ExifCleaner

Desktop app to clean metadata from images, videos, PDFs, and other files.

Benefits

Fast
Drag & Drop
Free and open source (MIT)
Windows, Mac, and Linux
Supports popular image formats such as PNG, JPG, GIF, and TIFF
Supports popular video formats such as M4A, MOV, and MP4
Supports PDF documents
Batch-processing
Multi-core support
Dark mode (automatic)
No automatic updates or network traffic
Relatively few NPM dependencies (no JS frameworks)

Drawbacks

Executable size ~200MB (Electron app)
Memory usage ~120MB (Electron app)

Install

Linux, macOS 10.10+, and Windows 7+ are supported (64-bit only).

Linux: Download the .AppImage or .deb file
macOS: Download the .dmg file
Windows: Download the .exe file

For Linux, The AppImage needs to be made executable after download.

Supported File Types

Below is a full list of supported file types that ExifCleaner will remove metadata for. It's based on which file types ExifTool supports write operations for.

3G2, 3GP2 – 3rd Gen. Partnership Project 2 a/v (QuickTime-based)
3GP, 3GPP – 3rd Gen. Partnership Project a/v (QuickTime-based)
AAX – Audible Enhanced Audiobook (QuickTime-based)
AI, AIT – Adobe Illustrator [Template] (PS or PDF)
ARQ – Sony Alpha Pixel-Shift RAW (TIFF-based)
ARW – Sony Alpha RAW (TIFF-based)
AVIF – AV1 Image File Format (QuickTime-based)
CR2 – Canon RAW 2 (TIFF-based) (CR2 spec)
CR3 – Canon RAW 3 (QuickTime-based) (CR3 spec)
CRM – Canon RAW Movie (QuickTime-based)
CRW, CIFF – Canon RAW Camera Image File Format (CRW spec)
CS1 – Sinar CaptureShop 1-shot RAW (PSD-based)
DCP DNG – Camera Profile (DNG-like)
DNG – Digital Negative (TIFF-based)
DR4 – Canon DPP version 4 Recipe
DVB – Digital Video Broadcasting (QuickTime-based)
EPS, EPSF, PS – [Encapsulated] PostScript Format
ERF – Epson RAW Format (TIFF-based)
EXIF – Exchangeable Image File Format metadata (TIFF-based)
EXV – Exiv2 metadata file (JPEG-based)
F4A, F4B, F4P, F4V – Adobe Flash Player 9+ Audio/Video (QuickTime-based)
FFF – Hasselblad Flexible File Format (TIFF-based)
FLIF – Free Lossless Image Format
GIF – Compuserve Graphics Interchange Format
GPR – GoPro RAW (DNG-based)
HDP, WDP, JXR – Windows HD Photo / Media Photo / JPEG XR (TIFF-based)
HEIC, HEIF – High Efficiency Image Format (QuickTime-based)
ICC, ICM – International Color Consortium color profile
IIQ – Phase One Intelligent Image Quality RAW (TIFF-based)
IND, INDD, INDT – Adobe InDesign Document/Template
INSP – Insta360 Picture (JPEG-based)
JP2, JPF, JPM, JPX – JPEG 2000 image [Compound/Extended]
JPEG, JPG, JPE – Joint Photographic Experts Group image
LRV – Low-Resolution Video (QuickTime-based)
M4A, M4B, M4P, M4V – MPEG-4 Audio/Video (QuickTime-based)
MEF – Mamiya (RAW) Electronic Format (TIFF-based)
MIE – Meta Information Encapsulation (MIE specification)
MOS – Creo Leaf Mosaic (TIFF-based)
MOV, QT – Apple QuickTime Movie
MP4 – Motion Picture Experts Group version 4 (QuickTime-based)
MPO – Extended Multi-Picture format (JPEG with MPF extensions)
MQV – Sony Mobile QuickTime Video
NEF – Nikon (RAW) Electronic Format (TIFF-based)
NRW – Nikon RAW (2) (TIFF-based)
ORF – Olympus RAW Format (TIFF-based)
PDF – Adobe Portable Document Format
PEF – Pentax (RAW) Electronic Format (TIFF-based)
PNG, JNG, MNG – Portable/JPEG/Multiple-image Network Graphics
PPM, PBM, PGM – Portable Pixel/Bit/Gray Map
PSD, PSB, PSDT – PhotoShop Document / Large Document / Template
QTIF, QTI, QIF – QuickTime Image File
RAF – FujiFilm RAW Format
RAW – Panasonic RAW (TIFF-based)
RW2 – Panasonic RAW 2 (TIFF-based)
RWL – Leica RAW (TIFF-based)
SR2 – Sony RAW 2 (TIFF-based)
SRW – Samsung RAW format (TIFF-based)
THM – Thumbnail image (JPEG)
TIFF, TIF – Tagged Image File Format
VRD – Canon DPP Recipe Data
X3F – Sigma/Foveon RAW
XMP – Extensible Metadata Platform sidecar file

