metadata (ie. "-All=") or an entire group (eg.
         "-XMP-dc:All=", see note 4 below). Note that not all groups are
         deletable, and that the JPEG APP14 "Adobe" group is not removed by
         default with "-All=" because it may affect the appearance of the
         image. However, color space information is removed, so the colors
         may be affected (but this may be avoided by copying back the tags
         defined by the ColorSpaceTags shortcut). Use the -listd option for
         a complete list of deletable groups, and see note 5 below regarding
         the "APP" groups. Also, within an image some groups may be
         contained within others, and these groups are removed if the
         containing group is deleted:

           JPEG Image:
           - Deleting EXIF or IFD0 also deletes ExifIFD, GlobParamIFD,
             GPS, IFD1, InteropIFD, MakerNotes, PrintIM and SubIFD.
           - Deleting ExifIFD also deletes InteropIFD and MakerNotes.
           - Deleting Photoshop also deletes IPTC.

           TIFF Image:
           - Deleting EXIF only removes ExifIFD which also deletes
             InteropIFD and MakerNotes.

           MOV/MP4 Video:
           - Deleting ItemList also deletes Keys tags.

         Notes:

         1) Many tag values may be assigned in a single command. If two
         assignments affect the same tag, the latter takes precedence
         (except for list-type tags, for which both values are written).

         2) In general, MakerNotes tags are considered "Permanent", and may
         be edited but not created or deleted individually. This avoids many
         potential problems, including the inevitable compatibility problems
         with OEM software which may be very inflexible about the
         information it expects to find in the maker notes.

         3) Changes to PDF files by ExifTool are reversible (by deleting the
         update with "-PDF-update:all=") because the original information is
         never actually deleted from the file. So ExifTool alone may not be
         used to securely edit metadata in PDF files.

         4) Specifying "-GROUP:all=" deletes the entire group as a block
         only if a single family 0 or 1 group is specified. Otherwise all
         deletable tags in the specified group(s) are removed individually,
         and in this case is it possible to exclude individual tags from a
         mass delete. For example, "-time:all --Exif:Time:All" removes all
         deletable Time tags except those in the EXIF. This difference also
         applies if family 2 is specified when deleting all groups. For
         example, "-2all:all=" deletes tags individually, while "-all:all="
         deletes entire blocks.

         5) The "APP" group names ("APP0" through "APP15") are used to
         delete JPEG application segments which are not associated with
         another deletable group. For example, specifying "-APP14:All=" will
         NOT delete the APP14 "Adobe" segment because this is accomplished
         with "-Adobe:All". But note that these unnamed APP segments may not
         be excluded with "--APPxx:all" when deleting all information.

         6) When shifting a value, the shift is applied to the original
         value of the tag, overriding any other values previously assigned
         to the tag on the same command line. To shift a date/time value and
         copy it to another tag in the same operation, use the
         -globalTimeShift option.

         7) The "+=" operator may not be used to shift a List-type date/time
         tag (eg. XMP-dc:Date) because "+=" is used to add elements to the
         list. Instead, the -globalTimeShift option should be used.

         Special feature: Integer values may be specified in hexadecimal
         with a leading "0x", and simple rational values may be specified as
         fractions.

    -*TAG*<=*DATFILE* or -*TAG*<=*FMT*
         Set the value of a tag from the contents of file *DATFILE*. The
         file name may also be given by a *FMT* string where %d, %f and %e
         represent the directory, file name and extension of the original
         *FILE* (see the -w option for more details). Note that quotes are
         required around this argument to prevent shell redirection since it
         contains a "<" symbol. If *DATFILE*/*FMT* is not provided, the
         effect is the same as "-TAG=", and the tag is simply deleted. "+<="
         or "-<=" may also be used to add or delete specific list entries,
         to conditionally delete/replace tags, or to shift date/time values.

    -tagsFromFile *SRCFILE* or *FMT*
         Copy tag values from *SRCFILE* to *FILE*. Tag names on the command
         line after this option specify the tags to be copied, or excluded
         from the copy. Wildcards are permitted in these tag names. If no
         tags are specified, then all possible tags (see note 1 below) from
         the source file are copied to same-named tags in the preferred
         location of the output file (the same as specifying "-all"). More
         than one -tagsFromFile option may be used to copy tags from
         multiple files.

         By default, this option will update any existing and writable
         same-named tags in the output *FILE*, but will create new tags only
         in their preferred groups. This allows some information to be
         automatically transferred to the appropriate group when copying
         between images of different formats. However, if a group name is
         specified for a tag then the information is written only to this
         group (unless redirected to another group, see below). If "All" is
         used as a group name, then the specified tag(s) are written to the
         same family 1 group they had in the source file (ie. the same
         specific location, like ExifIFD or XMP-dc). For example, the common
         operation of copying all writable tags to the same specific
         locations in the output *FILE* is achieved by adding "-all:all". A
         different family may be specified by adding a leading family number
         to the group name (eg. "-0all:all" preserves the same general
         location, like EXIF or XMP).

         *SRCFILE* may be the same as *FILE* to move information around
         within a single file. In this case, "@" may be used to represent
         the source file (ie. "-tagsFromFile @"), permitting this feature to
         be used for batch processing multiple files. Specified tags are
         then copied from each file in turn as it is rewritten. For advanced
         batch use, the source file name may also be specified using a *FMT*
         string in which %d, %f and %e represent the directory, file name
         and extension of *FILE*. (eg. the current *FILE* would be
         represented by "%d%f.%e", with the same effect as "@"). See the -w
         option for *FMT* string examples.

         A powerful redirection feature allows a destination tag to be
         specified for each copied tag. With this feature, information may
         be written to a tag with a different name or group. This is done
         using "-*DSTTAG*<*SRCTAG*" or "-*SRCTAG*>*DSTTAG*" on the command
         line after -tagsFromFile, and causes the value of *SRCTAG* to be
         copied from *SRCFILE* and written to *DSTTAG* in *FILE*. Has no
         effect unless *SRCTAG* exists in *SRCFILE*. Note that this argument
         must be quoted to prevent shell redirection, and there is no "="
         sign as when assigning new values. Source and/or destination tags
         may be prefixed by a group name and/or suffixed by "#". Wildcards
         are allowed in both the source and destination tag names. A
         destination group and/or tag name of "All" or "*" writes to the
         same family 1 group and/or tag name as the source (but the family
         may be specified by adding a leading number to the group name, eg.
         "0All" writes to the same family 0 group as the source). If no
         destination group is specified, the information is written to the
         preferred group. Whitespace around the ">" or "<" is ignored. As a
         convenience, "-tagsFromFile @" is assumed for any redirected tags
         which are specified without a prior -tagsFromFile option. Copied
         tags may also be added or deleted from a list, or conditionally
         deleted/replaced with arguments of the form "'-*SRCTAG*+<*DSTTAG*'"
         or "'-*SRCTAG*-<*DSTTAG*'" (but see Note 5 below).

         An extension of the redirection feature allows strings involving
         tag names to be used on the right hand side of the "<" symbol with
         the syntax "-*DSTTAG*<*STR*", where tag names in *STR* are prefixed
         with a "$" symbol. See the -p option and the "Advanced formatting
         feature" section for more details about this syntax. Strings
         starting with a "=" sign must insert a single space after the "<"
         to avoid confusion with the "<=" operator which sets the tag value
         from the contents of a file. A single space at the start of the
         string is removed if it exists, but all other whitespace in the
         string is preserved. See note 8 below about using the redirection
         feature with list-type tags, shortcuts or when using wildcards in
         tag names.

         See "COPYING EXAMPLES" for examples using -tagsFromFile.

         Notes:

         1) Some tags (generally tags which may affect the appearance of the
         image) are considered "Unsafe" to write, and are only copied if
         specified explicitly (ie. no wildcards). See the tag name
         documentation for more details about "Unsafe" tags.

         2) Be aware of the difference between excluding a tag from being
         copied (--*TAG*), and deleting a tag (-*TAG*=). Excluding a tag
         prevents it from being copied to the destination image, but
         deleting will remove a pre-existing tag from the image.

         3) The maker note information is copied as a block, so it isn't
         affected like other information by subsequent tag assignments on
         the command line, and individual makernote tags may not be excluded
         from a block copy. Also, since the PreviewImage referenced from the
         maker notes may be rather large, it is not copied, and must be
         transferred separately if desired.

         4) The order of operations is to copy all specified tags at the
         point of the -tagsFromFile option in the command line. Any tag
         assignment to the right of the -tagsFromFile option is made after
         all tags are copied. For example, new tag values are set in the
         order One, Two, Three then Four with this command:

             exiftool -One=1 -tagsFromFile s.jpg -Two -Four=4 -Three d.jpg

         This is significant in the case where an overlap exists between the
         copied and assigned tags because later operations may override
         earlier ones.

         5) The normal behaviour of copied tags differs from that of
         assigned tags for list-type tags and conditional replacements
         because each copy operation on a tag overrides any previous
         operations. While this avoids duplicate list items when copying
         groups of tags from a file containing redundant information, it
         also prevents values of different tags from being copied into the
         same list when this is the intent. To accumulate values from
         different operations into the same list, add a "+" after the
         initial "-" of the argument or use the -addTagsFromFile option. For
         example:

             exiftool -tagsfromfile @ '-subject<make' '-+subject<model' ...

         or

             exiftool -addtagsfromfile @ '-subject<make' '-subject<model' ...

         Similarly, "-+DSTTAG" or -addTagsFromFile must be used when
         conditionally replacing a tag to prevent overriding earlier
         conditions.

         Other than these differences, the -tagsFromFile and
         -addTagsFromFile options are equivalent.

         6) The -a option (allow duplicate tags) is always in effect when
         copying tags from *SRCFILE*, but the highest priority tag is always
         copied last so it takes precedence.

         7) Structured tags are copied by default when copying tags. See the
         -struct option for details.

         8) With the redirection feature, copying a tag directly (ie.
         "'-*DSTTAG*<*SRCTAG*'") is not the same as interpolating its value
         inside a string (ie. "'-*DSTTAG*<$*SRCTAG*'") for source tags which
         are list-type tags, shortcut tags, or tag names containing
         wildcards. When copying directly, the values of each matching
         source tag are copied individually to the destination tag (as if
         they were separate assignments). However, when interpolated inside
         a string, list items and the values of shortcut tags are
         concatenated (with a separator set by the -sep option), and
         wildcards are not allowed.Another difference is that a minor
         warning is generated if a tag doesn't exist when interpolating its
         value in a string (with "$"), but isn't when copying the tag
         directly.

         Finally, the behaviour is different when a destination tag or group
         of "All" is used. When copying directly, a destination group and/or
         tag name of "All" writes to the same family 1 group and/or tag name
         as the source. But when interpolated in a string, the identity of
         the source tags are lost and the value is written to all possible
         groups/tags. For example, the string form must be used in the
         following command since the intent is to set the value of all
         existing date/time tags from "CreateDate":

             exiftool "-time:all<$createdate" -wm w FILE

    -x *TAG* (-exclude)
         Exclude the specified tag. There may be multiple -x options. This
         has the same effect as --*TAG* on the command line. See the --*TAG*
         documentation above for a complete description.

   Input-output text formatting
    Note that trailing spaces are removed from extracted values for most
    output text formats. The exceptions are -b, -csv, -j and -X.

    -args (-argFormat)
         Output information in the form of exiftool arguments, suitable for
         use with the -@ option when writing. May be combined with the -G
         option to include group names. This feature may be used to
         effectively copy tags between images, but allows the metadata to be
         altered by editing the intermediate file ("out.args" in this
         example):

             exiftool -args -G1 --filename --directory src.jpg > out.args
             exiftool -@ out.args -sep ", " dst.jpg

         Note: Be careful when copying information with this technique since
         it is easy to write tags which are normally considered "Unsafe".
         For instance, the FileName and Directory tags are excluded in the
         example above to avoid renaming and moving the destination file.
         Also note that the second command above will produce warning
         messages for any tags which are not writable.

         As well, the -sep option should be used as in the second command
         above to maintain separate list items when writing metadata back to
         image files, and the -struct option may be used when extracting to
         preserve structured XMP information.

    -b, --b (-binary, --binary)
         Output requested metadata in binary format without tag names or
         descriptions (-b or -binary). This option is mainly used for
         extracting embedded images or other binary data, but it may also be
         useful for some text strings since control characters (such as
         newlines) are not replaced by '.' as they are in the default
         output. By default, list items are separated by a newline when
         extracted with the -b option and no terminator is added after each
         tag value, but the list separator may be changed with a -sep option
         and a terminator may be set by adding a second -sep option (see the
         -sep option for details). May be combined with -j, -php or -X to
         extract binary data in JSON, PHP or XML format, but note that
         "Unsafe" tags are not extracted as binary unless they are specified
         explicitly or the API RequestAll option is set to 3 or higher.

         With a leading double dash (--b or --binary), tags which contain
         binary data are suppressed in the output when reading.

    -c *FMT* (-coordFormat)
         Set the print format for GPS coordinates. *FMT* uses the same
         syntax as a "printf" format string. The specifiers correspond to
         degrees, minutes and seconds in that order, but minutes and seconds
         are optional. For example, the following table gives the output for
         the same coordinate using various formats:

                     FMT                  Output
             -------------------    ------------------
             "%d deg %d' %.2f"\"    54 deg 59' 22.80"  (default for reading)
             "%d %d %.8f"           54 59 22.80000000  (default for copying)
             "%d deg %.4f min"      54 deg 59.3800 min
             "%.6f degrees"         54.989667 degrees

         Notes:

         1) To avoid loss of precision, the default coordinate format is
         different when copying tags using the -tagsFromFile option.

         2) If the hemisphere is known, a reference direction (N, S, E or W)
         is appended to each printed coordinate, but adding a "+" or "-" to
         the format specifier (eg. "%+.6f" or "%-.6f") prints a signed
         coordinate instead. ("+" adds a leading "+" for positive
         coordinates, but "-" does not.)

         3) This print formatting may be disabled with the -n option to
         extract coordinates as signed decimal degrees.

