ExifTool Variables

In addition to its built-in variables, F2 integrates seamlessly with ExifTool, a widely-used program for reading and writing file metadata.

With ExifTool, you gain access to over 25,000 unique metadata tags across a wide range of file formats, including images, videos, documents, and more.

Installing and Using ExifTool

Before you can take advantage of ExifTool variables within F2, you need to ensure that ExifTool is installed on your system. Once installed, you can easily reference file metadata in F2 by using the {xt.<tag>} variable, where <tag> is the desired metadata tag you want to include in your renaming operation.

To explore the available tags for a specific file, use the following ExifTool command in your terminal or command line interface:

exiftool -j </path/to/file>

As in:

exiftool -j 1984-george-orwell.epub

This command will output metadata for the file in JSON format, which will look like this:

[
  {
    "SourceFile": "/mnt/c/Users/gt/MEGA/books/Fiction/1984-george-orwell.epub",
    "ExifToolVersion": 11.88,
    "FileName": "1984-george-orwell.epub",
    "Directory": "/mnt/c/Users/gt/MEGA/books/Fiction",
    "FileSize": "285 kB",
    "FileModifyDate": "2020:03:20 18:32:42+01:00",
    "FileAccessDate": "2021:04:27 09:49:19+01:00",
    "FileInodeChangeDate": "2020:10:21 00:43:56+01:00",
    "FilePermissions": "rwxrwxrwx",
    "FileType": "EPUB",
    "FileTypeExtension": "epub",
    "MIMEType": "application/epub+zip",
    "Creator": "George Orwell",
    "Date": 1948,
    "Title": "1984 George Orwell",
    "Language": "en",
    "Subject": ["1984", "George Orwell", "Dystopian", "Totalitarianism"]
  }
]

In this output, each entry represents a metadata tag, such as FileName, FileSize, Creator, Title, and Date. These tags can then be referenced in your F2 renaming operations with {xt.FileSize}, {xt.Creator}, etc.

Example Usage of ExifTool Variables

Let's walk through an example where you use ExifTool variables to rename a collection of books based on their metadata.

If you wanted to rename your the files using the format:

<Title> - <Author>.epub

You would write the following F2 command:

f2 -r '{xt.Title} - {xt.Creator}{ext}'

This command instructs F2 to replace the filename with the Title and Creator metadata tags for each file, followed by the file extension ({ext}). The result will be a standardized and clean naming convention for your files. Here's what the output would look like:

┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
| ORIGINAL                                  | RENAMED                                            | STATUS |
| ******************************************************************************************************* |
| 1984-george-orwell.epub                   | 1984 George Orwell - George Orwell.epub            | ok     |
| bunyan-pilgrim-s-progress.epub            | The Pilgrim's Progress - John Bunyan.epub          | ok     |
| Dracula.epub                              | Dracula - Bram Stoker.epub                         | ok     |
| Emma - Austen Jane.epub                   | Emma - Jane Austen.epub                            | ok     |
| Friend Island.epub                        | Friend Island - Francis Stevens.epub               | ok     |
| hill-think-and-grow-rich.epub             | Think and Grow Rich - Napoleon Hill.epub           | ok     |
| Leviathan by Thomas Hobbes.epub           | Leviathan - Thomas Hobbes.epub                     | ok     |
| The Lost World by Arthur Conan Doyle.epub | The Lost World - Arthur Conan Doyle.epub           | ok     |
| The Mysteries of Udolpho.epub             | The Mysteries of Udolpho - Ann Ward Radcliffe.epub | ok     |
| The Night Land.epub                       | The Night Land - William Hope Hodgson.epub         | ok     |
| The Parasite.epub                         | The Parasite: A Story - Arthur Conan Doyle.epub    | ok     |
| The Raven.epub                            | The Raven - Edgar Allan Poe.epub                   | ok     |
| The Trial.epub                            | The Trial - Franz Kafka.epub                       | ok     |
| the-shunned-house.epub                    | The Shunned House - H. P. Lovecraft.epub           | ok     |
| Ulysses by James Joyce.epub               | Ulysses - James Joyce.epub                         | ok     |
| War and Peace by Graf Leo Tolstoy.epub    | War and Peace - Graf Leo Tolstoy.epub              | ok     |
└─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

ExifTool Options

You can customize the output of ExifTool variables through --exiftool-opts. The following options are supported:

--api
--charset
--coordFormat
--dateFormat
--extractEmbedded

You need to see the ExifTool docs to learn what each option does.

Here's how to use it:

f2 -r '{xt.GPSDateTime}' --exiftool-opts '--dateFormat %Y-%m-%d'`,

Output:

*——————————*————————————*————————*
| ORIGINAL |  RENAMED   | STATUS |
*——————————*————————————*————————*
| gps.jpg  | 2008-10-23 | ok     |
*——————————*————————————*————————*

Without the --exiftool-opts, the output will be:

f2dev -r '{xt.GPSDateTime}' gps.jpg

Output:

*——————————*—————————————————————————*————————*
| ORIGINAL |         RENAMED         | STATUS |
*——————————*—————————————————————————*————————*
| gps.jpg  | 2008:10:23 14:27:07.24Z | ok     |
*——————————*—————————————————————————*————————*

Special Considerations

While using ExifTool variables in your renaming patterns, be aware that certain characters, like forward slashes (/) or backward slashes (\) in the new filename triggers the creation of a directory.

F2 automatically replaces these characters with an underscore (_) to avoid unexpected results. For example, if a tag value contains application/epub+zip, it will be transformed into application_epub+zip in the output.