exiftool -all= does not remove dates

[Zetorg]

This command:

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exiftool -all= file
Does not remove date-time metadata, which is still available:

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Create Date                     : 2010:08:14 00:00:00
Modify Date                     : 2010:08:14 00:00:00
Track Create Date               : 2010:08:14 00:00:00
Track Modify Date               : 2010:08:14 00:00:00
Media Create Date               : 2010:08:14 00:00:00
Media Modify Date               : 2010:08:14 00:00:00
removed with this command:

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exiftool -overwrite_original -time:all="" -wm w file
Can't the app just be updated to remove this metadata as well with '-all=' option? Why has to be done separately, is it not EXIF but other kind of metadata like IPTC, XMP, etc.?

[StarGeek]

The reason is that these tags cannot be removed, only cleared.

Previous post by Phil on the subject.

is it not EXIF but other kind of metadata like IPTC, XMP, etc.?

It is not EXIF, it is Quicktime metadata (see the Quicktime tags page).  EXIF is only a very small percent of the entire range of metadata.  Additionally, EXIF data is non-standard in videos.

[Zetorg]

Isn't then any flag to remove all metadata that can be removed, and those that can't just clear them?

[StarGeek]

There is not.

This situation pretty much applies only to videos (and a similar, but different situation with PDFs).  And there can be other data in video files that exiftool can't remove because it is non-standard, such as EXIF data as I mentioned, or embedded in the streams, such as GPS tracks, and exiftool doesn't edit video streams.

The best way to clear video data would be to use ffmpeg with a command like this
ffmpeg -hide_banner -i input.mp4 -c copy -map 0 -map_metadata -1 output.mp4

This will do a lossless remux of the video.  It does not recompress the video and will be as fast as copying the file.  You can also use a program such as AVIDeMux to do so.  The settings I use to copy the streams can be found in this post.

[Zetorg]

Thanks a lot, didn't think of that possibility.