ExifTool Command Line - Edit EXIF image metadata on Linux

How to edit EXIF metadata via the command line with ExifTool

Last updated on March 30, 2023

In a previous post, I tried to find a metadata editor with a graphical user interface on Linux. The best solution, DigiKam, is designed for KDE. The second best option, XnView, is perfectible and not free software.

As a Linux Mint (Cinnamon) user, I ended up thinking that it would be better to use a command line tool for my simple metadata editing needs. Of the two available command line tools, Exiv2 and ExifTool. I chose ExifTool, which can be installed through the Software Center / Synaptic / Package manager or via the command line:

sudo apt-get install libimage-exiftool-perl

1. Display metadata information

Nothing easier: ExifTool can display image metadata information of a single file:

exiftool "file name.extension"

To display metadata info of all files in a directory, use a dot ‘.‘ as in the following example (the output can be quite long):

exiftool .

ExifTool allows you to change all Metadata information on pictures, including Copyright, Creative Commons, etc.

ExifTool displaying image metadata

Metadata information can also be exported to an html document:

exiftool -h . > example.html

2. Add copyright information to image metadata on Linux

Copyright Notice and XMP Rights

After trying out a lot of metadata tags and testing the results, I recommend using both the -rights and -CopyrightNotice with identical content for copyright information.

More details: the -rights option seems to be a shorthand for -XMP-dc:Rights, and definitely a better solution than using the -copyright option, which doesn’t seem to produce readable results by gThumb and Gnome Image Viewer. The -CopyrightNotice option also works reliably and populates the ITPC CopyrightNotice field. The options -EXIF:Copyright and -copyright produce disappointing results in terms of compatibility with standard image managers on Linux.

Here is how to add standard copyright information to a file:

exiftool -rights="Copyright" -CopyrightNotice="Copyright" "file name.extension"

Batch metadata editing: Replace the file name with a directory name to modify all files in a directory. Use a dot ‘.‘ for the current directory.

A few more tips:

  • Remember that extensions and filenames are case sensitive on Linux. Especially when using wildcards, *.jpg is not the same as *.JPG.
  • ExifTool creates a copy of the original file, appending _original to the file name, as a backup. To avoid that and modify files directly, use the -overwrite_original option.

Here is a full example with a standard American copyright notice and no backup file:

exiftool -overwrite_original -rights="©2023 John Doe, all rights reserved" -CopyrightNotice="©2023 John Doe, all rights reserved" "file name.extension"

Changing copyright metadata information on Linux

Add Creator / Author to image metadata

Here we want to add or change creator/author information of the XMP Dublin Core standard schema:

exiftool -XMP-dc:Creator="Creator" "file name.extension"

Change the Author / Creator of an image in the Metadata / Exif information on Linux

Copyright Notice an Creator metadata changes in one single command

exiftool -overwrite_original -rights="©2023 John Doe, all rights reserved" -CopyrightNotice="©2023 John Doe, all rights reserved" -XMP-dc:Creator="Creator" "file name.extension"

3. Edit Creative Commons rights information

The Creative Commons official recommendation concerning XMP metadata information is to use identical content for the dc:rights and xmpRights:UsageTerms fields.

exiftool -overwrite_original -XMP-dc:Rights="This work is licensed to the public under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike license http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" -xmp:usageterms="This work is licensed to the public under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike license http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" "file name.extension"

Also according to the Creative Commons recommendation, xmpRights:Marked soud be set to False if Public Domain, True otherwise. Here is an example to set the field to True:

exiftool -overwrite_original -xmp:usageterms=True "file name.extension"

Add a Creative Commons License to image metadata

Using the Creative Commons schema

Here are some examples for modifying the Creative Commons schema:

License URL

exiftool -overwrite_original -XMP-cc:license="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" "file name.extension"

Attribution name

exiftool -overwrite_original -XMP-cc:AttributionName="Creator" "file name.extension"

Attribution URL

exiftool -overwrite_original -XMP-cc:AttributionURL="Creator URL" "file name.extension"

Example combining License URL, attribution name and URL

exiftool -overwrite_original -XMP-cc:license="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" -XMP-cc:AttributionName="Creator" -XMP-cc:AttributionURL="http://creatorURL.com" "file name.extension"

Creative Commons Schema edit

Combining the CC right informations and Creative Commons schema

Here is an example for changing all metadata following the Creative commons recommendations:

exiftool -overwrite_original -XMP-dc:Rights="This work is licensed to the public under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike license http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" -xmp:usageterms="This work is licensed to the public under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike license http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" -XMP-cc:license="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" -XMP-cc:AttributionName="Creator" -XMP-cc:AttributionURL="http://creatorURL.com" "file name.extension"

Final result:

All metadata information follwoing the Creative Commons recommendations

Remove all metadata

Remove all metadata from a file:

exiftool -all= -overwrite_original "file name.extension"

Remove all metadata from the current directory:

exiftool -all= -overwrite_original .

Remove all metadata from all png files in the working directory:

exiftool -all= -overwrite_original -ext png .

By Johannes Eva, May 2016 – March 2023

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Comments

2 thoughts on “How to edit EXIF metadata via the command line with ExifTool”

  1. awesome work! I spent so much time looking for it.
    I think you added a small typo when adding the xmpRights, it should be like this:
    -XMP-xmpRights:Marked=True

    Thanks again!

  2. THANK YOU for this post. i have been wanting to post many CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 INTL images to archive.org and couldn’t find a simple-enough (yet *correct*) how-to. This post enabled me to assemble the full version (i made a bash script) that i needed. Perfect! Many thanks again for taking the time to set this up so clearly/simply and correctly. I even like your use of color and spacing to make finding things quicker for the eye to zoom in to. Well done, indeed.

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