See the appropriate section below with instructions for installing or uninstalling ExifTool on your specific platform:
Also see these instructions for help running ExifTool.
In Windows, there is a choice of two different versions of ExifTool to install. The Perl distribution requires Perl to be installed on your system. (A good, free Perl interpreter can be downloaded from activeperl.com.)
If you don't already have Perl, it is easier to install the stand-alone ExifTool executable, but note that the stand-alone version doesn't include the HTML documentation or some other files of the full distribution.
exiftool-#.##.zip".)exiftool(-k).exe" from the
".zip" file, and place it on your Desktop.
exiftool-#.##.zip" to open
the archive, then drag "exiftool(-k).exe" to your Desktop.)You can now double-click on "exiftool(-k).exe" to read the
application documentation, or drag-and-drop files and folders to run exiftool on
selected files. To install exiftool for use from the command line,
continue with the following steps:
exiftool(-k).exe" to "exiftool.exe".exiftool.exe" to the "C:\WINDOWS" directory
(or any other directory in your PATH).You can now run exiftool by typing "exiftool" at the command
prompt. (To get to the command prompt, select "Run..." from the Windows "Start"
menu, then type "cmd" and press Return.)
(Note: Occasionally users have reported that exiftool gives errors when running this version for this first time. It is possible this may happen if a file gets corrupted during the download/installation process. In this case, follow the Uninstalling instructions below then re-install exiftool. Be sure that you have sufficient disk space in your TEMP directory for exiftool to unpack about 12 MB of temporary files -- these are the Perl libraries used by the exiftool application which are unpacked the first time exiftool is run.)
Uninstalling:
exiftool(-k).exe" (or "C:\WINDOWS\exiftool.exe")
into the Recycle bin.par-USER" from your temporary directory to
the Recycle bin. Here "USER" is your Windows user name and the
location of the temporary directory depends on the value of the TEMP environment
variable (typically "C:\Documents and Settings\USER\Local Settings\Temp"
with Windows XP, or "C:\Users\USER\AppData\Local\Temp" with Windows 7).You must have Perl installed to use this version. (A free version of Perl can be downloaded from activeperl.com.)
Image-ExifTool-#.##.tar.gz".)exiftool" to "exiftool.pl"
in the exiftool distribution.exiftool.pl" and the "lib"
directory from the exiftool distribution to "C:\WINDOWS"
(or any other directory in your PATH).Now, if you have made the proper Windows associations for the
".pl" extension (an option in the ActivePerl installation), you
can run exiftool by typing "exiftool.pl" at the
"cmd.exe" prompt. Otherwise you should type
"perl c:\windows\exiftool.pl".
Uninstalling:
C:\WINDOWS\exiftool.pl" and
"C:\WINDOWS\lib" into the Recycle bin. You should first confirm
that "C:\WINDOWS\lib" contains only the "File"
and "Image" sub-directories. Do not delete it if it
contains anything else.If you have installed the BSDSDK package from the Xcode Developer Tools
(ie. if you have the "make" utility), you should
follow the install procedure for Unix platforms in the next
section instead of the steps below. The Unix install has the advantage of making
the ExifTool library available for your Perl scripts, as well as installing the
man pages and POD documentation.
Otherwise, you have a choice of two packages to install: The OS X package, or the full Perl distribution. Both of the procedures below install the ExifTool files in the same location. Installing the OS X package is easier, but the full distribution includes HTML documentation and some other files not included in the OS X package. Both versions run natively on PPC and Intel Macs.
ExifTool-#.##.dmg".)You can now run exiftool by typing "exiftool" in a Terminal window.
Image-ExifTool-#.##.tar.gz".) cd ~/Desktop
tar -xzf Image-ExifTool-#.##.tar.gz
cd Image-ExifTool-#.##
sudo cp -r exiftool lib /usr/bin
where "#.##" is the version number of the ExifTool you downloaded.
You can now run exiftool by typing "exiftool" in a Terminal window.
(Note: The OS X installations above place exiftool and its
lib directory in /usr/bin, while the standard Unix "make install"
described below puts "exiftool" in /usr/bin and the individual
libraries in /Library/Perl/#.#.#, where "#.#.#" is your Perl version. If both
sets of libraries exist, /usr/bin/lib takes precedence for exiftool, but
/Library/Perl/#.## is the default for any other Perl scripts.)
open /usr/bin" (without the quotes) in the Terminal
window, then press RETURN. (This opens a folder that you normally can't access
from OS X.)exiftool" and "lib" into the trash from the
"bin" folder you opened. You should first confirm that
"lib" contains only two sub-folders: "File" and
"Image". If it contains anything else, don't trash it because you
have the wrong "lib" folder.Image-ExifTool-#.##.tar.gz".) cd <your download directory>
gzip -dc Image-ExifTool-#.##.tar.gz | tar -xf -
cd Image-ExifTool-#.##
where "#.##" is the version number of the ExifTool you downloaded.
exiftool <image file name>".)
perl Makefile.PL
make test
sudo make install
(Note: The "make test" step is not required, but
useful because it runs a full suite of tests to verify that ExifTool is working
properly on your system. The "sudo make install" command requires
that you have su access, and will prompt for your password. This will make
ExifTool and its documentation accessible to all users on your system. If you
don't have su access, you can run ExifTool in your own account by moving
"exiftool" and its "lib" directory to any convienient
location -- preferably somewhere in your PATH.)You can now run exiftool by typing "exiftool". Also, you can
consult the ExifTool documentation with commands like:
perldoc exiftool perldoc Image::ExifTool perldoc Image::ExifTool::TagNames
or
man exiftool man Image::ExifTool man Image::ExifTool::TagNames
sudo make uninstall" from the distribution directory.