    -charset [[*TYPE*=]*CHARSET*]
         If *TYPE* is "ExifTool" or not specified, this option sets the
         ExifTool character encoding for output tag values when reading and
         input values when writing, with a default of "UTF8". If no
         *CHARSET* is given, a list of available character sets is returned.
         Valid *CHARSET* values are:

             CHARSET     Alias(es)        Description
             ----------  ---------------  ----------------------------------
             UTF8        cp65001, UTF-8   UTF-8 characters (default)
             Latin       cp1252, Latin1   Windows Latin1 (West European)
             Latin2      cp1250           Windows Latin2 (Central European)
             Cyrillic    cp1251, Russian  Windows Cyrillic
             Greek       cp1253           Windows Greek
             Turkish     cp1254           Windows Turkish
             Hebrew      cp1255           Windows Hebrew
             Arabic      cp1256           Windows Arabic
             Baltic      cp1257           Windows Baltic
             Vietnam     cp1258           Windows Vietnamese
             Thai        cp874            Windows Thai
             DOSLatinUS  cp437            DOS Latin US
             DOSLatin1   cp850            DOS Latin1
             DOSCyrillic cp866            DOS Cyrillic
             MacRoman    cp10000, Roman   Macintosh Roman
             MacLatin2   cp10029          Macintosh Latin2 (Central Europe)
             MacCyrillic cp10007          Macintosh Cyrillic
             MacGreek    cp10006          Macintosh Greek
             MacTurkish  cp10081          Macintosh Turkish
             MacRomanian cp10010          Macintosh Romanian
             MacIceland  cp10079          Macintosh Icelandic
             MacCroatian cp10082          Macintosh Croatian

         *TYPE* may be "FileName" to specify the encoding of file names on
         the command line (ie. *FILE* arguments). In Windows, this triggers
         use of wide-character i/o routines, thus providing support for
         Unicode file names. See the "WINDOWS UNICODE FILE NAMES" section
         below for details.

         Other values of *TYPE* listed below are used to specify the
         internal encoding of various meta information formats.

             TYPE       Description                                  Default
             ---------  -------------------------------------------  -------
             EXIF       Internal encoding of EXIF "ASCII" strings    (none)
             ID3        Internal encoding of ID3v1 information       Latin
             IPTC       Internal IPTC encoding to assume when        Latin
                         IPTC:CodedCharacterSet is not defined
             Photoshop  Internal encoding of Photoshop IRB strings   Latin
             QuickTime  Internal encoding of QuickTime strings       MacRoman
             RIFF       Internal encoding of RIFF strings            0

         See <https://exiftool.org/faq.html#Q10> for more information about
         coded character sets, and the Image::ExifTool Options for more
         details about the -charset settings.

    -csv[[+]=*CSVFILE*]
         Export information in CSV format, or import information if
         *CSVFILE* is specified. When importing, the CSV file must be in
         exactly the same format as the exported file. The first row of the
         *CSVFILE* must be the ExifTool tag names (with optional group
         names) for each column of the file, and values must be separated by
         commas. A special "SourceFile" column specifies the files
         associated with each row of information (and a SourceFile of "*"
         may be used to define default tags to be imported for all files,
         which are then combined with any tags specified for the specific
         SourceFile processed). To be clear, the imported CSV file acts as a
         lookup table to obtain the tags for import based on the
         files/directories and tags specified on the command line. The
         -csvDelim option may be used to change the input/output field
         delimiter if something other than a comma is required.

         The following examples demonstrate basic use of the -csv option:

             # generate CSV file with common tags from all images in a directory
             exiftool -common -csv dir > out.csv

             # update metadata for all images in a directory from CSV file
             exiftool -csv=a.csv dir

         When importing, empty values are ignored unless the -f option is
         used and the API MissingTagValue is set to an empty string (in
         which case the tag is deleted). Also, FileName and Directory
         columns are ignored if they exist (ie. ExifTool will not attempt to
         write these tags with a CSV import), but all other columns are
         imported. To force a tag to be deleted, use the -f option and set
         the value to "-" in the CSV file (or to the MissingTagValue if this
         API option was used). Multiple databases may be imported in a
         single command.

         Specific tags may be imported from the CSV database by adding
         -*TAG* options to the command after -csv=*CSVFILE*, or excluded
         with --*TAG*, with exclusions taking priority. Group names and
         wildcards in tag names are allowed, but the group name must match
         exactly the group in the CSV file (eg. a "XMP-dc:Subject" column in
         the CSV file won't match "-XMP:Subject" on the command line. Also,
         tags from the CSV may be redirected and written to different tags
         in the target file with support for advanced-formatting expressions
         using the same syntax as the -tagsFromFile feature. If no tags are
         specified, then all tags except FileName, Directory and excluded
         tags are imported (in the same order as the database entries).

         When exporting a CSV file, the -g or -G option adds group names to
         the tag headings. If the -a option is used to allow duplicate tag
         names, the duplicate tags are only included in the CSV output if
         the column headings are unique. Adding the -G4 option ensures a
         unique column heading for each tag. The -b option may be added to
         output binary data, encoded in base64 if necessary (indicated by
         ASCII "base64:" as the first 7 bytes of the value). Values may also
         be encoded in base64 if the -charset option is used and the value
         contains invalid characters.

         When exporting specific tags, the CSV columns are arranged in the
         same order as the specified tags provided the column headings
         exactly match the specified tag names, otherwise the columns are
         sorted in alphabetical order.

         When importing from a CSV file, only files specified on the command
         line are processed. Any extra entries in the CSV file are ignored.

         List-type tags are stored as simple strings in a CSV file, but the
         -sep option may be used to split them back into separate items when
         importing.

         Special feature: -csv+=*CSVFILE* may be used to add items to
         existing lists in the file. This affects only list-type tags. Also
         applies to the -j option.

         Note that this and the -plot options are fundamentally different
         than all other output format options because they require
         information from all input files to be buffered in memory before
         the output is written. This may result in excessive memory usage
         when processing a very large number of files with a single command.
         Also, when used with -csv, the -w option changes to specify a
         complete file name with no filename formatting codes or append mode
         allowed, and -W may not be used. When processing a large number of
         files, it is recommended to either use the JSON (-j) or XML (-X)
         output format, or use -p to generate a fixed-column CSV file
         instead of using the -csv option.

    -csvDelim *STR*
         Set the delimiter for separating CSV entries for CSV file
         input/output via the -csv option. *STR* may contain "\t", "\n",
         "\r" and "\\" to represent TAB, LF, CR and '\' respectively. A
         double quote is not allowed in the delimiter. Default is ','.

    -d *FMT* (-dateFormat)
         Set the format for date/time tag values. The *FMT* string may
         contain formatting codes beginning with a percent character ("%")
         to represent the various components of a date/time value. ExifTool
         implements 3 format codes internally (see below), but other format
         codes are system dependent -- consult the "strftime" man page on
         your system for details. The default format is equivalent to
         "%Y:%m:%d %H:%M:%S". This option has no effect on date-only or
         time-only tags. Requires POSIX::strptime or Time::Piece for the
         inversion conversion when writing. Only one -d option may be used
         per command.

         Additional format codes implemented internally by ExifTool:

         1) %z represents the time zone in "+/-HHMM" format. Adding a colon
         (ie. %:z) adds a colon separator (eg. "-05:00"). If the date/time
         value doesn't contain a time zone then %z gives the system time
         zone for the specified date/time value.

         2) %f represents fractional seconds, and supports an optional width
         to specify the number of digits after the decimal point (eg. %3f
         would give something like ".437"). Adding a minus sign drops the
         decimal point (eg. "%-3f" would give "437").

         3) %s represents the number of seconds since 00:00 UTC Jan 1, 1970,
         taking into account the specified time zone (or system time zone if
         not specified).

    -D (-decimal)
         Show tag ID number in decimal when extracting information.

    -E, -ex, -ec (-escapeHTML, -escapeXML, -escapeC)
         Escape characters in output tag values for HTML (-E), XML (-ex) or
         C (-ec). For HTML, all characters with Unicode code points above
         U+007F are escaped as well as the following 5 characters: & (&amp;)
         ' (&#39;) " (&quot;) > (&gt;) and < (&lt;). For XML, only these 5
         characters are escaped. The -E option is implied with -h, and -ex
         is implied with -X. For C, all control characters and the backslash
         are escaped. The inverse conversion is applied when writing tags.

    -f (-forcePrint)
         Force printing of tags even if they don't exist. This option
         applies to tags specified on the command line, or with the -p, -if
         (unless the API UndefTags option is set), -fileNUM or -tagsFromFile
         options. When -f is used, the value of any missing tag is set to a
         dash ("-") by default, but this may be configured via the API
         MissingTagValue option. -f is also used to add a 'flags' attribute
         to the -listx output, or to allow tags to be deleted when writing
         with the -csv=*CSVFILE* feature.

    -g[*NUM*][:*NUM*...] (-groupHeadings)
         Organize output by tag group. *NUM* specifies a group family
         number, and may be 0 (general location), 1 (specific location), 2
         (category), 3 (document number), 4 (instance number), 5 (metadata
         path), 6 (EXIF/TIFF format), 7 (tag ID) or 8 (file number). -g0 is
         assumed if a family number is not specified. May be combined with
         other options to add group names to the output. Multiple families
         may be specified by separating them with colons. By default the
         resulting group name is simplified by removing any leading "Main:"
         and collapsing adjacent identical group names, but this can be
         avoided by placing a colon before the first family number (eg.
         -g:3:1). Use the -listg option to list group names for a specified
         family. The API SavePath and SaveFormat options are automatically
         enabled if the respective family 5 or 6 group names are requested.
         See the API GetGroup documentation for more information.

    -G[*NUM*][:*NUM*...] (-groupNames)
         Same as -g but print group name for each tag. -G0 is assumed if
         *NUM* is not specified. May be combined with a number of other
         options to add group names to the output. Note that *NUM* may be
         added wherever -G is mentioned in the documentation. See the -g
         option above for details.

    -h (-htmlFormat)
         Use HTML table formatting for output. Implies the -E option. The
         formatting options -D, -H, -g, -G, -l and -s may be used in
         combination with -h to influence the HTML format.

    -H (-hex)
         Show tag ID number in hexadecimal when extracting information.

    -htmlDump[*OFFSET*]
         Generate a dynamic web page containing a hex dump of the EXIF
         information. This can be a very powerful tool for low-level
         analysis of EXIF information. The -htmlDump option is also invoked
         if the -v and -h options are used together. The verbose level
         controls the maximum length of the blocks dumped. An *OFFSET* may
         be given to specify the base for displayed offsets. If not
         provided, the EXIF/TIFF base offset is used. Use -htmlDump0 for
         absolute offsets. Currently only EXIF/TIFF and JPEG information is
         dumped, but the -u option can be used to give a raw hex dump of
         other file formats.

    -j[[+]=*JSONFILE*] (-json)
         Use JSON (JavaScript Object Notation) formatting for console
         output, or import JSON file if *JSONFILE* is specified. This option
         may be combined with -g to organize the output into objects by
         group, or -G to add group names to each tag. List-type tags with
         multiple items are output as JSON arrays unless -sep is used. By
         default XMP structures are flattened into individual tags in the
         JSON output, but the original structure may be preserved with the
         -struct option (this also causes all list-type XMP tags to be
         output as JSON arrays, otherwise single-item lists would be output
         as simple strings). The -a option is implied when -json is used,
         but entries with identical JSON names are suppressed in the output.
         (-G4 may be used to ensure that all tags have unique JSON names.)

         Adding the -D or -H option changes tag values to JSON objects with
         "val" and "id" fields. Adding -l adds a "desc" field, and a "num"
         field if the numerical value is different from the converted "val",
         and "fmt" and "hex" fields for EXIF metadata if the API SaveFormat
         and SaveBin options are set respectively. The length of the "hex"
         output is limited by the API LimitLongValues setting. Setting the
         SaveBin option also causes the original values of Rational tags to
         be returned in string form as an extra "rat" field. The -b option
         may be added to output binary data, encoded in base64 if necessary
         (indicated by ASCII "base64:" as the first 7 bytes of the value),
         and -t may be added to include tag table information (see -t for
         details). The JSON output is UTF-8 regardless of any -L or -charset
         option setting, but the UTF-8 validation is disabled if a character
         set other than UTF-8 is specified.

         Note that ExifTool quotes JSON values only if they don't look like
         numbers (regardless of the original storage format or the relevant
         metadata specification). This may be a problem when reading the
         JSON via a strongly typed language. However, the API StructFormat
         option may be set to "JSONQ" to force quoting of numbers. As well,
         the -sep option may be used to convert arrays into strings. For
         example:

             exiftool -j -api structformat=jsonq -sep ", " ...

         If *JSONFILE* is specified, the JSON file is imported and the tag
         definitions from the JSON are used to set tag values on a per-file
         basis for each file specified on the command line. A special
         "SourceFile" entry in each JSON object associates the information
         with a specific target file. An object with a missing SourceFile or
         a SourceFile of "*" defines default tags for all target files which
         are combined with any tags specified for the specific SourceFile
         processed. The imported JSON file must have the same format as the
         exported JSON files with the exception that options exporting JSON
         objects instead of simple values are not compatible with the import
         file format (ie. export with -D, -H, -l, or -T is not compatible,
         and use -G instead of -g). Additionally, tag names in the input
         JSON file may be suffixed with a "#" to disable print conversion.

         Specific tags may be imported from the JSON database by adding
         -*TAG* options to the command after -j=*JSONFILE*, or excluded with
         --*TAG*, with exclusions taking priority. Group names and wildcards
         in tag names are allowed, but the group name must match exactly the
         group in the JSON file (eg. a "XMP-dc:Subject" entry in the JSON
         file won't match "-XMP:Subject" on the command line. Also, tags
         from JSON may be redirected and written to different tags in the
         target file with support for advanced-formatting expressions using
         the same syntax as the -tagsFromFile feature. If no tags are
         specified, then all tags except FileName, Directory and excluded
         tags are imported (in the same order as the database entries).

         Unlike CSV import, empty values are not ignored, and will cause an
         empty value to be written if supported by the specific metadata
         type. Tags are deleted by using the -f option and setting the tag
         value to "-" (or to the MissingTagValue setting if this API option
         was used). Importing with -j+=*JSONFILE* causes new values to be
         added to existing lists in the target file.

