ExifTool is an open source software program which is used for manipulating, updating, reading and writing metadata of media files. If you are not aware of metadata, it is in simple words, information about data. ExifTool is developed by Phil Harvey. The program is platform independent and can be deployed in a plethora of digital workflows. ExifTool is available as Perl library as well as a command line application. ExifTool is extremely flexible and is compatible to a humongous collection of file types.
Here is the list of file types supported by ExifTool.
| File Type | Support | Description | EXIF | IPTC | XMP | ICC1 | Other |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3FR | R | Hasselblad RAW (TIFF-based) | R | R | R | R | – |
| 3G2, 3GP2 | R/W | 3rd Gen. Partnership Project 2 a/v (QuickTime-based) | R/W3 | R/W3 | R/W/C | – | R/W QuickTime4 |
| 3GP, 3GPP | R/W | 3rd Gen. Partnership Project a/v (QuickTime-based) | R/W3 | R/W3 | R/W/C | – | R/W QuickTime4 |
| A | R | Unix static library code Archive | – | – | – | – | R EXE |
| AA | R | Audible Audiobook | – | – | – | – | R Audible |
| AAE | R | Apple edit information (XML PLIST-based) | – | – | – | – | R PLIST |
| AAX | R/W | Audible Enhanced Audiobook (QuickTime-based) | R/W3 | R/W3 | R/W/C | – | R/W QuickTime4 |
| ACR | R | American College of Radiology ACR-NEMA (DICOM-like) | – | – | – | – | R DICOM |
| AFM, ACFM, AMFM | R | Adobe [Composite/Multiple Master] Font Metrics | – | – | – | – | R Font |
| AI, AIT | R/W | Adobe Illustrator [Template] (PS or PDF) | R/W/C5 | R/W/C5 | R/W/C6 | R/W/C5 | R/W/C PDF PostScript, R Photoshop |
| AIFF, AIF, AIFC | R | Audio Interchange File Format [Compressed] | – | – | – | – | R AIFF ID3 |
| APE | R | Monkey’s Audio | – | – | – | – | R APE ID3 |
| ARQ | R/W | Sony Alpha Pixel-Shift RAW (TIFF-based) | R/W/C | R/W/C | R/W/C | R/W/C | R/W Sony SonyIDC |
| ARW | R/W | Sony Alpha RAW (TIFF-based) | R/W/C | R/W/C | R/W/C | R/W/C | R/W Sony SonyIDC |
| ASF | R | Microsoft Advanced Systems Format | – | – | R | – | R ASF |
| AVI | R | Audio Video Interleaved (RIFF-based) | R3 | – | R | – | R RIFF |
| BMP, DIB | R | Windows BitMaP / Device Independent Bitmap | – | – | – | – | R BMP |
| BPG | R | Better Portable Graphics | R | – | R | R | R BPG |
| BTF | R | BigTIFF (64-bit Tagged Image File Format) | R | R | R | R | – |
| CHM | R | Microsoft Compiled HTML format | – | – | – | – | R EXE |
| COS | R | Capture One Settings (XML-based) | – | – | – | – | R XML |
| CR2 | R/W | Canon RAW 2 (TIFF-based) (CR2 spec) | R/W/C | R/W/C | R/W/C | R/W/C | R/W/C CanonVRD2, R/W Canon |
| CR3 | R/W | Canon RAW 3 (QuickTime-based) (CR3 spec) | R | – | R/W/C | – | R/W QuickTime4, R Canon |
| CRM | R/W | Canon RAW Movie (QuickTime-based) | R | – | R/W/C | – | R/W QuickTime4, R Canon |
| CRW, CIFF | R/W | Canon RAW Camera Image File Format (CRW spec) | – | – | R/W/C | – | R/W/C CanonVRD2, R/W CanonRaw |
| CS1 | R/W | Sinar CaptureShop 1-shot RAW (PSD-based) | R/W/C | R/W/C | R/W/C | R/W/C | R Photoshop |
| DCM, DC3, DIC, DICM | R | DICOM – Digital Imaging and Communications in Medicine | – | – | – | – | R DICOM |
| DCP | R/W | DNG Camera Profile (DNG-like) | R/W/C | R/W/C | R/W/C | R/W/C | – |
