overwrite_original_in_place still changes the file modify date

[delerious]

I'm running ExifTool 12.64 on Windows 10. I used the following command to add a new tag to a video:

exiftool -QuickTime:Model="Pixel 7 Pro" -overwrite_original_in_place add_tag_overwrite_original_in_place.mp4

The tag gets added, but the file modify date got updated, even though I specified the overwrite_original_in_place option.

I uploaded the output of exiftool before running the command (original.txt) and the output of exiftool after running the command (overwrite_original_in_place.txt).

[StarGeek]

To keep the FileModifyDate the same, you need to use the -P (-preserve) option. The OS changes the FileModifyDate any time a file is opened for a write operation.  The -overwrite_original_in_place option does not change this.

Note that the FileModifyDate is not the ModifyDate.  The first is a property of the OS, while the second is actually embedded in the file.

On Windows, unless you are using Alternate Data Streams (ADS), which is rare, there's no reason to use -overwrite_original_in_place.  It is doubling your processing time as exiftool has to write the usual temp file that has the changes, and then it has to copy all that data back into the original file, thereby doubling your write time.

[delerious]

Thanks, I misread the documentation. Sorry for the erroneous bug report.

[StarGeek]

No worries.  There's a lot of documentation and it's easy miss things or misread them.  And I misread a lot of people's posts here.