    -l (-long)
         Use long 2-line Canon-style output format. Adds a description and
         unconverted value (if it is different from the converted value) to
         the XML, JSON or PHP output when -X, -j or -php is used. May also
         be combined with -listf, -listr or -listwf to add descriptions of
         the file types.

    -L (-latin)
         Use Windows Latin1 encoding (cp1252) for output tag values instead
         of the default UTF-8. When writing, -L specifies that input text
         values are Latin1 instead of UTF-8. Equivalent to "-charset latin".

    -lang [*LANG*]
         Set current language for tag descriptions and converted values.
         *LANG* is "de", "fr", "ja", etc. Use -lang with no other arguments
         to get a list of available languages. The default language is "en"
         if -lang is not specified. Note that tag/group names are always
         English, independent of the -lang setting, and translation of
         warning/error messages has not yet been implemented. May also be
         combined with -listx to output descriptions in one language only.

         By default, ExifTool uses UTF-8 encoding for special characters,
         but the -L or -charset option may be used to invoke other
         encodings. Note that ExifTool uses Unicode::LineBreak if available
         to help preserve the column alignment of the plain text output for
         languages with a variable-width character set.

         Currently, the language support is not complete, but users are
         welcome to help improve this by submitting their own translations.
         To submit a translation, follow these steps (you must have Perl
         installed for this):

         1. Download and unpack the latest Image-ExifTool full distribution.

         2. "cd" into the Image-ExifTool directory.

         3. Run this command to make an XML file of the desired tags (eg.
         EXIF):

            ./exiftool -listx -exif:all > out.xml

         4. Copy this text into a file called "import.pl" in the exiftool
         directory:

             push @INC, 'lib';
             require Image::ExifTool::TagInfoXML;
             my $file = shift or die "Expected XML file name\n";
             $Image::ExifTool::TagInfoXML::makeMissing = shift;
             Image::ExifTool::TagInfoXML::BuildLangModules($file,8);

         5. Run the "import.pl" script to Import the XML file, generating
         the "MISSING" entries for your language (eg. Russian):

            perl import.pl out.xml ru

         6. Edit the generated language module
         lib/Image/ExifTool/Lang/ru.pm, and search and replace all "MISSING"
         strings in the file with your translations.

         7. Email the module ('ru.pm' in this example) to exiftool@gmail.com

         8. Thank you!!

    -listItem *INDEX*
         For list-type tags, this causes only the item with the specified
         index to be extracted. *INDEX* is 0 for the first item in the list.
         Negative indices may also be used to reference items from the end
         of the list. Has no effect on single-valued tags. Also applies to
         tag values when copying from a tag, and in -if, -p and -fileNUM
         arguments.

    -n (--printConv)
         Disable print conversion for all tags. By default, extracted values
         are converted to a more human-readable format, but the -n option
         disables this conversion, revealing the machine-readable values.
         For example:

             > exiftool -Orientation -S a.jpg
             Orientation: Rotate 90 CW
             > exiftool -Orientation -S -n a.jpg
             Orientation: 6

         The print conversion may also be disabled on a per-tag basis by
         suffixing the tag name with a "#" character:

             > exiftool -Orientation# -Orientation -S a.jpg
             Orientation: 6
             Orientation: Rotate 90 CW

         These techniques may also be used to disable the inverse print
         conversion when writing. For example, the following commands all
         have the same effect:

             > exiftool -Orientation="Rotate 90 CW" a.jpg
             > exiftool -Orientation=6 -n a.jpg
             > exiftool -Orientation#=6 a.jpg

    -p[-] *STR* or *FMTFILE* (-printFormat)
         Print output in the format specified by the given string or file.
         The argument is interpreted as a string unless a file of that name
         exists, in which case the string is loaded from the contents of the
         file. Tag names in the format string or file begin with a "$"
         symbol and may contain leading group names and/or a trailing "#"
         (to disable print conversion). Case is not significant. Braces "{}"
         may be used around the tag name to separate it from subsequent text
         (and must be used if subsequent text begins with an alphanumeric
         character, hyphen, underline, colon or number sign). Use $$ to
         represent a "$" symbol, and $/ for a newline. When the string
         argument is used (ie. *STR*), a newline is added to the end of the
         string unless -p- is specified or the -b option is used.

         Multiple -p options may be used. Lines beginning with "#[HEAD]" and
         "#[TAIL]" are output before the first processed file and after the
         last processed file respectively. Lines beginning with "#[SECT]"
         and "#[ENDS]" are output before and after each section of files. A
         section is defined as a group of consecutive files with the same
         section header (eg. files are grouped by directory if "#[SECT]"
         contains $directory). Lines beginning with "#[BODY]" and lines not
         beginning with "#" are output for each processed file. Lines
         beginning with "#[IF]" are not output, but all BODY lines are
         skipped if any tag on an IF line doesn't exist. Other lines
         beginning with "#" are ignored. (To output a line beginning with
         "#", use "#[BODY]#".) For example, this format file:

             # this is a comment line
             #[HEAD]-- Generated by ExifTool $exifToolVersion --
             File: $FileName - $DateTimeOriginal
             (f/$Aperture, ${ShutterSpeed}s, ISO $EXIF:ISO)
             #[TAIL]-- end --

         with this command:

             exiftool -p test.fmt a.jpg b.jpg

         produces output like this:

             -- Generated by ExifTool 13.52 --
             File: a.jpg - 2003:10:31 15:44:19
             (f/5.6, 1/60s, ISO 100)
             File: b.jpg - 2006:05:23 11:57:38
             (f/8.0, 1/13s, ISO 100)
             -- end --

         The values of List-type tags with multiple items, Shortcut tags
         representing multiple tags, and matching tags when the "All" group
         is specified are joined according the -sep option setting when
         interpolated in the string. (Note that when "All" is used as a
         group name, dupicate tags are included regardless of the Duplicates
         option setting.) When "All" is used as a tag name, a value of 1 is
         returned if any tag exists in the specified group, or 0 otherwise
         (unless the "All" group is also specified, in which case the values
         of all matching tags are joined).

         The -p output iterates through the family 3 group names, with each
         sub-document producing additional output when combined with the -ee
         (ExtractEmbedded) option.

         If a specified tag does not exist, a minor warning is issued and
         the line with the missing tag is not printed. However, the -f
         option may be used to set the value of missing tags to '-' (but
         this may be configured via the API MissingTagValue option), or the
         -m option may be used to ignore minor warnings and leave the
         missing values empty. Alternatively, -q -q may be used to simply
         suppress the warning messages.

         The "Advanced formatting feature" may be used to modify the values
         of individual tags within the -p option string.

         Note that the API RequestTags option is automatically set for all
         tags used in the *FMTFILE* or *STR*. This allows all other tags to
         be ignored using -API IgnoreTags=all, resulting in reduced memory
         usage and increased speed.

    -php Format output as a PHP Array. The -g, -G, -D, -H, -l, -sep and
         -struct options combine with -php, and duplicate tags are handled
         in the same way as with the -json option. As well, the -b option
         may be added to output binary data, and -t may be added to include
         tag table information (see -t for details). Here is a simple
         example showing how this could be used in a PHP script:

             <?php
             eval('$array=' . `exiftool -php -q image.jpg`);
             print_r($array);
             ?>

    -plot
         Write output for all specified tags and all input files as a single
         SVG-formatted plot. When combined with this feature, the -w option
         argument is a complete file name with no format codes and the
         append feature may not be used. Each tag specified on the command
         line represents a dataset in the plot (or more for array values or
         if the Split plot setting is used). Non-numerical values are
         ignored. Each input file may contribute multiple points to a
         dataset if it contains sub-documents and the -ee option is used, or
         if the tag value is a delimited string of numbers (valid delimiters
         are: space, comma, semicolon, tab and newline). Line, Scatter and
         Histogram plot types are available. See the API Plot Option and
         <https://exiftool.org/plot.html> for more details and information
         about the plot settings.

    -s[*NUM*] (-short)
         Short output format. Prints tag names instead of descriptions. Add
         *NUM* or up to 3 -s options for even shorter formats:

             -s1 or -s        - print tag names instead of descriptions
             -s2 or -s -s     - no extra spaces to column-align values
             -s3 or -s -s -s  - print values only (no tag names)

         Also effective when combined with -t, -h, -X or -listx options.

    -S (-veryShort)
         Very short format. The same as -s2 or two -s options. Tag names are
         printed instead of descriptions, and no extra spaces are added to
         column-align values.

    -sep *STR* (-separator)
         Specify separator string for items in list-type tags. When reading,
         the default is to join list items with ", ". When writing, this
         option causes values assigned to list-type tags to be split into
         individual items at each substring matching *STR* (otherwise they
         are not split by default). Space characters in *STR* match zero or
         more whitespace characters in the value.

         Note that an empty separator ("") is allowed, and will join items
         with no separator when reading, or split the value into individual
         characters when writing.

         For pure binary output (-b used without -j, -php or -X), the first
         -sep option specifies a list-item separator, and a second -sep
         option specifies a terminator for the end of the list (or after
         each value if not a list). In these strings, "\n", "\r" and "\t"
         may be used to represent a newline, carriage return and tab
         respectively. By default, binary list items are separated by a
         newline, and no terminator is added.

    -sort, --sort
         Sort output by tag description, or by tag name if the -s option is
         used. When sorting by description, the sort order will depend on
         the -lang option setting. Without the -sort option, tags appear in
         the order they were specified on the command line, or if not
         specified, the order they were extracted from the file. By default,
         tags are organized by groups when combined with the -g or -G
         option, but this grouping may be disabled with --sort.

    -struct, --struct
         Output structured XMP information instead of flattening to
         individual tags. This option works well when combined with the XML
         (-X) and JSON (-j) output formats. For other output formats, XMP
         structures and lists are serialized into the same format as when
         writing structured information (see
         <https://exiftool.org/struct.html> for details). When copying,
         structured tags are copied by default unless --struct is used to
         disable this feature (although flattened tags may still be copied
         by specifying them individually unless -struct is used). These
         options have no effect when assigning new values since both
         flattened and structured tags may always be used when writing.

    -t (-tab)
         Output a tab-delimited list of description/values (useful for
         database import). May be combined with -s to print tag names
         instead of descriptions, or -S to print tag values only,
         tab-delimited on a single line. The -t option may be combined with
         -j, -php or -X to add tag table information ("table", tag "id", and
         "index" for cases where multiple conditional tags exist with the
         same ID), which allows the corresponding tag to be located in the
         -listx output.

    -T (-table)
         Output tag values in table form. Equivalent to -t -S -q -f.

    -v[*NUM*] (-verbose)
         Print verbose messages. *NUM* specifies the level of verbosity in
         the range 0-5, with higher numbers being more verbose. If *NUM* is
         not given, then each -v option increases the level of verbosity by
         1. With any level greater than 0, most other options are ignored
         and normal console output is suppressed unless specific tags are
         extracted. Using -v0 causes the console output buffer to be flushed
         after each line (which may be useful to avoid delays when piping
         exiftool output), and prints the name of each processed file when
         writing and the new file name when renaming, moving or copying.
         Verbose levels above -v0 do not flush after each line. Also see the
         -progress option.

    -w[+|!] *EXT* or *FMT* (-textOut)
         Write console output to files with names ending in *EXT*, one for
         each source file. The output file name is obtained by replacing the
         source file extension (including the '.') with the specified
         extension (and a '.' is added to the start of *EXT* if it doesn't
         already contain one). Alternatively, a *FMT* string may be used to
         give more control over the output file name and directory. In the
         format string, %d, %f and %e represent the directory, filename and
         extension of the source file, and %c represents a copy number which
         is automatically incremented if the file already exists. %d
         includes the trailing '/' if necessary, but %e does not include the
         leading '.'. For example:

             -w %d%f.txt       # same effect as "-w txt"
             -w dir/%f_%e.out  # write files to "dir" as "FILE_EXT.out"
             -w dir2/%d%f.txt  # write to "dir2", keeping dir structure
             -w a%c.txt        # write to "a.txt" or "a1.txt" or "a2.txt"...

         Existing files will not be changed unless an exclamation point is
         added to the option name (ie. -w! or -textOut!) to overwrite the
         file, or a plus sign (ie. -w+ or -textOut+) to append to the
         existing file. Both may be used (ie. -w+! or -textOut+!) to
         overwrite output files that didn't exist before the command was
         run, and append the output from multiple source files. For example,
         to write one output file for all source files in each directory:

             exiftool -filename -createdate -T -w+! %d/out.txt -r DIR

         Capitalized format codes %D, %F, %E and %C provide slightly
         different alternatives to the lower case versions. %D does not
         include the trailing '/', %F is the full filename including
         extension, %E includes the leading '.', and %C increments the count
         for each processed file (see below).

         Notes:

         1) In a Windows BAT file the "%" character is represented by "%%",
         so an argument like "%d%f.txt" is written as "%%d%%f.txt".

         2) If the argument for -w does not contain a valid format code (eg.
         %f), then it is interpreted as a file extension, but there are
         three different ways to create a single output file from multiple
         source files:

             # 1. Shell redirection
             exiftool FILE1 FILE2 ... > out.txt

             # 2. With the -w option and a zero-width format code
             exiftool -w+! %0fout.txt FILE1 FILE2 ...

             # 3. With the -W option (see the -W option below)
             exiftool -W+! out.txt FILE1 FILE2 ...

         3) The -w option changes when used with a multi-file output format
         (-csv or -plot). With these, the argument of -w is a complete file
         name with no formatting codes, and the append feature may not be
         used.

         Advanced features:

         A substring of the original file name, directory or extension may
         be taken by specifying a field width immediately following the '%'
         character. If the width is negative, the substring is taken from
         the end. The substring position (characters to ignore at the start
         or end of the string) may be given by a second optional value after
         a decimal point. For example:

             Input File Name     Format Specifier    Output File Name
             ----------------    ----------------    ----------------
             Picture-123.jpg     %7f.txt             Picture.txt
             Picture-123.jpg     %-.4f.out           Picture.out
             Picture-123.jpg     %7f.%-3f            Picture.123
             Picture-123a.jpg    Meta%-3.1f.txt      Meta123.txt

         (Note that special characters may have a width of greater than
         one.)

