Save and restore existing metadata?

[SRPilot]

I intend to use exiftool to change the creation date and modified date on a number of video files.  Imay need to revert to the original data if the results are not what I expect.  The video files are quite large, so creating a copy of the files will consume a large amount of disk space.

Is there a command line that will create a file that contains the filename and existing metadata... and a paired command that would restore the data using that file?  Or do I need to write a python script to do this type of work?

[StarGeek]

The only option would be to not use the -overwrite_original option.  By default, exiftool will rename the original file by adding _original to the end.  You could then use the -restore_original option to remove the new copy and restore the original.  Or simply remove it manually.

Otherwise, no. While there are ways of saving the metadata to a file, exiftool always rewrites the entire file, so there wouldn't be any reduction in the amount of time to revert if done that way.

[SRPilot]

The only option would be to not use the -overwrite_original option.  By default, exiftool will rename the original file by adding _original to the end.  You could then use the -restore_original option to remove the new copy and restore the original.  Or simply remove it manually.

Otherwise, no. While there are ways of saving the metadata to a file, exiftool always rewrites the entire file, so there wouldn't be any reduction in the amount of time to revert if done that way.

Thank you for the clarification.  This explains the performance when dealing with large files and emphasises why multiple operations should be done in the same command line rather than sequentially.

[StarGeek]

Totally forgot that this is covered in FAQ #31.