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EXIFtool can manipulate EXIF headers, but can it create EXIF headers for images which are missing EXIF header as a whole? If so, what is the syntax?

To further clarify, how do you add EXIF data to images which have no EXIF data at all? Not empty EXIF headers, but no EXIF headers at all.

Michael C
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Riccardo
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  • Hi and welcome to Photo.SE! If you're not familiar with this site, feel free to take the [tour]. Regarding your qeustion: I am not sure what "missing EXIF header as whole" means. What happens if you try to add a tag (e.g. exiftool -EXIF:ExposureTime=1/200 file.jpg) to a file that is missing the EXIF header? Do you get an error? Please [edit] your question to include what you've tried so far, and what brought you to the conclusion that the header is missing. – Saaru Lindestøkke Dec 08 '21 at 16:14
  • Hello Saru, thanks for cheering my first post! – Riccardo Dec 08 '21 at 18:49

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Yes, exiftool can create EXIF blocks in images that don't have them. Just pick any one of the EXIF tags that exiftool can set and assign a value to it. Exiftool will then create the EXIF block in the file. For example, this will set the EXIF:DateTimeOriginal tag and create the EXIF block
exiftool -DateTimeOriginal="2021:12:08 12:00:00" file.jpg

StarGeek
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  • You can transfer the EXIF data from one JPEG image file to another using JHEAD. Use the -te option. This is handy if the post processing steps deletes EXIF data. JHEAD is free and command line which makes it harder to use for some people. – qrk Dec 08 '21 at 21:50