         For %d and %D, the field width/position specifiers may be applied
         to the directory levels instead of substring position by using a
         colon instead of a decimal point in the format specifier. For
         example:

             Source Dir     Format   Result       Notes
             ------------   ------   ----------   ------------------
             pics/2012/02   %2:d     pics/2012/   take top 2 levels
             pics/2012/02   %-:1d    pics/2012/   up one directory level
             pics/2012/02   %:1d     2012/02/     ignore top level
             pics/2012/02   %1:1d    2012/        take 1 level after top
             pics/2012/02   %-1:D    02           bottom level folder name
             /Users/phil    %:2d     phil/        ignore top 2 levels

         (Note that the root directory counts as one level when an absolute
         path is used as in the last example above.)

         For %c, these modifiers have a different effects. If a field width
         is given, the copy number is padded with zeros to the specified
         width. A leading '-' adds a dash before the copy number, and a '+'
         adds an underline. By default, the copy number is omitted from the
         first file of a given name, but this can be changed by adding a
         decimal point to the modifier. For example:

             -w A%-cZ.txt      # AZ.txt, A-1Z.txt, A-2Z.txt ...
             -w B%5c.txt       # B.txt, B00001.txt, B00002.txt ...
             -w C%.c.txt       # C0.txt, C1.txt, C2.txt ...
             -w D%-.c.txt      # D-0.txt, D-1.txt, D-2.txt ...
             -w E%-.4c.txt     # E-0000.txt, E-0001.txt, E-0002.txt ...
             -w F%-.4nc.txt    # F-0001.txt, F-0002.txt, F-0003.txt ...
             -w G%+c.txt       # G.txt, G_1.txt G_2.txt ...
             -w H%-lc.txt      # H.txt, H-b.txt, H-c.txt ...
             -w I.%.3uc.txt    # I.AAA.txt, I.AAB.txt, I.AAC.txt ...

         A special feature allows the copy number to be incremented for each
         processed file by using %C (upper case) instead of %c. This allows
         a sequential number to be added to output file names, even if the
         names are different. For %C, a copy number of zero is not omitted
         as it is with %c. A leading '-' causes the number to be reset at
         the start of each new directory (in the original directory
         structure if the files are being moved), and '+' has no effect. The
         number before the decimal place gives the starting index, the
         number after the decimal place gives the field width. To preserve
         synchronization with the processed file number, by default the copy
         number is not incremented to avoid file name collisions, so any
         existing same-named file will cause an error. However using a colon
         instead of a decimal point causes the number to be incremented to
         avoid collisions with existing files.

         The following examples show the output filenames when used with the
         command "exiftool rose.jpg star.jpg jet.jpg ...":

             -w %C%f.txt       # 0rose.txt, 1star.txt, 2jet.txt
             -w %f-%10C.txt    # rose-10.txt, star-11.txt, jet-12.txt
             -w %.3C-%f.txt    # 000-rose.txt, 001-star.txt, 002-jet.txt
             -w %57.4C%f.txt   # 0057rose.txt, 0058star.txt, 0059jet.txt

         All format codes may be modified by 'l' or 'u' to specify lower or
         upper case respectively (ie. %le for a lower case file extension).
         When used to modify %c or %C, the numbers are changed to an
         alphabetical base (see example H above). Also, %c and %C may be
         modified by 'n' to count using natural numbers starting from 1,
         instead of 0 (see example F above).

         This same *FMT* syntax is used with the -o and -tagsFromFile
         options, although %c and %C are only valid for output file names.

    -W[+|!] *FMT* (-tagOut)
         This enhanced version of the -w option allows a separate output
         file to be created for each extracted tag. See the -w option
         documentation above for details of the basic functionality. Listed
         here are the differences between -W and -w:

         1) With -W, a new output file is created for each extracted tag.

         2) -W supports four additional format codes: %t, %g and %s
         represent the tag name, group name, and suggested extension for the
         output file (based on the format of the data), and %o represents
         the value of the OriginalRawFileName or OriginalFileName tag from
         the input file (including extension). The %g code may be followed
         by a single digit to specify the group family number (eg. %g1),
         otherwise family 0 is assumed. The substring width/position/case
         specifiers may be used with these format codes in exactly the same
         way as with %f and %e.

         3) The argument for -W is interpreted as a file name if it contains
         no format codes. (For -w, this would be a file extension.) This
         change allows a simple file name to be specified, which, when
         combined with the append feature, provides a method to write
         metadata from multiple source files to a single output file without
         the need for shell redirection. For example, the following pairs of
         commands give the same result:

             # overwriting existing text file
             exiftool test.jpg > out.txt     # shell redirection
             exiftool test.jpg -W+! out.txt  # equivalent -W option

             # append to existing text file
             exiftool test.jpg >> out.txt    # shell redirection
             exiftool test.jpg -W+ out.txt   # equivalent -W option

         4) Adding the -v option to -W sends a list of the tags and output
         file names to the console instead of giving a verbose dump of the
         entire file. (Unless appending all output to one file for each
         source file by using -W+ with an output file *FMT* that does not
         contain %t, %g, %s or %o.)

         5) Individual list items are stored in separate files when -W is
         combined with -b, but note that for separate files to be created %c
         or %C must be used in *FMT* to give the files unique names.

    -Wext *EXT*, --Wext *EXT* (-tagOutExt)
         This option is used to specify the type of output file(s) written
         by the -W option. An output file is written only if the suggested
         extension matches *EXT*. Multiple -Wext options may be used to
         write more than one type of file. Use --Wext to write all but the
         specified type(s).

    -X (-xmlFormat)
         Use ExifTool-specific RDF/XML formatting for console output.
         Implies the -a option, so duplicate tags are extracted. The
         formatting options -b, -D, -H, -l, -s, -sep, -struct and -t may be
         used in combination with -X to affect the output, but note that the
         tag ID (-D, -H and -t), binary data (-b) and structured output
         (-struct) options are not effective for the short output (-s).
         Another restriction of -s is that only one tag with a given group
         and name may appear in the output. Note that the tag ID options
         (-D, -H and -t) will produce non-standard RDF/XML unless the -l
         option is also used.

         By default, -X outputs flattened tags, so -struct should be added
         if required to preserve XMP structures. List-type tags with
         multiple values are formatted as an RDF Bag, but they are combined
         into a single string when -s or -sep is used. Using -L changes the
         XML encoding from "UTF-8" to "windows-1252". Other -charset
         settings change the encoding only if there is a corresponding
         standard XML character set. The -b option causes binary data values
         to be written, encoded in base64 if necessary. The -t option adds
         tag table information to the output (see -t for details).

         Note: This output is NOT the same as XMP because it uses
         dynamically-generated property names corresponding to the ExifTool
         tag names with ExifTool family 1 group names as namespaces, and not
         the standard XMP properties and namespaces. To write XMP instead,
         use the -o option with an XMP extension for the output file.

   Processing control
    -a, --a (-duplicates, --duplicates)
         Allow (-a) or suppress (--a) duplicate tag names to be extracted.
         By default, duplicate tags are suppressed when reading unless the
         -ee or -X options are used or the Duplicates option is enabled in
         the configuration file. When writing, this option allows multiple
         Warning messages to be shown. Duplicate tags are always extracted
         when copying.

    -e (--composite)
         Extract existing tags only -- don't generate composite tags.

    -ee[*NUM*] (-extractEmbedded)
         Extract information from embedded documents in EPS files, embedded
         EPS information and JPEG and Jpeg2000 images in PDF files, embedded
         MPF images in JPEG and MPO files, streaming metadata in AVCHD
         videos, and the resource fork of Mac OS files. Implies the -a
         option. Use -g3 or -G3 to identify the originating document for
         extracted information. Embedded documents containing sub-documents
         are indicated with dashes in the family 3 group name. (eg. "Doc2-3"
         is the 3rd sub-document of the 2nd embedded document.) Note that
         this option may increase processing time substantially, especially
         for PDF files with many embedded images or videos with streaming
         metadata.

         When used with -ee, the -p option is evaluated for each embedded
         document as if it were a separate input file. This allows, for
         example, generation of GPS track logs from timed metadata in
         videos. See <https://exiftool.org/geotag.html#Inverse> for
         examples.

         Setting *NUM* to 2 causes the H264 video stream in MP4 videos to be
         parsed until the first Supplemental Enhancement Information (SEI)
         message is decoded, or 3 to parse the entire H624 stream and decode
         all SEI information. For M2TS videos, a setting of 3 causes the
         entire file to be parsed in search of unlisted programs which may
         contain timed GPS.

    -ext[+] *EXT*, --ext *EXT* (-extension)
         Process only files with (-ext) or without (--ext) a specified
         extension. There may be multiple -ext and --ext options. A plus
         sign may be added (ie. -ext+) to add the specified extension to the
         normally processed files. EXT may begin with a leading ".", which
         is ignored. Case is not significant. "*" may be used to process
         files with any extension (or none at all), as in the last three
         examples:

             exiftool -ext JPG DIR             # process only JPG files
             exiftool --ext cr2 --ext dng DIR  # supported files but CR2/DNG
             exiftool -ext+ txt DIR            # supported files plus TXT
             exiftool -ext "*" DIR             # process all files
             exiftool -ext "*" --ext xml DIR   # process all but XML files
             exiftool -ext "*" --ext . DIR     # all but those with no ext

         Using this option has two main advantages over specifying "*.*EXT*"
         on the command line: 1) It applies to files in subdirectories when
         combined with the -r option. 2) The -ext option is
         case-insensitive, which is useful when processing files on
         case-sensitive filesystems.

         Note that all files specified on the command line will be processed
         regardless of extension unless the -ext option is used.

    -F[*OFFSET*] (-fixBase)
         Fix the base for maker notes offsets. A common problem with some
         image editors is that offsets in the maker notes are not adjusted
         properly when the file is modified. This may cause the wrong values
         to be extracted for some maker note entries when reading the edited
         file. This option allows an integer *OFFSET* to be specified for
         adjusting the maker notes base offset. If no *OFFSET* is given,
         ExifTool takes its best guess at the correct base. Note that
         exiftool will automatically fix the offsets for images which store
         original offset information (eg. newer Canon models). Offsets are
         fixed permanently if -F is used when writing EXIF to an image. eg)

             exiftool -F -exif:resolutionunit=inches image.jpg

    -fast[*NUM*]
         Increase speed of extracting information. With -fast (or -fast1),
         ExifTool will not scan to the end of a JPEG image to check for an
         AFCP or PreviewImage trailer, or past the first comment in GIF
         images or the audio/video data in WAV/AVI files to search for
         additional metadata. These speed benefits are small when reading
         images directly from disk, but can be substantial if piping images
         through a network connection. Also bypasses CRC validation when
         writing PNG images which can be very slow. For more substantial
         speed benefits, -fast2 also causes exiftool to avoid extracting any
         EXIF MakerNote information, and to stop processing at the IDAT
         chunk of PNG images and the mdat atom of QuickTime-format files
         (but note that some files may store metadata after this). -fast3
         avoids extracting metadata from the file, and returns only pseudo
         System tags, but still reads the file header to obtain an educated
         guess at FileType. -fast4 doesn't even read the file header, and
         returns only System tags and a FileType based on the file
         extension. -fast5 also disables generation of the Composite tags
         (like -e). Has no effect when writing.

         Note that a separate -fast setting may be used for evaluation of a
         -if condition, or when ordering files with the -fileOrder option.
         See the -if and -fileOrder options for details.

    -fileOrder[*NUM*] [-]*TAG*
         Set file processing order according to the sorted value of the
         specified *TAG*. Without this option, files are processed in the
         order returned by the system, which is commonly by file name, but
         this is filesystem dependent. For example, to process files in
         order of date:

             exiftool -fileOrder DateTimeOriginal DIR

         Additional -fileOrder options may be added for secondary sort keys.
         Numbers are sorted numerically, and all other values are sorted
         alphabetically. Files missing the specified tag are sorted last.
         The sort order may be reversed by prefixing the tag name with a "-"
         (eg. "-fileOrder -createdate"). Print conversion of the sorted
         values is disabled with the -n option, or a "#" appended to the tag
         name. Other formatting options (eg. -d) have no effect on the
         sorted values. Note that the -fileOrder option can incur large
         performance penalty since it involves an additional initial
         processing pass of all files, but this impact may be reduced by
         specifying a *NUM* to effectively set the -fast level for the
         initial pass. For example, -fileOrder4 may be used if *TAG* is a
         pseudo System tag. If multiple -fileOrder options are used, the
         extraction is done at the lowest -fast level. Note that files are
         sorted across directory boundaries if multiple input directories
         are specified.

    -i *DIR* (-ignore)
         Ignore specified directory name. *DIR* may be either an individual
         folder name, or a full path, and is case sensitive. If a full path
         is specified, it must match the Directory tag exactly to be
         ignored. Use multiple -i options to ignore more than one directory
         name. A special *DIR* value of "SYMLINKS" may be specified to avoid
         recursing into directories which are symbolic links when the -r
         option is used (note this does not currently work under Windows).
         As well, a value of "HIDDEN" may be used to ignore files with names
         that start with a "." (ie. hidden files on Unix systems) when
         scanning a directory.

