How to Copy Exif Meta Data From One File to Another Using Exiftool

Exiftool is a powerful command-line tool for manipulating and extracting metadata from a wide range of file types, including images and videos. In this guide, we will learn how to copy Exif metadata from one file to another using Exiftool.

Prerequisites

Before you begin, make sure you have Exiftool installed on your system. You can download it from the Exiftool website.

Copying Exif Metadata from a Single File to Another

To copy Exif metadata from one file to another, you can use the following command:

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exiftool -tagsfromfile source_file target_file

Replace source_file with the name of the file from which you want to copy the metadata and target_file with the name of the file to which you want to copy the metadata. Here’s an example:

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exiftool -tagsfromfile original.mov -FileModifyDate rendered.mov

This command will copy the metadata from original.mov and apply it to rendered.mov. You can customize this command to copy specific tags or all available tags depending on your needs.

Copying Exif Metadata from Multiple Files with the Same Name

If you have multiple files with the same name but in different directories and you want to copy Exif metadata from each source file to its corresponding target file, you can use a wildcard in the target file path. Here’s the command:

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exiftool -tagsfromfile original/%f.%e -FileModifyDate rendered/

In this command:

• %f represents the filename without extension.
• %e represents the file extension.

Exiftool will copy the metadata from each file in the original directory to a corresponding file in the rendered directory with the same name.

Conclusion

Exiftool is a versatile tool for working with metadata in various file formats. With these commands, you can easily copy Exif metadata from one file to another or from multiple files with the same name. This can be particularly useful for maintaining metadata consistency when editing or rendering files.