| DCR | R | Kodak Digital Camera RAW (TIFF-based) | R | R | R | R | – |
| DFONT | R | Macintosh Data Fork Font | – | – | – | – | R Font |
| DIVX | R | DivX media format (ASF-based) | – | – | R | – | R ASF |
| DJVU, DJV | R | DjVu image (AIFF-like) | – | – | R | – | R DJVU |
| DNG | R/W | Digital Negative (TIFF-based) | R/W/C | R/W/C | R/W/C | R/W/C | – |
| DOC, DOT | R | Microsoft Word Document/Template (FPX-like) | – | – | R | R | R FlashPix |
| DOCX, DOCM | R | Office Open XML Document [Macro-enabled] | – | – | – | – | R XML ZIP |
| DOTX, DOTM | R | Office Open XML Document Template [Macro-enabled] | – | – | – | – | R XML ZIP |
| DPX | R | Digital Picture Exchange | – | – | – | – | R DPX |
| DR4 | R/W/C2 | Canon DPP version 4 Recipe | – | – | – | – | R/W/C CanonVRD2 |
| DSS, DS2 | R | Digital Speech Standard [2] | – | – | – | – | R Olympus |
| DYLIB | R | MacOS Mach-O executable and library files | – | – | – | – | R EXE |
| DV | R | Digital Video | – | – | – | – | R DV |
| DVB | R/W | Digital Video Broadcasting (QuickTime-based) | R/W3 | R/W3 | R/W/C | – | R/W QuickTime4 |
| DVR-MS | R | Microsoft Digital Video Recording (ASF-based) | – | – | R | – | R ASF |
| EIP | R | Capture One Enhanced Image Package (ZIP-based) | R | – | – | – | R XML ZIP |
| EPS, EPSF, PS | R/W | [Encapsulated] PostScript Format | R/W/C | R/W/C | R/W/C | R/W/C | R/W/C PostScript, R Photoshop |
| EPUB | R | Electronic Publication (ZIP/XML-based) | – | – | – | – | R XML ZIP |
| ERF | R/W | Epson RAW Format (TIFF-based) | R/W/C | R/W/C | R/W/C | R/W/C | R/W Olympus |
| EXE, DLL | R | DOS/Windows executable and library files | – | – | – | – | R EXE |
| EXIF | R/W/C | Exchangeable Image File Format metadata (TIFF-based) | R/W/C | – | – | – | – |
| EXR | R | Open EXR (Extended Range) | – | – | – | – | R OpenEXR |
| EXV | R/W/C | Exiv2 metadata file (JPEG-based) | R/W/C | R/W/C | R/W/C | R/W/C | Supported JPEG Meta Information |
| F4A, F4B, F4P, F4V | R/W | Adobe Flash Player 9+ Audio/Video (QuickTime-based) | R/W3 | R/W3 | R/W/C | – | R/W QuickTime4 |
| FFF | R/W | Hasselblad Flexible File Format (TIFF-based) | R/W/C | R/W/C | R/W/C | R/W/C | – |
| FFF | R | FLIR Systems thermal image File Format | – | – | – | – | R FLIR |
| FLA | R | Macromedia/Adobe Flash project (FPX-like) | – | – | R | R | R FlashPix |
| FLAC | R | Free Lossless Audio Codec | – | – | – | – | R FLAC ID3 |
| FLIF | R/W | Free Lossless Image Format | R/W/C | – | R/W/C | R/W/C | R FLIF |
| FLV | R | Flash Video | – | – | R | – | R Flash |
| FPF | R | FLIR Public image Format | – | – | – | – | R FLIR |
| FPX | R | FlashPix image | – | – | R | R | R FlashPix |
| GIF | R/W | Compuserve Graphics Interchange Format | – | – | R/W/C | R/W/C | R/W/C GIF |
| GPR | R/W | GoPro RAW (DNG-based) | R/W/C | R/W/C | R/W/C | R/W/C | – |
| GZ, GZIP | R | GNU ZIP compressed archive | – | – | – | – | R ZIP |
| HDP, WDP, JXR | R/W | Windows HD Photo / Media Photo / JPEG XR (TIFF-based) | R/W/C | R/W/C | R/W/C | R/W/C | – |
| HDR | R | Radiance RGBE High Dynamic-Range | – | – | – | – | R Radiance |
| HEIC, HEIF | R | High Efficiency Image Format (QuickTime-based) | R | – | R | – | R QuickTime |
| HTML, HTM, XHTML | R | [Extensible] HyperText Markup Language | – | – | – | – | R HTML |