    -if[*NUM*] *EXPR*
         Specify a condition to be evaluated before processing each *FILE*.
         *EXPR* is a Perl-like logic expression containing tag names
         prefixed by "$" symbols. It is evaluated with the tags from each
         *FILE* in turn, and the file is processed only if the expression
         returns true. Unlike Perl variable names, tag names are not case
         sensitive and may contain a hyphen. As well, tag names may have a
         leading group names separated by colons, and/or a trailing "#"
         character to disable print conversion. The expression $GROUP:all
         evaluates to 1 if any tag exists in the specified "GROUP", or 0
         otherwise (see note 2 below). When multiple -if options are used,
         all conditions must be satisfied to process the file. Returns an
         exit status of 2 if all files fail the condition. Below are a few
         examples:

             # extract shutterspeed from all Canon images in a directory
             exiftool -shutterspeed -if "$make eq 'Canon'" dir

             # add one hour to all images created on or after Apr. 2, 2006
             exiftool -alldates+=1 -if "$CreateDate ge '2006:04:02'" dir

             # set EXIF ISO value if possible, unless it is set already
             exiftool "-exif:iso<iso" -if "not $exif:iso" dir

             # find images containing a specific keyword (case insensitive)
             exiftool -if "$keywords =~ /harvey/i" -filename dir

         Adding *NUM* to the -if option causes a separate processing pass to
         be executed for evaluating *EXPR* at a -fast level given by *NUM*
         (see the -fast option documentation for details). Without *NUM*,
         only one processing pass is done at the level specified by the
         -fast option. For example, using -if5 is possible if *EXPR* uses
         only pseudo System tags, and may significantly speed processing if
         enough files fail the condition.

         The expression has access to the current ExifTool object through
         $self, and the following special functions are available to allow
         short-circuiting of the file processing. Both functions have a
         return value of 1. Case is significant for function names.

             End()    - end processing after this file
             EndDir() - end processing of files in the current directory
                        after this file (not compatible with -fileOrder)

         Notes:

         1) The -n and -b options also apply to tags used in *EXPR*.

         2) The API RequestTags option is automatically set for all tags
         used in the -if condition.

         3) Tags in the string are interpolated in a similar way to -p
         before the expression is evaluated. In this interpolation, $/ is
         converted to a newline and $$ represents a single "$" symbol. So
         Perl variables, if used, require a double "$", and regular
         expressions ending in $/ must use $$/ instead.

         4) The condition accesses only tags from the file being processed
         unless the -fileNUM option is used to read an alternate file and
         the corresponding family 8 group name is specified for the tag. See
         the -fileNUM option details for more information.

         5) The -a (Duplicates) option is implied when -if is used without a
         fast *NUM*, and the values of duplicate tags are accessible by
         specifying a group name in the expression (such as a family 4
         instance number, eg. $Copy1:TAG, $Copy2:TAG, etc).

         6) A special "OK" UserParam is available to test the success of the
         previous command when -execute was used, and may be used like any
         other tag in the condition (ie. "$OK").

         7) The values of undefined tags in the expression are affected by
         the -f and -m options unless the API UndefTags option is also set.

         8) The condition fails if a Perl error occurs. This could happen
         for instance if an undefined value (eg. a missing tag) is used
         improperly.

    -m (-ignoreMinorErrors)
         Ignore minor errors and warnings. This enables writing to files
         with minor errors and disables some validation checks which could
         result in minor warnings. Generally, minor errors/warnings indicate
         a problem which usually won't result in loss of metadata if
         ignored. However, there are exceptions, so ExifTool leaves it up to
         you to make the final decision. Minor errors and warnings are
         indicated by "[minor]" at the start of the message. Warnings which
         affect processing when ignored are indicated by "[Minor]" (with a
         capital "M"). Note that this causes missing values in
         -tagsFromFile, -p, -if and -fileNUM strings to be set to an empty
         string rather than an undefined value (but this may be avoided for
         -if using the API UndefTags option).

    -o *OUTFILE* or *FMT* (-out)
         Set the output file or directory name when writing information.
         Without this option, when any "real" tags are written the original
         file is renamed to "FILE_original" and output is written to *FILE*.
         When writing only FileName and/or Directory "pseudo" tags, -o
         causes the file to be copied instead of moved, but directories
         specified for either of these tags take precedence over that
         specified by the -o option.

         *OUTFILE* may be "-" to write to stdout. The output file name may
         also be specified using a *FMT* string in which %d, %f and %e
         represent the directory, file name and extension of *FILE*. Also,
         %c may be used to add a copy number. See the -w option for *FMT*
         string examples.

         The output file is taken to be a directory name if it already
         exists as a directory or if the name ends with '/'. Output
         directories are created if necessary. Existing files will not be
         overwritten. Combining the -overwrite_original option with -o
         causes the original source file to be erased after the output file
         is successfully written.

         A special feature of this option allows the creation of certain
         types of files from scratch, or with the metadata from another type
         of file. The following file types may be created using this
         technique:

             XMP, EXIF, EXV, MIE, ICC/ICM, VRD, DR4

         The output file type is determined by the extension of *OUTFILE*
         (specified as "-.EXT" when writing to stdout). The output file is
         then created from a combination of information in *FILE* (as if the
         -tagsFromFile option was used), and tag values assigned on the
         command line. If no *FILE* is specified, the output file may be
         created from scratch using only tags assigned on the command line.

    -overwrite_original
         Overwrite the original *FILE* (instead of preserving it by adding
         "_original" to the file name) when writing information to an image.
         Caution: This option should only be used if you already have
         separate backup copies of your image files. The overwrite is
         implemented by renaming a temporary file to replace the original.
         This deletes the original file and replaces it with the edited
         version in a single operation. When combined with -o, this option
         causes the original file to be deleted if the output file was
         successfully written (ie. the file is moved instead of copied).

    -overwrite_original_in_place
         Similar to -overwrite_original except that an extra step is added
         to allow the original file attributes to be preserved. For example,
         on a Mac this causes the original file creation date, type,
         creator, label color, icon, Finder tags, other extended attributes
         and hard links to the file to be preserved (but note that the Mac
         OS resource fork is always preserved unless specifically deleted
         with "-rsrc:all="). This is implemented by opening the original
         file in update mode and replacing its data with a copy of a
         temporary file before deleting the temporary. The extra step
         results in slower performance, so the -overwrite_original option
         should be used instead unless necessary.

         Note that this option reverts to the behaviour of the
         -overwrite_original option when also writing the FileName and/or
         Directory tags.

    -P (-preserve)
         Preserve the filesystem modification date/time ("FileModifyDate")
         of the original file when writing. Note that some filesystems store
         a creation date (ie. "FileCreateDate" on Windows and Mac systems)
         which is not affected by this option. This creation date is
         preserved on Windows systems where Win32API::File and Win32::API
         are available regardless of this setting. For other systems, the
         -overwrite_original_in_place option may be used if necessary to
         preserve the creation date. The -P option is superseded by any
         value written to the FileModifyDate tag.

    -password *PASSWD*
         Specify password to allow processing of password-protected PDF
         documents. If a password is required but not given, a warning is
         issued and the document is not processed. This option is ignored if
         a password is not required.

    -progress[NUM][:[*TITLE*]]
         Show the progress when processing files. Without a colon, the
         -progress option adds a progress count in brackets after the name
         of each processed file, giving the current file number and the
         total number of files to be processed. Implies the -v0 option,
         causing the names of processed files to also be printed when
         writing. When combined with the -if option, the total count
         includes all files before the condition is applied, but files that
         fail the condition will not have their names printed. If NUM is
         specified, the progress is shown every NUM input files.

         If followed by a colon (ie. -progress:), the console window title
         is set according to the specified *TITLE* string. If no *TITLE* is
         given, a default *TITLE* string of "ExifTool %p%%" is assumed. In
         the string, %f represents the file name, %p is the progress as a
         percent, %r is the progress as a ratio, %##b is a progress bar of
         width "##" (where "##" is an integer specifying the bar width in
         characters, or 20 characters by default if "##" is omitted), and %%
         is a % character. May be combined with the normal -progress option
         to also show the progress count in console messages. (Note: For
         this feature to function correctly on Mac/Linux, stderr must go to
         the console.)

    -q (-quiet)
         Quiet processing. One -q suppresses normal informational messages,
         and a second -q suppresses warnings as well. Error messages can not
         be suppressed, although minor errors may be downgraded to warnings
         with the -m option, which may then be suppressed with "-q -q".

    -r[.] (-recurse)
         Recursively process files in subdirectories. Only meaningful if
         *FILE* is a directory name. Subdirectories with names beginning
         with "." are not processed unless "." is added to the option name
         (ie. -r. or -recurse.). By default, exiftool will also follow
         symbolic links to directories if supported by the system, but this
         may be disabled with "-i SYMLINKS" (see the -i option for details).
         Combine this with -ext options to control the types of files
         processed.

    -scanForXMP
         Scan all files (even unsupported formats) for XMP information
         unless found already. When combined with the -fast option, only
         unsupported file types are scanned. Warning: It can be time
         consuming to scan large files.

    -u (-unknown)
         Extract values of unknown tags. Add another -u to also extract
         unknown information from binary data blocks. This option applies to
         tags with numerical tag ID's, and causes tag names like
         "Exif_0xc5d9" to be generated for unknown information. It has no
         effect on information types which have human-readable tag ID's
         (such as XMP), since unknown tags are extracted automatically from
         these formats.

    -U (-unknown2)
         Extract values of unknown tags as well as unknown information from
         some binary data blocks. This is the same as two -u options.

    -wm *MODE* (-writeMode)
         Set mode for writing/creating tags. *MODE* is a string of one or
         more characters from the list below. The default write mode is
         "wcg".

             w - Write existing tags
             c - Create new tags
             g - create new Groups as necessary

         For example, use "-wm cg" to only create new tags (and avoid
         editing existing ones).

         The level of the group is the SubDirectory level in the metadata
         structure. For XMP or IPTC this is the full XMP/IPTC block (the
         family 0 group), but for EXIF this is the individual IFD (the
         family 1 group).

    -z (-zip)
         When reading, causes information to be extracted from .gz and .bz2
         compressed images (only one image per archive; requires gzip and
         bzip2 to be available). When writing, causes compressed information
         to be written if supported by the metadata format (eg. PNG supports
         compressed textual metadata, JXL supports compressed EXIF and XML,
         and MIE supports any compressed metadata), disables the recommended
         padding in embedded XMP (saving 2424 bytes when writing XMP in a
         file), and writes XMP in shorthand format -- the equivalent of
         setting the API Compress=1 and Compact="NoPadding,Shorthand".

   Other options
    -@ *ARGFILE*
         Read command-line arguments from the specified file. The file
         contains one argument per line (NOT one option per line -- some
         options require additional arguments, and all arguments must be
         placed on separate lines). Blank lines and lines beginning with "#"
         are ignored (unless they start with "#[CSTR]", in which case the
         rest of the line is treated as a C string, allowing standard C
         escape sequences such as "\n" for a newline). White space at the
         start of a line is removed. Normal shell processing of arguments is
         not performed, which among other things means that arguments should
         not be quoted and spaces are treated as any other character.
         *ARGFILE* may exist relative to either the current directory or the
         exiftool directory unless an absolute pathname is given.

         For example, the following *ARGFILE* will set the value of
         Copyright to "Copyright YYYY, Phil Harvey", where "YYYY" is the
         year of CreateDate:

             -d
             %Y
             -copyright<Copyright $createdate, Phil Harvey

         Arguments in *ARGFILE* behave exactly the same as if they were
         entered at the location of the -@ option on the command line, with
         the exception that the -config and -common_args options may not be
         used in an *ARGFILE*.

    -k (-pause)
         Pause with the message "-- press any key --" before terminating.
         This option is used to prevent the command window from closing when
         run as a Windows drag and drop application.

    -list, -listw, -listf, -listr, -listwf, -listg[*NUM*], -listd, -listx,
    -listgeo
         Print a list of all valid tag names (-list), all writable tag names
         (-listw), all supported file extensions (-listf), all recognized
         file extensions (-listr), all writable file extensions (-listwf),
         all tag groups [in a specified family] (-listg[*NUM*]), all
         deletable tag groups (-listd), an XML database of tag details
         including language translations (-listx), or the Geolocation
         database (-listgeo). The -list, -listw and -listx options may be
         followed by an additional argument of the form "-GROUP:All" to list
         only tags in a specific group, where "GROUP" is one or more family
         0-2 group names (excepting EXIF IFD groups) separated by colons.
         With -listg, *NUM* may be given to specify the group family,
         otherwise family 0 is assumed. The -l or -v option may be combined
         with -listf, -listr or -listwf to add file descriptions to the
         list. The -lang option may be combined with -listx to output
         descriptions in a single language, and the -sort and/or -lang
         options may be combined with -listgeo (installation of the
         alternate database is required for the additional languages). Also,
         the API GeolocMinPop, GeolocFeature and GeolocAltNames options
         apply to the -listgeo output. Here are some examples:

             -list               # list all tag names
             -list -EXIF:All     # list all EXIF tags
             -list -xmp:time:all # list all XMP tags relating to time
             -listw -XMP-dc:All  # list all writable XMP-dc tags
             -listf              # list all supported file extensions
             -listr              # list all recognized file extensions
             -listwf             # list all writable file extensions
             -listg1             # list all groups in family 1
             -listd              # list all deletable groups
             -listx -EXIF:All    # list database of EXIF tags in XML format
             -listx -XMP:All -s  # list short XML database of XMP tags
             -listgeo -lang de   # list geolocation database in German

         When combined with -listx, the -s option shortens the output by
         omitting the descriptions and values (as in the last example
         above), and -f adds 'flags' and 'struct' attributes if applicable.
         The flags are formatted as a comma-separated list of the following
         possible values: Avoid, Binary, List, Mandatory, Permanent,
         Protected, Unknown and Unsafe (see the Tag Name documentation). For
         XMP List tags, the list type (Alt, Bag or Seq) is also given, and
         flattened structure tags are indicated by a Flattened flag with
         'struct' giving the ID of the parent structure.

         Note that none of the -list options require an input *FILE*.

    -ver Print exiftool version number. The -v option may be added to print
         addition system information (see the README file of the full
         distribution for more details about optional libraries), or -v2 to
         also list the Perl include directories.

    --   Indicates the end of options. Any remaining arguments are treated
         as file names, even if they begin with a dash ("-").

   Special features
    -diff *FILE2*
         Compare metadata in *FILE* with *FILE2*. The *FILE2* name may
         include filename formatting codes (see the -w option). All
         extracted tags from the files are compared, but the extracted tags
         may be controlled by adding -*TAG* or --*TAG* options. For example,
         below is a command to compare all the same-named files in two
         different directories, ignoring the System tags:

             exiftool DIR1 -diff DIR2/%f.%e --system:all

         The -g and -G options may be used to organize the output by the
         specified family of groups, with -G1 being the default. The -a
         option is implied. Adding -v includes a count of the number of tags
         that are the same in each group, and -v2 also indicates when zero
         tags were the same. The following text formatting options are valid
         when -diff is used: -c, -charset, -d, -E, -ec, -ex, -L, -lang, -n,
         -s, -sep, -struct and -w.

