ExifTool

Most files contain much more information than what you see on the surface, which is presented as tags. There are all sorts of applications on the market which enable you to read and edit this information, but most of them come with certain limitations. If you want something that works on all platforms and which can be used to edit any kind of metadata, then you should look at ExifTool. It is a command line-driven reading and editing application for mostly any kind of metadata, coming from numerous file types.

ExifTool is offered free of charge and it can be used on various platforms, including Windows and Mac OS X. It comes as a single executable, so you only need to download, extract and run a file to have the application up and running. Although ExifTool relies on a Perl library, you don't have to download and install Perl to run it.

When launched, the application will display a huge amount of information in the command prompt. The documentation is presented step-by-step and you can proceed to the next batch of information by pressing any key on your keyboard. If you wish to view a file's metadata, you have to drag and drop that file over ExifTool's executable. This will display all the metadata available in the targeted file, in the same command prompt.

To edit a file's metadata or to perform one of the many other supported operations, you have to add a series of arguments to the executable's name. Alternatively, you can leave the executable's name without any arguments if you wish to use command lines. The application's documentation contains all the commands and arguments you need to know.

Inexperienced users may have difficulties with ExifTool, but the application can be more useful than many other tagging utilities. It supports a huge number of file formats and it is capable of performing countless operations.