| ICC, ICM | R/W/C1 | International Color Consortium color profile | – | – | – | R/W/C | – |
| ICS, ICAL | R | iCalendar Schedule | – | – | – | – | R VCalendar |
| IDML | R | Adobe InDesign Markup Language (ZIP/XML-based) | – | – | – | – | R XML ZIP |
| IIQ | R/W | Phase One Intelligent Image Quality RAW (TIFF-based) | R/W/C | R/W/C | R/W/C | R/W/C | R/W PhaseOne |
| IND, INDD, INDT | R/W | Adobe InDesign Document/Template | – | – | R/W/C | – | – |
| INSV | R | Insta 360 Video (QuickTime-based) | – | – | R | – | R QuickTime |
| INX | R | Adobe InDesign Interchange (XML-based) | – | – | R | – | – |
| ISO | R | ISO 9660 disk image | – | – | – | – | R ISO |
| ITC | R | iTunes Cover Flow artwork | – | – | – | – | R ITC |
| J2C, J2K, JPC | R | JPEG 2000 codestream | R3 | R3 | R | R | R Jpeg2000 Photoshop3 |
| JP2, JPF, JPM, JPX | R/W | JPEG 2000 image [Compound/Extended] | R/W/C3 | R/W/C3 | R/W/C | R | R/W/C Jpeg2000, R Photoshop3 |
| JPEG, JPG, JPE | R/W | Joint Photographic Experts Group image | R/W/C | R/W/C | R/W/C | R/W/C | Supported JPEG Meta Information |
| JSON | R | JavaScript Object Notation | – | – | – | – | R JSON |
| K25 | R | Kodak DC25 RAW (TIFF-based) | R | R | R | R | – |
| KDC | R | Kodak Digital Camera RAW (TIFF-based) | R | R | R | R | R Kodak |
| KEY, KTH | R | Apple iWork ’09 Keynote presentation/Theme | – | – | – | – | R XML ZIP |
| LA | R | Lossless Audio (RIFF-based) | R3 | – | R | – | R RIFF |
| LFP, LFR | R | Lytro Light Field Picture | – | – | – | – | R Lytro |
| LNK | R | Microsoft Shell Link (Windows shortcut) | – | – | – | – | R LNK |
| LRV | R/W | Low-Resolution Video (QuickTime-based) | R/W3 | R/W3 | R/W/C | – | R/W QuickTime4 |
| M2TS, MTS, M2T, TS | R | MPEG-2 Transport Stream (used for AVCHD video) | – | – | – | – | R M2TS H264 |
| M4A, M4B, M4P, M4V | R/W | MPEG-4 Audio/Video (QuickTime-based) | R/W3 | R/W3 | R/W/C | – | R/W QuickTime4 |
| MAX | R | 3D Studio MAX (FPX-like) | – | – | R | R | R FlashPix |
| MEF | R/W | Mamiya (RAW) Electronic Format (TIFF-based) | R/W/C | R/W/C | R/W/C | R/W/C | – |
| MIE | R/W/C | Meta Information Encapsulation (MIE specification) | R/W/C | R/W/C | R/W/C | R/W/C | R/W/C MIE |
| MIFF, MIF | R | Magick Image File Format | R | R | R | R | R MIFF Photoshop |
| MKA, MKV, MKS | R | Matroska Audio/Video/Subtitle | – | – | – | – | R Matroska |
| MOBI, AZW, AZW3 | R | Mobipocket electronic book (Palm-based) | – | – | – | – | R Palm MOBI |
| MODD | R | Sony Picture Motion metadata (XML PLIST-based) | – | – | – | – | R PLIST |
| MOI | R | MOD Information file | – | – | – | – | R MOI |
| MOS | R/W | Creo Leaf Mosaic (TIFF-based) | R/W/C | R/W/C | R/W/C | R/W/C | R Leaf |
| MOV, QT | R/W | Apple QuickTime Movie | R/W3 | R/W3 | R/W/C | – | R/W QuickTime4 |
| MP3 | R | MPEG-1 layer 3 audio | – | – | – | – | R MPEG ID3 APE |
| MP4 | R/W | Motion Picture Experts Group version 4 (QuickTime-based) | R/W3 | R/W3 | R/W/C | – | R/W QuickTime4 |
| MPC | R | Musepack Audio | – | – | – | – | R MPC ID3 APE |
| MPEG, MPG, M2V | R | Motion Picture Experts Group version 1 or 2 | – | – | – | – | R MPEG ID3 |
| MPO | R/W | Extended Multi-Picture format (JPEG with MPF extensions) | R/W/C | R/W/C | R/W/C | R/W/C | Supported JPEG Meta Information |
