Many of my photo JPGs contain XMP keywords, titles and descriptions embedded by some Adobe application in the past. I now use IPTC because (ironically) it's universally recognized. The XMP metadata is obsolete and is causing a problem when I upload to some sites, which use it in preference to the IPTC.
I need a way to remove all this XMP data from hundreds of photos.
Can I do this with a command-line invocation of ExifTool?
You can remove xmp data with
exiftool -XMP:All= /path/to/files
This command creates backup files. Add -Overwrite_Original (https://exiftool.org/exiftool_pod.html#overwrite_original) to suppress the creation of backup files. Add -r (https://exiftool.org/exiftool_pod.html#r-.--recurse) to recurse into subdirectories.
Thanks StarGeek, that sounds promising.
If I try this...
exiftool -r -Overwrite_Original -XMP:All= *.jpg
... it removes the XMP, and doesn't create a backup copy, but subdirectories are ignored.
I have a 'photos' folder containing a set of subfolders, each of which contains JPGs. Let's say I have a command prompt at D:\photos. What's the exiftool syntax to modify all the JPGs in all the subfolders?
See the docs on the -r (-recurse) option (https://exiftool.org/exiftool_pod.html#r-.--recurse) and Common Mistake #2 (https://exiftool.org/mistakes.html#M2).
Recursively process files in subdirectories. Only meaningful if FILE is a directory name.
Instead of *.jpg, use the -ext (extension) option (https://exiftool.org/exiftool_pod.html#ext-EXT---ext-EXT--extension).
exiftool -r -ext jpg -XMP:all= /path/to/top/dir/
Thanks, will try that shortly.