Translations

New translations and corrections to existing translations are welcome! See the Adding a Translation section. Here is the current translations status:

French ✅
German ❌ needs translation
Italian ❌ needs translation
Japanese ✅ by @AKKED
Polish ✅ by @m1chu
Russian ❌ needs translation
Spanish ✅ by @ff-ss (Francisco)

Development

Built with Electron. Uses node-exiftool as a wrapper for Exiftool binaries. To see the current list of NPM dependencies, run:

yarn list --production

Run the app in dev mode

Clone the repository and cd into the directory.

git clone https://github.com/szTheory/exifcleaner.git
cd exifcleaner

Next, install the NPM package dependencies.

yarn install

Pull down the latest ExifTool binaries:

yarn run update-exiftool

Finally, launch the application. This supports Hot Module Reload (HMR) so you will automatically see your changes every time you save a file.

yarn run dev

Contributing

This app is mostly feature complete. I want to keep it simple and not add a bunch of bloat to it. And I want to avoid release churn. That said, there are a couple small features that might be worth adding. And there are a few minor bugs or points of cleanup that would be worth polishing. If you'd like to help check out the Issue Tracker which contains an exhaustive list of known issues. Just pick one and submit a Pull Request or leave a comment and I can provide guidance or help if you need it. Make sure to test the app out to see if it still works though. There isn't much going on in this app so it should be easy enough to do. I might add some automated tests later on to help with this. For now it's just been me working on the app so manual testing has worked out fine.

TypeScript code is formatted using Prettier.

Adding a Translation

Adding a translation is easy. All you have to do is go to the translation list, click on "Edit this file", and add an entry for the new language underneath the other ones. So for example if you wanted to add a Spanish translation, where it says:

"empty.title": {
  "en": "No files selected",
  "fr": "Aucun fichier sélectionné"
},

You just add a line for "es" (list of language codes here) underneath the other ones:

"empty.title": {
  "en": "No files selected",
  "fr": "Aucun fichier sélectionné",
  "es": "Spanish translation here"
},

and repeat that pattern for each of the entries. That's probably the easiest way to contribute. If you want to be able to see all of your translations working in a live app before submitting, you can also do this:

Fork the project on Github
Follow the directions here to get ExifCleaner running in development mode on your computer
Then update the strings.json file as mentioned above, and quit the program and relaunch it to see your changes. When you're finished, commit your changes from the command line with for example git commit -am "Finished adding translations". Then run git push origin master, and go to the project URL your forked it to (for example https://github.com/myusernamehere/exifcleaner) and click the button to open a new Pull Request.

If you want to run the app with a specific locale without changing your system preferences, use the following command. In this example ExifCleaner will start in Polish.

yarn run dev --lang=pl

Let me know if you run into any issues, I can guide you through the process if you get stuck.

Linux AppImage Notes

To mount the AppImage and inspect it's contents:

./ExifCleaner-x.y.z.AppImage --appimage-mount

Where x.y.z is the release version number

Smoke test checklist for new releases

On all platforms:

Linux
Windows
Mac

Perform the following manual tests before a release:

Drag and drop hundreds of files
File -> Open dialog
Switch locale to each language and check translations
Switch between light and dark mode
Open "About" dialog

Publishing a new release

This section is really for my own reference when publishing a new release.

Bump the version with release:

yarn run release

When the Github release page comes up, mark it as draft. Then run the publish command:

yarn run publish

Once you're happy with the release and want to finalize it, remove the draft flag on the Github releases page.

Contributors

Thanks to all the people who submitted bug reports and fixes. I've tried to include everyone so if I've missed you it was by accident, just let me know and I'll add you.

@m1chu - Polish translation, fix for Mac dock bug on non-Mac platforms, help debugging Unicode filename bug
@LukasThyWalls - help debugging Unicode filename bug, feature suggestions
@AKKED - Japanese translation, help debugging Unicode filename bug
@TomasGutierrez0 - help auditing ExifTool dependency
@5a384507-18ce-417c-bb55-d4dfcc8883fe - help debugging initial Linux version
@totoroot - help debugging Linux AppImage installer, usability feedback, feature suggestions
@Scopuli - help debugging Linux AppImage installer
@Tox86 - found broken Settings menu item bug
@ff-ss (Francisco) - Spanish translation

tayfuuun/exifcleaner