copy one tag to another

[slchapin41]

It should be simple. I want to copy the value of Title into Description for all jpgs in a directory. I've tried various permutations of:

  ExifTool -Description=-Title *.jpg

but all I manage is to set the Description field to the literal text "-Title" or "Title" or "<-title" or whatever I've tried. With or without quotes around everything or around parts of things.

Please, what is the very simple command I should use to do this? I'm on MacOS 10.14.15. I don't remember where ExifTool is to be found on my Mac (it isn't in Applications) so I can't find the version I'm using, but I find ExifTool 10.14.dmg so that's probably it.

  - dumb-feeling newbie susan

[Phil Harvey]

Hi Susan,

Try this:

exiftool "-description<title" -ext jpg DIR

(instead of typing the DIR name, you can drag and drop the folder onto the Terminal window)

- Phil

[StarGeek]

See Common Mistake #5 a & c

To copy one tag to another, you use a Greater/Less than symbol, pointing to the target tag you want.  You don't include the dash on the second half of the command.
exiftool '-Description<Title' -ext jpg .

While you can use *.jpg, that will not work when you want to recurse into subdirectories (the -r (recurse) option), which is why I changed the command as I did.  The dot represents the current directory.

In order to see what version of exiftool you are using, type
exiftool -ver
You might want to upgrade, as version 10.14 is very old and won't have some very useful features, such as editing mp4/mov files.

[slchapin41]

THANK YOU for such very QUICK replies. Works now.

  - susan

[freem]

Hello.

I have same task, but I need to change places Title and Description. Is it possible to do this?

[Phil Harvey]

exiftool "-description<title" "-title<description" FILE

- Phil