    -geotag *TRKFILE*
         Geotag images from the specified GPS track log file. Using the
         -geotag option is equivalent to writing a value to the "Geotag"
         tag. The GPS position is interpolated from the track at a time
         specified by the value written to the "Geotime" tag. If "Geotime"
         is not specified, the value is copied from
         "SubSecDateTimeOriginal#" if it exists, otherwise
         "DateTimeOriginal#" (the "#" is added to copy the unformatted
         value, avoiding potential conflicts with the -d option). For
         example, the following two commands are equivalent if
         SubSecDateTimeOriginal exists in the file:

             exiftool -geotag trk.log image.jpg
             exiftool -geotag trk.log "-Geotime<SubSecDateTimeOriginal#" image.jpg

         If the "Geotime" value does not contain a time zone then the local
         system timezone is assumed. Writing "Geotime" causes the following
         tags to be written (provided they can be calculated from the track
         log, and they are supported by the destination metadata format):
         GPSLatitude, GPSLatitudeRef, GPSLongitude, GPSLongitudeRef,
         GPSAltitude, GPSAltitudeRef, GPSDateStamp, GPSTimeStamp,
         GPSDateTime, GPSTrack, GPSTrackRef, GPSSpeed, GPSSpeedRef,
         GPSImgDirection, GPSImgDirectionRef, GPSMeasureMode, GPSDOP,
         GPSPitch, GPSRoll, GPSCoordinates, AmbientTemperature and
         CameraElevationAngle. By default, in image files tags are created
         in EXIF, and updated in XMP only if they already exist. In
         QuickTime-format files GPSCoordinates is created in the preferred
         location (ItemList by default) as well as in XMP. However,
         "EXIF:Geotime", "XMP:Geotime" or "QuickTime:Geotime" may be
         specified to write to write only to one group. Also,
         "ItemList:Geotime", "Keys:Geotime" or "UserData:Geotime" may be
         used to write to a specific location in QuickTime-format files.
         Note that GPSPitch and GPSRoll are non-standard, and require
         user-defined tags in order to be written.

         The "Geosync" tag may be used to specify a time correction which is
         applied to each "Geotime" value for synchronization with GPS time.
         For example, the following command compensates for image times
         which are 1 minute and 20 seconds behind GPS:

             exiftool -geosync=+1:20 -geotag a.log DIR

         Advanced "Geosync" features allow a piecewise linear time drift
         correction and synchronization from previously geotagged images.
         See "geotag.html" in the full ExifTool distribution for more
         information.

         Multiple -geotag options may be used to concatenate GPS track log
         data. Also, a single -geotag option may be used to load multiple
         track log files by using wildcards in the *TRKFILE* name, but note
         that in this case *TRKFILE* must be quoted on most systems (with
         the notable exception of Windows) to prevent filename expansion.
         For example:

             exiftool -geotag "TRACKDIR/*.log" IMAGEDIR

         Currently supported track file formats are GPX, NMEA RMC/GGA/GLL,
         KML, IGC, Garmin XML and TCX, Magellan PMGNTRK, Honeywell PTNTHPR,
         Bramor gEO, Winplus Beacon TXT, and GPS/IMU CSV files. See
         "GEOTAGGING EXAMPLES" for examples. Also see "geotag.html" in the
         full ExifTool distribution and the Image::ExifTool Options for more
         details and for information about geotag configuration options.

         The API Geolocation option may be set to the value "geotag" to also
         write the name, province/state and country of the nearest city
         while geotagging. See <https://exiftool.org/geolocation.html> for
         details.

    -globalTimeShift *SHIFT*
         Shift all formatted date/time values by the specified amount when
         reading. Does not apply to unformatted (-n) output. *SHIFT* takes
         the same form as the date/time shift when writing (see
         Image::ExifTool::Shift.pl for details), with a negative shift being
         indicated with a minus sign ("-") at the start of the *SHIFT*
         string. For example:

             # return all date/times, shifted back by 1 hour
             exiftool -globalTimeShift -1 -time:all a.jpg

             # set the file name from the shifted CreateDate (-1 day) for
             # all images in a directory
             exiftool "-filename<createdate" -globaltimeshift "-0:0:1 0:0:0" \
                 -d %Y%m%d-%H%M%S.%%e dir

    -use *MODULE*
         Add features from specified plug-in *MODULE*. Currently, the MWG
         module is the only plug-in module distributed with exiftool. This
         module adds read/write support for tags as recommended by the
         Metadata Working Group. As a convenience, "-use MWG" is assumed if
         the group name prefix starts with "MWG:" exactly for any requested
         tag. See the MWG Tags documentation for more details. Note that
         this option is not reversible, and remains in effect until the
         application terminates, even across the -execute option.

   Utilities
    -restore_original
    -delete_original[!]
         These utility options automate the maintenance of the "_original"
         files created by exiftool. They have no effect on files without an
         "_original" copy. The -restore_original option restores the
         specified files from their original copies by renaming the
         "_original" files to replace the edited versions. For example, the
         following command restores the originals of all JPG images in
         directory "DIR":

             exiftool -restore_original -ext jpg DIR

         The -delete_original option deletes the "_original" copies of all
         files specified on the command line. Without a trailing "!" this
         option prompts for confirmation before continuing. For example, the
         following command deletes "a.jpg_original" if it exists, after
         asking "Are you sure?":

             exiftool -delete_original a.jpg

         These options may not be used with other options to read or write
         tag values in the same command, but may be combined with options
         such -ext, -if, -r, -q and -v.

   Advanced options
    Among other things, the advanced options allow complex processing to be
    performed from a single command without the need for additional
    scripting. This may be particularly useful for implementations such as
    Windows drag-and-drop applications. These options may also be used to
    improve performance in multi-pass processing by reducing the overhead
    required to load exiftool for each invocation.

    -api [*OPT[[^]=[VAL]]*]
         Set ExifTool API option. *OPT* is an API option name. The option
         value is set to 1 if *=VAL* is omitted. If just *VAL* is omitted,
         the option value is set to undef if "=" is used, or an empty string
         with "^=". If *OPT* is not specified a list of available options is
         returned. The option name is not case sensitive, but the option
         values are. See Image::ExifTool Options for option details. This
         overrides API options set via the config file. Note that the
         exiftool app sets some API options internally, and attempts to
         change these via the command line will have no effect.

    -common_args
         Specifies that all arguments following this option are common to
         all executed commands when -execute is used. This and the -config
         option are the only options that may not be used inside a -@
         *ARGFILE*. Note that by definition this option and its arguments
         MUST come after all other options on the command line.

    -config *CFGFILE*
         Load specified configuration file instead of the default
         ".ExifTool_config". If used, this option must come before all other
         arguments on the command line and applies to all -execute'd
         commands. This file is used to create user-defined tags as well as
         set default ExifTool options. The *CFGFILE* must exist relative to
         the current working directory or the exiftool application directory
         unless an absolute path is specified. Loading of the default config
         file may be disabled by setting *CFGFILE* to an empty string (ie.
         ""). See <https://exiftool.org/config.html> and
         config_files/example.config in the full ExifTool distribution for
         details about the configuration file syntax.

    -echo[*NUM*] *TEXT*
         Echo *TEXT* to stdout (-echo or -echo1) or stderr (-echo2). Text is
         output as the command line is parsed, before the processing of any
         input files. *NUM* may also be 3 or 4 to output text (to stdout or
         stderr respectively) after processing is complete. For -echo3 and
         -echo4, "${status}" may be used in the *TEXT* string to represent
         the numerical exit status of the command (see "EXIT STATUS").

    -efile[*NUM*][!] *TXTFILE*
         Save the names of files giving errors (*NUM* missing or 1), files
         that were unchanged (*NUM* is 2), files that fail the -if condition
         (*NUM* is 4), files that were updated (*NUM* is 8), files that were
         created (*NUM* is 16), or any combination thereof by summing *NUM*
         (eg. -efile3 is the same has having both -efile and -efile2 options
         with the same *TXTFILE*). By default, file names are appended to
         any existing *TXTFILE*, but *TXTFILE* is overwritten if an
         exclamation point is added to the option (eg. -efile!). Saves the
         name of the file specified by the -srcfile option if applicable.

    -execute[*NUM*]
         Execute command for all arguments up to this point on the command
         line (plus any arguments specified by -common_args). The result is
         as if the commands were executed as separate command lines (with
         the exception of the -config and -use options which remain in
         effect for subsequent commands). Allows multiple commands to be
         executed from a single command line. *NUM* is an optional number
         that is echoed in the "{ready}" message when using the -stay_open
         feature. If a *NUM* is specified, the -q option no longer
         suppresses the output "{readyNUM}" message.

    -file*NUM* *ALTFILE*
         Read tags from an alternate source file. Among other things, this
         allows tags from different files to be compared and combined using
         the -if and -p options. *NUM* is any string of digits. Tags from
         alternate files are accessed via the corresponding family 8 group
         name (eg. "File1:TAG" for the -file1 option, "File2:TAG" for
         -file2, etc). *ALTFILE* may contain filename formatting codes like
         the -w option (%d, %f, etc), and/or tag names with a leading "$"
         symbol to access tags from the source file in the same way as the
         -p option (so any other dollar symbol in the file name must be
         doubled, eg. "money$$.jpg"). For example, assuming that the
         OriginalFileName tag has been set in the edited file, a command to
         copy Rights from the original file could look like this:

             exiftool -file1 '$originalfilename' '-rights<file1:rights' edited.jpg

         Subtle note: If a -tagsFromFile option is used, tags in the
         *ALTFILE* argument come from the *SRCFILE* that applies to the
         first argument accessing tags from the corresponding "FileNUM"
         group.

         *ALTFILE* may also be "@" to access tags from the specified *FILE*,
         which may be useful when the -srcfile option is used to process a
         different source file.

         User-defined Composite tags may access tags from alternate files
         using the appropriate (case-sensitive) family 8 group name.

         The -fast option, if used, also applies to processing of the
         alternate files.

    -list_dir
         List directories themselves instead of their contents. This option
         effectively causes directories to be treated as normal files when
         reading and writing. For example, with this option the output of
         the "ls -la" command on Mac/Linux may be approximated by this
         exiftool command:

             exiftool -list_dir -T -ls-l -api systemtags -fast5 .* *

         (The -T option formats the output in tab-separated columns, -ls-l
         is a shortcut tag, the API SystemTags option is required to extract
         some necessary tags, and the -fast5 option is added for speed since
         only system tags are being extracted.)

    -srcfile *FMT*
         Specify a different source file to be processed based on the name
         of the original *FILE*. This may be useful in some special
         situations for processing related preview images or sidecar files.
         See the -w option for a description of the *FMT* syntax. Note that
         file name *FMT* strings for all options are based on the original
         *FILE* specified from the command line, not the name of the source
         file specified by -srcfile.

         For example, to copy metadata from NEF files to the corresponding
         JPG previews in a directory where other JPG images may exist:

             exiftool -ext nef -tagsfromfile @ -srcfile %d%f.jpg dir

         If more than one -srcfile option is specified, the files are tested
         in order and the first existing source file is processed. If none
         of the source files already exist, then exiftool uses the first
         -srcfile specified.

         A *FMT* of "@" may be used to represent the original *FILE*, which
         may be useful when specifying multiple -srcfile options (eg. to
         fall back to processing the original *FILE* if no sidecar exists).

         When this option is used, two special UserParam tags
         (OriginalFileName and OriginalDirectory) are generated to allow
         access to the original *FILE* name and directory.

    -stay_open *FLAG*
         If *FLAG* is 1 or "True" (case insensitive), causes exiftool keep
         reading from the -@ *ARGFILE* even after reaching the end of file.
         This feature allows calling applications to pre-load exiftool, thus
         avoiding the overhead of loading exiftool for each command. The
         procedure is as follows:

         1) Execute "exiftool -stay_open True -@ *ARGFILE*", where *ARGFILE*
         is the name of an existing (possibly empty) argument file or "-" to
         pipe arguments from the standard input.

         2) Write exiftool command-line arguments to *ARGFILE*, one argument
         per line (see the -@ option for details).

         3) Write "-execute\n" to *ARGFILE*, where "\n" represents a newline
         sequence. (Note: You may need to flush your write buffers here if
         using buffered output.) ExifTool will then execute the command with
         the arguments received up to this point, send a "{ready}" message
         to stdout when done (unless the -q or -T option is used), and
         continue trying to read arguments for the next command from
         *ARGFILE*. To aid in command/response synchronization, any number
         appended to the -execute option is echoed in the "{ready}" message.
         For example, "-execute613" results in "{ready613}". When this
         number is added, -q no longer suppresses the "{ready}" message.
         (Also, see the -echo3 and -echo4 options for additional ways to
         pass signals back to your application.)

         4) Repeat steps 2 and 3 for each command.

         5) Write "-stay_open\nFalse\n" (or "-stay_open\n0\n") to *ARGFILE*
         when done. This will cause exiftool to process any remaining
         command-line arguments then exit normally.

         The input *ARGFILE* may be changed at any time before step 5 above
         by writing the following lines to the currently open *ARGFILE*:

             -stay_open
             True
             -@
             NEWARGFILE

         This causes *ARGFILE* to be closed, and *NEWARGFILE* to be kept
         open. (Without the -stay_open here, exiftool would have returned to
         reading arguments from *ARGFILE* after reaching the end of
         *NEWARGFILE*.)

         Note: When writing arguments to a disk file there is a delay of up
         to 0.01 seconds after writing "-execute\n" before exiftool starts
         processing the command. This delay may be avoided by sending a CONT
         signal to the exiftool process immediately after writing
         "-execute\n". (There is no associated delay when writing arguments
         via a pipe with "-@ -", so the signal is not necessary when using
         this technique.)

