How to copy EXIF metadata on Android from one photo to another?

Question

I'm looking for a way to copy some (say date, location, camera) or all EXIF metadata from one image to another image on Android, so I can restore metadata deleted by some photo editing apps.

I recently moved to a mobile workflow. I use an Android smartphone to sort, edit and publish or share photos taken with my DSLR and my smartphone. Some of the apps I use to edit my shots remove EXIF metadata.

I understand that this may be intentional, since date or location can be meaningless in apps such as Photoshop Mix or Instagram Layout, since they let you compose several different images together. The problem is that the missing metadata break my classification system when I import those photos later on a computer.

On a computer I'd use exiftool to restore those metadata, using a command like:

exiftool -tagsfromfile orig.jpg -exif new.jpg

Is there an app for Android or a web service I can use to copy metadata as I can do with exiftool?

Answer 1

I found on the Google Play Store a port for Android of exiftool, named (no surprise) ExifTool, that gives you a command line interface to the well known tool.

It's not as comfortable and quick as one would expect from a mobile app, but it works.

Workflow:

1. Tap on the 3 dots menu and choose Execute command
2. Type or paste exiftool -tagsfromfile source -exif dest (after the first time it could "remember" your last command, so you may only need to replace the file names)
3. Move the cursor to source, delete it.
4. If you know the full file path you can just paste or type it, or you can tap 3 dots menu and then Add path to file and use android system file chooser to pick the photo you want to copy the tags from.
5. Move the cursor to dest, delete it.
6. Again, add the file path or tap the 3 dots menu and then Add path to file and use android system file chooser to pick the photo you want to copy the tags to.
7. Tap the triangle icon to run the command and wait for the confirmation window.

Answer 2

Here is a workaround that is not optimal for your problem but better than nothing.

You can tell A Photo Manager to store meta data changes in jpg and in external xmp file. When your external app deletes the meta from jpg the info is still present in the xmp file and can be restored from there.

Note only the 7 most important meta fields DateTimeTaken Latitude Longitude Title Description Tags Rating are supported

Workflow:

• In A Photo Manager settings under Edit set "Write changes to "jpg and xmp (create if not found)
• In A Photo Manager gallery view select all images
• Ad some dummy Tag to all images. As a side effect the xmp-s are generated.
• do something that deletes the exif from jpg
• In A Photo Manager gallery view select all images
• Ad some other dummy Tag to all images or remove the dummy tag. As a side effect the meta data is read from jpg/xmp-s and the changes are writen to jpg and xmp (restoring jpg meta data)