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How can I edit detailed image metadata (exif) fields? In Windows 7 this is just a right click on the file in the folder.

I've searched and not found a way to edit detailed metadata (exif) fields in Ubuntu 14.04. I'm not interested in running something from the command line.

  • With Shotwell Photo Manager I can only edit Title, Comment, Date and Time.
  • With Shotwell Photo Viewer it is only possible to adjust Date and Time.
  • With Gimp it is possible to edit Title, Author, Description, Keywords.
  • I tried Phatch but it wasn't intuitive and didn't appear to have an option to edit metadata, only add or remove metadata.

What I can't figure out how to do is edit Location.

What I really want to be able to do is right click on the image file in the folder browser and directly edit the metadata like in Windows. How can I do this?

7 Answers 7

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Try ExifTool.

ExifTool is a platform-independent Perl library plus a command-line application for reading, writing and editing meta information in a wide variety of files. ExifTool supports many different metadata formats including EXIF, GPS, IPTC, XMP, JFIF, GeoTIFF, ICC Profile, Photoshop IRB, FlashPix, AFCP and ID3, as well as the maker notes of many digital cameras.ExifTool

To install, just press Ctrl+Alt+T on your keyboard to open Terminal. When it opens, run the command(s) below:

sudo apt-get install exiftool
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  • 4
    In the question, it was stated, "I'm not interested in running something from the command line." exiftool is good for the command line or if you're scripting a solution for a large number of files, but it's not a good solution if you want to make a small number of changes to image files.
    – Dave F
    Jun 6, 2018 at 18:03
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You can use DigiKam to edit exif metadata (how-to) and apply one edit to multiple pictures

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    DigiKam works super well, but a more detailed explanation would be appreciated over a link.
    – stragu
    Oct 23, 2016 at 10:03
  • The link for editing metadata is outdated and doing this from the user interface isn't apparent since they seem to have their own tag system.
    – Dave F
    Jun 6, 2018 at 15:27
  • Here's a more up-to-date link: userbase.kde.org/Digikam/Metadata
    – Ben McCann
    Dec 2, 2018 at 5:55
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From the project's website: pyExifToolGui is a graphical frontend for the excellent open source command line tool ExifTool by Phil Harvey. pyExifToolGui is a python pySide QT4 script program that reads and writes all kind of metadata tags from/to image files. A strong point of this software is the ability to write the data, copied or not from a source image (reference image), to multiple images at once.

https://hvdwolf.github.io/pyExifToolGUI/

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  • I tried modifying the "Date and Time" data of an image using "pyExifToolGUI-0.5", which was released on Dec 23, 2013, and "exiftool" 10.10 (from the repository), which was released on Jan 22, 2016, and the data was changed.
    – Dave F
    Jun 6, 2018 at 17:57
  • The only problem with GUIs for command line tools is that if the command line tool interface changes, the GUI tool may stop working.
    – Dave F
    Jun 6, 2018 at 17:58
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GIMP 2.9.4 and later has a built-in metadata editor. It is accessed by selecting Image -> Metadata -> Edit Metadata. The GIMP Metadata Editor can edit a wide variety of image metadata fields including GPS metadata. To write metadata click the Write Metadata button in the lower right corner of the Metadata Editor window.

enter image description here
GIMP 2.10

GIMP 2.10 can be installed as a snap package in all currently supported versions of Ubuntu or as an apt package in Ubuntu 18.10 and later.

Image::ExifTool (libimage-exiftool-perl) is a library and program (exiftool) to read and write metadata information in multimedia files. To install libimage-exiftool-perl in all currently supported versions of Ubuntu open the terminal and type:

sudo apt install libimage-exiftool-perl  

To show an image's metadata run this command:

exiftool /path/to/file
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    You can not edit e.g. date in Gimp.
    – jarno
    Sep 16, 2020 at 9:21
  • can't edit the Orientation on Gimp as well Feb 21, 2022 at 14:14
  • @fabriciofreitag GIMP behaves differently on different platforms. On my iMac GIMP runs like crap, but it runs perfectly on my Ubuntu workstation. I have never had any problems with editing image metadata fields using GIMP in Ubuntu, however there might be some image metadata fields which GIMP can't edit that I haven't tried to edit yet.
    – karel
    Feb 21, 2022 at 14:18
  • Mine(2.10.18) doesn't even show "Orientation" Feb 21, 2022 at 14:51
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Successor of pyExifToolGui is jExifToolGUI.

The following is about version 1.5.2:

It is rather slow loading, if you choose to load a whole directory with many images, but you can choose to load only desired images, if you know their filename.

The UI barely fits in 1280x1024 resolution display:

Screenshot from 1280x1024 resolution display

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With Nautilus and Nemo, you have a tab with image properties where you can find the metadata. If you're using Dolphin like me (with Kubuntu for example), wherethere is not a such information, you can install Nemo and use it instead of Dolphin for this purpose. I use Nemo for this kind of operations and I am still using Dolphin for the other ordinary ones.

To install Nemo, open a terminal and enter "nemo". If it is not install the system will tell you how to proceed.

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  • In Nemo only a limited set of metadata is shown. For example GPS metadata aren't present and above all you cannot Edit anything ... So, this isn't answering the basic request.
    – Antonio
    Feb 20, 2021 at 13:51
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Another graphical tool - at least for editing the date/time - is the Shotwell Viewer.

In Nautilus right-click the image, choose Open with other application. A list of installed applications pops up. From that list, choose the Shotwell Viewer. Shotwell Viewer shows the image. From the menu choose Photo/Adjust date and time... Set the date and time you intend to have and click Ok. Finally from the menu select File/Save.

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