    -userParam *PARAM[[^]=[VAL]]*
         Set user parameter. *PARAM* is an arbitrary user parameter name.
         This is an interface to the API UserParam option (see the
         Image::ExifTool Options documentation), and provides a method to
         access user-defined parameters in arguments to the -if, -p and
         -fileNUM options as if they were any other tag. Appending a hash
         tag ("#") to *PARAM* (eg. "-userParam MyTag#=yes") also causes the
         parameter to be extracted as a normal tag in the UserParam group.
         Similar to the -api option, the parameter value is set to 1 if
         *=VAL* is omitted, undef if just *VAL* is omitted with "=", or an
         empty string if *VAL* is omitted with "^=".

             exiftool -p "$test from $filename" -userparam test=Hello FILE

   Advanced formatting feature
    An advanced formatting feature allows modification of the value of any
    tag interpolated within a -if, -p or -fileNUM argument, or a
    -tagsFromFile redirection string. Tag names within these strings are
    prefixed by a "$" symbol, and an arbitrary Perl expression may be
    applied to the tag value by placing braces around the tag name and
    inserting the expression after the name, separated by a semicolon (ie.
    "${TAG;EXPR}"). The expression acts on the value of the tag through the
    default input variable ($_), and has access to the full ExifTool API
    through the current ExifTool object ($self) and the tag key ($tag). It
    may contain any valid Perl code, including translation ("tr///") and
    substitution ("s///") operations, but note that braces within the
    expression must be balanced. If the expression does not modify $_ the
    original tag value is returned. The example below prints the camera Make
    with spaces translated to underlines, and multiple consecutive
    underlines replaced by a single underline:

        exiftool -p "${make;tr/ /_/;s/__+/_/g}" image.jpg

    An "@" may be added after the tag name to make the expression act on
    individual list items for list-type tags, simplifying list processing.
    Set $_ to undef to remove an item from the list. As an example, the
    following command returns all subjects not containing the string "xxx":

        exiftool -p "${subject@;$_=undef if /xxx/}" image.jpg

    A default expression of "tr(/\\?*:|"<>\0)()d" is assumed if the
    expression is empty (ie. "${TAG;}"). This removes the characters / \ ? *
    : | < > and null from the printed value. (These characters are illegal
    in Windows file names, so this feature is useful if tag values are used
    in file names.)

    Note that the expression is not evaluated for undefined (non-existant)
    tags, which may have other values if either the -m or -f command-line
    option or the API MissingTagValue option is used.

   Helper functions
    Note that function names are case sensitive.

    "DateFmt"

    Simplifies reformatting of individual date/time values. This function
    acts on a standard EXIF-formatted date/time value in $_ and formats it
    according to the specified format string (see the -d option). To avoid
    trying to reformat an already-formatted date/time value, a "#" must be
    added to the tag name (as in the example below) if the -d option is also
    used. For example:

        exiftool -p "${createdate#;DateFmt('%Y-%m-%d_%H%M%S')}" a.jpg

    "ShiftTime"

    Shifts EXIF-formatted date/time string by a specified amount. Start with
    a leading minus sign to shift backwards in time. See
    Image::ExifTool::Shift.pl for details about shift syntax. For example,
    to shift a date/time value back by one year:

        exiftool -p "${createdate;ShiftTime('-1:0:0 0')}" a.jpg

    "NoDups"

    Removes duplicate items from a list with a separator specified by the
    -sep option. This function is most useful when copying list-type tags.
    For example, the following command may be used to remove duplicate
    Keywords:

        exiftool -sep "##" "-keywords<${keywords;NoDups}" a.jpg

    The -sep option is necessary to split the string back into individual
    list items when writing to a list-type tag.

    An optional flag argument may be set to 1 to cause "NoDups" to set $_ to
    undef if no duplicates existed, thus preventing the file from being
    rewritten unnecessarily:

        exiftool -sep "##" "-keywords<${keywords;NoDups(1)}" a.jpg

    ExifTool 12.64 adds an API NoDups option which makes the NoDups helper
    function largely redundant, with all the functionality except the
    ability to avoid rewriting the file if there are no duplicates, but with
    the advantage the duplicates may be removed when accumulating list items
    from multiple sources. An equivalent to the above commands using this
    feature would be:

        exiftool -tagsfromfile @ -keywords -api nodups a.jpg

    "SetTags"

    Used to set tags in extracted images. With no arguments, copies all tags
    from the source file to the embedded image:

        exiftool -p '${previewimage;SetTags}' -b a.arw > preview.jpg

    Arguments may be added to copy or set specific tags. Arguments take
    exactly the same form as those on the command line when copying or
    writing tags, but without the leading dash. For example:

        exiftool -p '${previewimage;SetTags("comment=test","title<filename")}' ...

WINDOWS UNICODE FILE NAMES
    In Windows, command-line arguments are specified using the current code
    page and are recoded automatically to the system code page. This
    recoding is not done for arguments in ExifTool arg files, so by default
    filenames in arg files use the system code page. Unfortunately, these
    code pages are not complete character sets, so not all file names may be
    represented.

    ExifTool 9.79 and later allow the file name encoding to be specified
    with "-charset filename=CHARSET", where "CHARSET" is the name of a valid
    ExifTool character set, preferably "UTF8" (see the -charset option for a
    complete list). Setting this triggers the use of Windows wide-character
    i/o routines, thus providing support for most Unicode file names (see
    note 4). But note that it is not trivial to pass properly encoded file
    names on the Windows command line (see
    <https://exiftool.org/faq.html#Q18> for details), so placing them in a
    UTF-8 encoded -@ argfile and using "-charset filename=utf8" is
    recommended if possible.

    A warning is issued if a specified filename contains special characters
    and the filename character set was not provided. However, the warning
    may be disabled by setting "-charset filename=""", and ExifTool may
    still function correctly if the system code page matches the character
    set used for the file names.

    When a directory name is provided, the file name encoding need not be
    specified (unless the directory name contains special characters), and
    ExifTool will automatically use wide-character routines to scan the
    directory.

    The filename character set applies to the *FILE* arguments as well as
    filename arguments of -@, -geotag, -o, -p, -srcfile, -tagsFromFile,
    -csv=, -j= and -*TAG*<=. However, it does not apply to the -config
    filename, which always uses the system character set. The "-charset
    filename=" option must come before the -@ option to be effective, but
    the order doesn't matter with respect to other options.

    Notes:

    1) FileName and Directory tag values still use the same encoding as
    other tag values, and are converted to/from the filename character set
    when writing/reading if specified.

    2) Unicode support is not yet implemented for other Windows-based
    systems like Cygwin.

    3) See "WRITING READ-ONLY FILES" below for a note about editing
    read-only files with Unicode names.

    4) Unicode file names with surrogate pairs (code points over U+FFFF)
    still cause problems.

WRITING READ-ONLY FILES
    In general, ExifTool may be used to write metadata to read-only files
    provided that the user has write permission in the directory. However,
    there are three cases where file write permission is also required:

    1) When using the -overwrite_original_in_place option.

    2) When writing only pseudo System tags (eg. FileModifyDate).

    3) On Windows if the file has Unicode characters in its name, and a) the
    -overwrite_original option is used, or b) the "_original" backup already
    exists.

    Hidden files in Windows behave as read-only files when attempting to
    write any real tags to the file -- an error is generated when using the
    -overwrite_original_in_place, otherwise writing should be successful and
    the hidden attribute will be removed. But the -if option may be used to
    avoid processing hidden files (provided Win32API::File is available):

        exiftool -if "$fileattributes !~ /Hidden/" ...

READING EXAMPLES
    The commands below are appropriate for the Windows cmd shell, which is
    recommended.  If running in PowerShell, single quotes would be needed
    instead of double quotes around arguments containing a dollar sign.

    exiftool -a -u -g1 a.jpg
         Print all meta information in an image, including duplicate and
         unknown tags, sorted by group (for family 1). For performance
         reasons, this command may not extract all available metadata.
         (Metadata in embedded documents, metadata extracted by external
         utilities, and metadata requiring excessive processing time may not
         be extracted). Add "-ee3" and "-api RequestAll=3" to the command to
         extract absolutely everything available.

    exiftool -common dir
         Print common meta information for all images in "dir". "-common" is
         a shortcut tag representing common EXIF meta information.

    exiftool -T -createdate -aperture -shutterspeed -iso dir > out.txt
         List specified meta information in tab-delimited column form for
         all images in "dir" to an output text file named "out.txt".

    exiftool -s -ImageSize -ExposureTime b.jpg
         Print ImageSize and ExposureTime tag names and values.

    exiftool -l -canon c.jpg d.jpg
         Print standard Canon information from two image files.

    exiftool -r -w .txt -common pictures
         Recursively extract common meta information from files in
         "pictures" directory, writing text output to ".txt" files with the
         same names.

    exiftool -b -ThumbnailImage image.jpg > thumbnail.jpg
         Save thumbnail image from "image.jpg" to a file called
         "thumbnail.jpg".

    exiftool -b -JpgFromRaw -w _JFR.JPG -ext NEF -r .
         Recursively extract JPG image from all Nikon NEF files in the
         current directory, adding "_JFR.JPG" for the name of the output JPG
         files.

    exiftool -a -b -W %d%f_%t%-c.%s -preview:all dir
         Extract all types of preview images (ThumbnailImage, PreviewImage,
         JpgFromRaw, etc.) from files in directory "dir", adding the tag
         name to the output preview image file names.

    exiftool -d "%r %a, %B %e, %Y" -DateTimeOriginal -S -s -ext jpg .
         Print formatted date/time for all JPG files in the current
         directory.

    exiftool -IFD1:XResolution -IFD1:YResolution image.jpg
         Extract image resolution from EXIF IFD1 information (thumbnail
         image IFD).

    exiftool "-*resolution*" image.jpg
         Extract all tags with names containing the word "Resolution" from
         an image.

    exiftool -xmp:author:all -a image.jpg
         Extract all author-related XMP information from an image.

    exiftool -xmp -b a.jpg > out.xmp
         Extract complete XMP data record intact from "a.jpg" and write it
         to "out.xmp" using the special "XMP" tag (see the Extra tags in
         Image::ExifTool::TagNames).

    exiftool -p "$filename has date $dateTimeOriginal" -q -f dir
         Print one line of output containing the file name and
         DateTimeOriginal for each image in directory "dir".

    exiftool -ee3 -p "$gpslatitude, $gpslongitude, $gpstimestamp" a.m2ts
         Extract all GPS positions from an AVCHD video.

    exiftool -icc_profile -b -w icc image.jpg
         Save complete ICC_Profile from an image to an output file with the
         same name and an extension of ".icc".

    exiftool -htmldump -w tmp/%f_%e.html t/images
         Generate HTML pages from a hex dump of EXIF information in all
         images from the "t/images" directory. The output HTML files are
         written to the "tmp" directory (which is created if it didn't
         exist), with names of the form "FILENAME_EXT.html".

    exiftool -a -b -ee -embeddedimage -W Image_%.3g3.%s file.pdf
         Extract embedded JPG and JP2 images from a PDF file. The output
         images will have file names like "Image_#.jpg" or "Image_#.jp2",
         where "#" is the ExifTool family 3 embedded document number for the
         image.

WRITING EXAMPLES
    Note that quotes are necessary around arguments which contain certain
    special characters such as ">", "<" or any white space. These quoting
    techniques are shell dependent, but the examples below will work in
    the Windows CMD shell.

    exiftool -Comment="This is a new comment" dst.jpg
         Write new comment to a JPG image (replaces any existing comment).

    exiftool -comment= -o newdir -ext jpg .
         Remove comment from all JPG images in the current directory,
         writing the modified images to a new directory.

    exiftool -keywords=EXIF -keywords=editor dst.jpg
         Replace existing keyword list with two new keywords ("EXIF" and
         "editor").

    exiftool -Keywords+=word -o newfile.jpg src.jpg
         Copy a source image to a new file, and add a keyword ("word") to
         the current list of keywords.

    exiftool -exposurecompensation+=-0.5 a.jpg
         Decrement the value of ExposureCompensation by 0.5 EV. Note that +=
         with a negative value is used for decrementing because the -=
         operator is used for conditional deletion (see next example).

    exiftool -credit-=xxx dir
         Delete Credit information from all files in a directory where the
         Credit value was "xxx".

    exiftool -xmp:description-de="k&uuml;hl" -E dst.jpg
         Write alternate language for XMP:Description, using HTML character
         escaping to input special characters.

    exiftool -all= dst.jpg
         Delete all meta information from an image. Note: You should NOT do
         this to RAW images (except DNG) since proprietary RAW image formats
         often contain information in the makernotes that is necessary for
         converting the image.

    exiftool -all= -comment="lonely" dst.jpg
         Delete all meta information from an image and add a comment back
         in. (Note that the order is important: -comment="lonely" -all=
         would also delete the new comment.)

    exiftool -all= --jfif:all dst.jpg
         Delete all meta information except JFIF group from an image.

    exiftool -Photoshop:All= dst.jpg
         Delete Photoshop meta information from an image (note that the
         Photoshop information also includes IPTC).

    exiftool -r -XMP-crss:all= DIR
         Recursively delete all XMP-crss information from images in a
         directory.

    exiftool "-ThumbnailImage<=thumb.jpg" dst.jpg
         Set the thumbnail image from specified file (Note: The quotes are
         necessary to prevent shell redirection).

    exiftool "-JpgFromRaw<=%d%f_JFR.JPG" -ext NEF -r .
         Recursively write JPEG images with filenames ending in "_JFR.JPG"
         to the JpgFromRaw tag of like-named files with extension ".NEF" in
         the current directory. (This is the inverse of the "-JpgFromRaw"
         command of the "READING EXAMPLES" section above.)

    exiftool -DateTimeOriginal-="0:0:0 1:30:0" dir
         Adjust original date/time of all images in directory "dir" by
         subtracting one hour and 30 minutes. (This is equivalent to
         "-DateTimeOriginal-=1.5". See Image::ExifTool::Shift.pl for
         details.)

    exiftool -createdate+=3 -modifydate+=3 a.jpg b.jpg
         Add 3 hours to the CreateDate and ModifyDate timestamps of two
         images.

    exiftool -AllDates+=1:30 -if "$make eq 'Canon'" dir
         Shift the values of DateTimeOriginal, CreateDate and ModifyDate
         forward by 1 hour and 30 minutes for all Canon images in a
         directory. (The AllDates tag is provided as a shortcut for these
         three tags, allowing them to be accessed via a single tag.)

    exiftool -xmp:city=Kingston image1.jpg image2.nef
         Write a tag to the XMP group of two images. (Without the "xmp:"
         this tag would get written to the IPTC group since "City" exists in
         both, and IPTC is preferred by default.)

    exiftool -LightSource-="Unknown (0)" dst.tiff
         Delete "LightSource" tag only if it is unknown with a value of 0.

    exiftool -whitebalance-=auto -WhiteBalance=tung dst.jpg
         Set "WhiteBalance" to "Tungsten" only if it was previously "Auto".

    exiftool -comment-= -comment="new comment" a.jpg
         Write a new comment only if the image doesn't have one already.

    exiftool -o %d%f.xmp dir
         Create XMP meta information data files for all images in "dir".

    exiftool -o test.xmp -owner=Phil -title="XMP File"
         Create an XMP data file only from tags defined on the command line.

    exiftool "-ICC_Profile<=%d%f.icc" image.jpg
         Write ICC_Profile to an image from a ".icc" file of the same name.

    exiftool -hierarchicalkeywords="{keyword=one,children={keyword=B}}"
         Write structured XMP information. See
         <https://exiftool.org/struct.html> for more details.

    exiftool -trailer:all= image.jpg
         Delete any trailer found after the end of image (EOI) in a JPEG
         file. A number of digital cameras store a large PreviewImage after
         the JPEG EOI, and the file size may be reduced significantly by
         deleting this trailer. See the JPEG Tags documentation for a list
         of recognized JPEG trailers.