| MQV | R/W | Sony Mobile QuickTime Video | R/W3 | R/W3 | R/W/C | – | R/W QuickTime4 |
| MRW | R/W | Minolta RAW | R/W/C | R/W/C | R/W/C | R/W/C | R/W MinoltaRaw Minolta |
| MXF | R | Material Exchange Format | – | – | – | – | R MXF |
| NEF | R/W | Nikon (RAW) Electronic Format (TIFF-based) | R/W/C | R/W/C | R/W/C | R/W/C | R/W Nikon NikonCapture |
| NMBTEMPLATE | R | Apple iWork ’09 Numbers Template | – | – | – | – | R XML ZIP |
| NRW | R/W | Nikon RAW (2) (TIFF-based) | R/W/C | R/W/C | R/W/C | R/W/C | R/W Nikon NikonCapture |
| NUMBERS | R | Apple iWork ’09 Numbers spreadsheet | – | – | – | – | R XML ZIP |
| O | R | Unix compiled code Object | – | – | – | – | R EXE |
| ODB, ODC, ODF, ODG, ODI, ODP, ODS, ODT | R | Open Document Database/Chart/Formula/Graphics/ Image/Presentation/Spreadsheet/Text (ZIP/XML-based) | – | – | – | – | R XML ZIP |
| OFR | R | OptimFROG audio (RIFF-based) | R3 | – | R | – | R RIFF |
| OGG, OGV | R | Ogg bitstream container | – | – | – | – | R FLAC ID3 Theora Vorbis |
| OPUS | R | Ogg Opus audio | – | – | – | – | R FLAC ID3 Opus Vorbis |
| ORF | R/W | Olympus RAW Format (TIFF-based) | R/W/C | R/W/C | R/W/C | R/W/C | R/W Olympus |
| OTF | R | Open Type Font | – | – | – | – | R Font |
| PAC | R | Lossless Predictive Audio Compression (RIFF-based) | R3 | – | R | – | R RIFF |
| PAGES | R | Apple iWork ’09 Pages document | – | – | – | – | R XML ZIP |
| PCD | R | Kodak Photo CD Image Pac | – | – | – | – | R PhotoCD |
| PCX | R | PC Paintbrush | – | – | – | – | R PCX |
| PDB, PRC | R | Palm Database | – | – | – | – | R Palm |
| R/W | Adobe Portable Document Format | R3 | R3 | R/W/C | R3 | R/W/C PDF, R Photoshop | |
| PEF | R/W | Pentax (RAW) Electronic Format (TIFF-based) | R/W/C | R/W/C | R/W/C | R/W/C | R/W Pentax |
| PFA, PFB | R | PostScript Font ASCII/Binary | – | – | – | – | R Font |
| PFM | R | Printer Font Metrics | – | – | – | – | R Font |
| PGF | R | Progressive Graphics File | – | – | – | – | R PGF PNG |
| PICT, PCT | R | Apple Picture file | – | – | – | R | R PICT Photoshop |
| PLIST | R | Apple Property List (binary and XML formats) | – | – | – | – | R PLIST |
| PMP | R | Sony DSC-F1 Cyber-Shot image | – | – | – | – | R Sony |
| PNG, JNG, MNG | R/W | Portable/JPEG/Multiple-image Network Graphics | R/W/C3 | R/W/C3 | R/W/C | R/W/C | R/W/C PNG |
| PPM, PBM, PGM | R/W | Portable Pixel/Bit/Gray Map | – | – | – | – | R PPM, R/W/C Comment |
| PPT, PPS, POT | R | PowerPoint Presentation/Slideshow/Template (FPX-like) | – | – | R | R | R FlashPix |
| POTX, POTM | R | Office Open XML Presentation Template [Macro-enabled] | – | – | – | – | R XML ZIP |
| PPSX, PPSM | R | Office Open XML Presentation Slideshow [Macro-enabled] | – | – | – | – | R XML ZIP |
| PPTX, PPTM | R | Office Open XML Presentation [Macro-enabled] | – | – | – | – | R XML ZIP |
| PSD, PSB, PSDT | R/W | PhotoShop Document / Large Document / Template | R/W/C | R/W/C | R/W/C | R/W/C | R Photoshop |
| PSP, PSPIMAGE | R | Paint Shop Pro | R | – | – | – | R PSP |
| QTIF, QTI, QIF | R/W | QuickTime Image File | R/W3 | R/W3 | R/W/C | – | R/W QuickTime4 |
| R3D | R | Redcode RAW video | – | – | – | – | R Red |
| RA | R | Real Audio | – | – | – | – | R Real ID3 |
| RAF | R/W | FujiFilm RAW Format | R/W/C | R/W/C | R/W/C | R/W/C | R/W FujiFilm |