COPYING EXAMPLES
    These examples demonstrate the ability to copy tag values between files.

    exiftool -tagsFromFile src.cr2 dst.jpg
         Copy the values of all writable tags from "src.cr2" to "dst.jpg",
         writing the information to same-named tags in the preferred groups.

    exiftool -TagsFromFile src.jpg -all:all dst.jpg
         Copy the values of all writable tags from "src.jpg" to "dst.jpg",
         preserving the original tag groups.

    exiftool -all= -tagsfromfile src.jpg -exif:all dst.jpg
         Erase all meta information from "dst.jpg" image, then copy EXIF
         tags from "src.jpg".

    exiftool -exif:all= -tagsfromfile @ -all:all -unsafe bad.jpg
         Rebuild all EXIF meta information from scratch in an image. This
         technique can be used in JPEG images to repair corrupted EXIF
         information which otherwise could not be written due to errors. The
         "Unsafe" tag is a shortcut for unsafe EXIF tags in JPEG images
         which are not normally copied. See the tag name documentation for
         more details about unsafe tags.

    exiftool -Tagsfromfile a.jpg out.xmp
         Copy meta information from "a.jpg" to an XMP data file. If the XMP
         data file "out.xmp" already exists, it will be updated with the new
         information. Otherwise the XMP data file will be created. Only
         metadata-only files may be created like this (files containing
         images may be edited but not created). See "WRITING EXAMPLES" above
         for another technique to generate XMP files.

    exiftool -tagsFromFile a.jpg -XMP:All= -ThumbnailImage= -m b.jpg
         Copy all meta information from "a.jpg" to "b.jpg", deleting all XMP
         information and the thumbnail image from the destination.

    exiftool -TagsFromFile src.jpg -title -author=Phil dst.jpg
         Copy title from one image to another and set a new author name.

    exiftool -TagsFromFile a.jpg -ISO -TagsFromFile b.jpg -comment dst.jpg
         Copy ISO from one image and Comment from another image to a
         destination image.

    exiftool -tagsfromfile src.jpg -exif:all --subifd:all dst.jpg
         Copy only the EXIF information from one image to another, excluding
         SubIFD tags.

    exiftool "-FileModifyDate<DateTimeOriginal" dir
         Use the original date from the meta information to set the same
         file's filesystem modification date for all images in a directory.
         (Note that "-TagsFromFile @" is assumed if no other -TagsFromFile
         is specified when redirecting information as in this example.)

    exiftool -TagsFromFile src.jpg "-xmp:all<all" dst.jpg
         Copy all possible information from "src.jpg" and write in XMP
         format to "dst.jpg".

    exiftool "-Description<${FileName;s/\.[^.]*$//}" dir
         Set the image Description from the file name after removing the
         extension. This example uses the "Advanced formatting feature" to
         perform a substitution operation to remove the last dot and
         subsequent characters from the file name.

    exiftool -@ iptc2xmp.args -iptc:all= a.jpg
         Translate IPTC information to XMP with appropriate tag name
         conversions, and delete the original IPTC information from an
         image. This example uses iptc2xmp.args, which is a file included
         with the ExifTool distribution that contains the required arguments
         to convert IPTC information to XMP format. Also included with the
         distribution are xmp2iptc.args (which performs the inverse
         conversion) and a few more .args files for other conversions
         between EXIF, IPTC and XMP.

    exiftool -tagsfromfile %d%f.CR2 -r -ext JPG dir
         Recursively rewrite all "JPG" images in "dir" with information
         copied from the corresponding "CR2" images in the same directories.

    exiftool "-keywords+<make" image.jpg
         Add camera make to list of keywords.

    exiftool "-comment<ISO=$exif:iso Exposure=${shutterspeed}" dir
         Set the Comment tag of all images in "dir" from the values of the
         EXIF:ISO and ShutterSpeed tags. The resulting comment will be in
         the form "ISO=100 Exposure=1/60".

    exiftool -TagsFromFile src.jpg -icc_profile dst.jpg
         Copy ICC_Profile from one image to another.

    exiftool -TagsFromFile src.jpg -all:all dst.mie
         Copy all meta information in its original form from a JPEG image to
         a MIE file. The MIE file will be created if it doesn't exist. This
         technique can be used to store the metadata of an image so it can
         be inserted back into the image (with the inverse command) later in
         a workflow.

    exiftool -o dst.mie -all:all src.jpg
         This command performs exactly the same task as the command above,
         except that the -o option will not write to an output file that
         already exists.

    exiftool -b -jpgfromraw -w %d%f_%ue.jpg -execute -b -previewimage -w
    %d%f_%ue.jpg -execute -tagsfromfile @ -srcfile %d%f_%ue.jpg
    -overwrite_original -common_args --ext jpg DIR
         [Advanced] Extract JpgFromRaw or PreviewImage from all but JPG
         files in DIR, saving them with file names like "image_EXT.jpg",
         then add all meta information from the original files to the
         extracted images. Here, the command line is broken into three
         sections (separated by -execute options), and each is executed as
         if it were a separate command. The -common_args option causes the
         "--ext jpg DIR" arguments to be applied to all three commands, and
         the -srcfile option allows the extracted JPG image to be the source
         file for the third command (whereas the RAW files are the source
         files for the other two commands).

RENAMING EXAMPLES
    By writing the "FileName" and "Directory" tags, files are renamed and/or
    moved to new directories. This can be particularly useful and powerful
    for organizing files by date when combined with the -d option. New
    directories are created as necessary, but existing files will not be
    overwritten. The format codes %d, %f and %e may be used in the new file
    name to represent the directory, name and extension of the original
    file, and %c may be used to add a copy number if the file already exists
    (see the -w option for details). Note that if used within a date format
    string, an extra '%' must be added to pass these codes through the
    date/time parser. (And further note that in a Windows batch file, all
    '%' characters must also be escaped, so in this extreme case "%%%%f" is
    necessary to pass a simple "%f" through the two levels of parsing.) See
    <https://exiftool.org/filename.html> for additional documentation and
    examples.

    exiftool -filename=new.jpg dir/old.jpg
         Rename "old.jpg" to "new.jpg" in directory "dir".

    exiftool -directory=%e dir
         Move all files from directory "dir" into directories named by the
         original file extensions.

    exiftool "-Directory<DateTimeOriginal" -d %Y/%m/%d dir
         Move all files in "dir" into a directory hierarchy based on year,
         month and day of "DateTimeOriginal". eg) This command would move
         the file "dir/image.jpg" with a "DateTimeOriginal" of "2005:10:12
         16:05:56" to "2005/10/12/image.jpg".

    exiftool -o . "-Directory<DateTimeOriginal" -d %Y/%m/%d dir
         Same effect as above except files are copied instead of moved.

    exiftool "-filename<%f_${model;}.%e" dir
         Rename all files in "dir" by adding the camera model name to the
         file name. The semicolon after the tag name inside the braces
         causes characters which are invalid in Windows file names to be
         deleted from the tag value (see the "Advanced formatting feature"
         for an explanation).

    exiftool "-FileName<CreateDate" -d %Y%m%d_%H%M%S%%-c.%%e dir
         Rename all images in "dir" according to the "CreateDate" date and
         time, adding a copy number with leading '-' if the file already
         exists ("%-c"), and preserving the original file extension (%e).
         Note the extra '%' necessary to escape the filename codes (%c and
         %e) in the date format string.

    exiftool -r "-FileName<CreateDate" -d %Y-%m-%d/%H%M_%%f.%%e dir
         Both the directory and the filename may be changed together via the
         "FileName" tag if the new "FileName" contains a '/'. The example
         above recursively renames all images in a directory by adding a
         "CreateDate" timestamp to the start of the filename, then moves
         them into new directories named by date.

    exiftool "-FileName<${CreateDate}_$filenumber.jpg" -d %Y%m%d -ext jpg .
         Set the filename of all JPG images in the current directory from
         the CreateDate and FileNumber tags, in the form
         "20060507_118-1861.jpg".

GEOTAGGING EXAMPLES
    ExifTool implements geotagging from GPS log files via 3 special tags:
    Geotag (which for convenience is also implemented as an exiftool
    option), Geosync and Geotime. The examples below highlight some
    geotagging features. See <https://exiftool.org/geotag.html> for
    additional documentation. (Note that geotagging from known GPS
    coordinates is done by writing the GPS tags directly rather than using
    the -geotag option.)

    exiftool -geotag track.log a.jpg
         Geotag an image ("a.jpg") from position information in a GPS track
         log ("track.log"). Since the "Geotime" tag is not specified, the
         value of SubSecDateTimeOriginal (preferentially) or
         DateTimeOriginal is used for geotagging. Local system time is
         assumed unless the time contains a timezone.

    exiftool -geotag track.log -geolocate=geotag a.jpg
         Geotag an image and also write geolocation information of the
         nearest city (city name, state/province and country). Read here for
         more details about the Geolocation feature:
         <https://exiftool.org/geolocation.html#Write>

    exiftool -geotag t.log -geotime="2009:04:02 13:41:12-05:00" a.jpg
         Geotag an image with the GPS position for a specific time.

    exiftool -geotag log.gpx "-xmp:geotime<createdate" dir
         Geotag all images in directory "dir" with XMP tags instead of EXIF
         tags, based on the image CreateDate.

    exiftool -geotag a.log -geosync=-20 dir
         Geotag images in directory "dir", accounting for image timestamps
         which were 20 seconds ahead of GPS.

    exiftool -geotag a.log -geosync=1.jpg -geosync=2.jpg dir
         Geotag images using time synchronization from two previously
         geotagged images (1.jpg and 2.jpg), synchronizing the image and GPS
         times using a linear time drift correction.

    exiftool -geotag a.log "-geotime<${createdate}+01:00" dir
         Geotag images in "dir" using CreateDate with the specified
         timezone. If CreateDate already contained a timezone, then the
         timezone specified on the command line is ignored.

    exiftool -geotag= a.jpg
         Delete GPS tags which may have been added by the geotag feature.
         Note that this does not remove all GPS tags -- to do this instead
         use "-gps:all=".

    exiftool -xmp:geotag= a.jpg
         Delete XMP GPS tags which were added by the geotag feature.

    exiftool -xmp:geotag=track.log a.jpg
         Geotag an image with XMP tags, using the time from
         SubSecDateTimeOriginal or DateTimeOriginal.

    exiftool -geotag a.log -geotag b.log -r dir
         Combine multiple track logs and geotag an entire directory tree of
         images.

    exiftool -geotag "tracks/*.log" -r dir
         Read all track logs from the "tracks" directory.

    exiftool -p gpx.fmt dir > out.gpx
         Generate a GPX track log from all images in directory "dir". This
         example uses the "gpx.fmt" file included in the full ExifTool
         distribution package and assumes that the images in "dir" have all
         been previously geotagged.

PIPING EXAMPLES
    type a.jpg | exiftool -
         Extract information from stdin.

    exiftool image.jpg -thumbnailimage -b | exiftool -
         Extract information from an embedded thumbnail image.

    type a.jpg | exiftool -iptc:keywords+=fantastic - > b.jpg
         Add an IPTC keyword in a pipeline, saving output to a new file.

    curl -s http://a.domain.com/bigfile.jpg | exiftool -fast -
         Extract information from an image over the internet using the cURL
         utility. The -fast option prevents exiftool from scanning for
         trailer information, so only the meta information header is
         transferred.

    exiftool a.jpg -thumbnailimage -b | exiftool -comment=wow - | exiftool
    a.jpg "-thumbnailimage<=-"
         Add a comment to an embedded thumbnail image. (Why anyone would
         want to do this I don't know, but I've included this as an example
         to illustrate the flexibility of ExifTool.)

INTERRUPTING EXIFTOOL
    Interrupting exiftool with a CTRL-C or SIGINT will not result in
    partially written files or temporary files remaining on the hard disk.
    The exiftool application traps SIGINT and defers it until the end of
    critical processes if necessary, then does a proper cleanup before
    exiting.

EXIT STATUS
    The exiftool application exits with a status of 0 on success, or 1 if an
    error occurred, or 2 if all files failed the -if condition (for any of
    the commands if -execute was used).

AUTHOR
    Copyright 2003-2025, Phil Harvey

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

SEE ALSO
    Image::ExifTool(3pm), Image::ExifTool::TagNames(3pm),
    Image::ExifTool::Shortcuts(3pm), Image::ExifTool::Shift.pl