| RAM, RPM | R | Real Audio/Plug-in Metafile | – | – | – | – | R Real |
| RAR | R | RAR Archive | – | – | – | – | R ZIP |
| RAW | R | Kyocera Contax N Digital RAW | – | – | – | – | R KyoceraRaw |
| RAW | R/W | Panasonic RAW (TIFF-based) | R/W/C | R/W/C | R/W/C | R/W/C | R/W PanasonicRaw Panasonic |
| RIFF, RIF | R | Resource Interchange File Format | R3 | – | R | – | R RIFF |
| RM, RV, RMVB | R | Real Media/Video [Variable Bitrate] | – | – | – | – | R Real |
| RSRC | R | Mac OS Resource | – | – | – | – | R RSRC Photoshop PostScript Font |
| RTF | R | Rich Text Format | – | – | – | – | R RTF |
| RW2 | R/W | Panasonic RAW 2 (TIFF-based) | R/W/C | R/W/C | R/W/C | R/W/C | R/W PanasonicRaw Panasonic |
| RWL | R/W | Leica RAW (TIFF-based) | R/W/C | R/W/C | R/W/C | R/W/C | R/W PanasonicRaw Panasonic |
| RWZ | R | Rawzor compressed image | R | R | R | R | R Rawzor |
| SEQ | R | FLIR Systems image Sequence | – | – | – | – | R FLIR |
| SKETCH | R | Sketch design file | – | – | – | – | R JSON ZIP |
| SO | R | Unix ELF executable and Shared Object files | – | – | – | – | R EXE |
| SR2 | R/W | Sony RAW 2 (TIFF-based) | R/W/C | R/W/C | R/W/C | R/W/C | R/W Sony |
| SRF | R | Sony RAW Format (TIFF-based) | R | R | R | R | R Sony |
| SRW | R/W | Samsung RAW format (TIFF-based) | R/W/C | R/W/C | R/W/C | R/W/C | R/W Samsung |
| SVG | R | Scalable Vector Graphics (XML-based) | – | – | – | – | R SVG |
| SWF | R | Shockwave Flash | – | – | R | – | R Flash |
| THM | R/W | Thumbnail image (JPEG) | R/W/C | R/W/C | R/W/C | R/W/C | Supported JPEG Meta Information |
| THMX | R | Office Open XML Theme | – | – | – | – | R XML ZIP |
| TIFF, TIF | R/W | Tagged Image File Format | R/W/C | R/W/C | R/W/C | R/W/C | R/W/C GeoTIFF1, R/W Trailers |
| TTF, TTC | R | True Type Font/Collection | – | – | – | – | R Font |
| TORRENT | R | BitTorrent description file | – | – | – | – | R Torrent |
| VCF, VCARD | R | Virtual Card | – | – | – | – | R VCard |
| VOB | R | Video Object (MPEG-based) | – | – | – | – | R MPEG |
| VRD | R/W/C2 | Canon DPP Recipe Data | – | – | R/W/C | – | R/W/C CanonVRD2 |
| VSD | R | Microsoft Visio Drawing (FPX-like) | – | – | R | R | R FlashPix |
| WAV | R | Windows digital audio WAVeform (RIFF-based) | R3 | – | R | – | R RIFF |
| WEBM | R | Google Web Movie (Matroska-based) | – | – | – | – | R Matroska |
| WEBP | R | Google Web Picture (RIFF-based) | R3 | – | R | – | R RIFF |
| WMA, WMV | R | Windows Media Audio/Video (ASF-based) | – | – | R | – | R ASF |
| WTV | R | Windows recorded TV show | – | – | – | – | R WTV |
| WV | R | WavePack lossless audio (RIFF-based) | R3 | – | R | – | R RIFF |
| X3F | R/W | Sigma/Foveon RAW | R/W/C | R/W/C | R/W/C | R/W/C | R/W Sigma, R SigmaRaw |
| XCF | R | GIMP native image format | R | R | R | R | R GIMP |
| XLS, XLT | R | Microsoft Excel Spreadsheet/Template (FPX-like) | – | – | R | R | R FlashPix |
| XLSX, XLSM, XLSB | R | Office Open XML Spreadsheet [Macro-enabled/Binary] | – | – | – | – | R XML ZIP |
| XLTX, XLTM | R | Office Open XML Spreadsheet Template [Macro-enabled] | – | – | – | – | R XML ZIP |
| XMP | R/W/C | Extensible Metadata Platform sidecar file | – | – | R/W/C | – | – |
| ZIP | R | ZIP archive | – | – | – | – | R ZIP |
Credit: ExifTool by Phil Harvey
