An ExifTool alternative for people who do not want a command line
What ExifTool is
ExifTool is Phil Harvey’s free, open-source Perl library and command-line application for reading, writing and editing metadata. It runs on Windows, macOS and Unix, and supports an enormous range of file types — images, raw camera formats, audio, video and PDFs.
For stripping metadata, the canonical incantation is `exiftool -all= photo.jpg`, which empties every writable tag while leaving the file itself intact.
It is, without exaggeration, the reference implementation for this problem. Nothing here is going to tell you it is bad at metadata — it is better at metadata than we are.
What ExifTool does well
- The most complete tag coverage of any tool, by a wide margin
- Reads and writes, not just strips — you can set tags as well as remove them
- Enormous format support, including raw camera formats, video and audio
- Scriptable and batchable, which makes it the right answer for bulk and automation
- Free, open source, and cross-platform
Where it stops
- It is a command line. For most people that is the end of the conversation.
- It tells you tag names and values, not what they would mean if published
- It works on metadata, not on what is visible in the picture
- No face detection, no barcode reading, no checksum-validated detection of card or ID numbers
- Nothing about Word comments or tracked changes
- Easy to get wrong in a way that feels right — `-all=` on a file in place, with no backup, is a one-way trip
Side by side
| ExifTool | IncognitoShare | |
|---|---|---|
| Interface | Command line | A web page — drag a file onto it |
| Installation | Required | None |
| Metadata coverage | Exhaustive — thousands of tags across hundreds of formats | The categories that matter for privacy |
| Writing and editing tags | Yes, full control | No — we remove, we do not author |
| Explains what a finding means | No — it reports tags and values | Yes, a plain sentence per finding |
| Finds things visible in the picture | No | Card numbers, IBANs, passport MRZ, barcodes, faces |
| Word documents | Reads some properties | Author, comments, tracked changes and hidden text, with cleaning |
| Batch and automation | Excellent | An HTTP API, but no CLI |
| Raw camera formats and video | Yes | No |
| Price | Free, open source | Free tier; paid plans for higher limits |
The bolded cell is the one we think wins each row — including the rows we lose.
Which should you use
If you are comfortable in a terminal and the job is metadata, use ExifTool. It is more thorough than we are, it is free, and for scripted bulk work it is the right tool. We are not going to pretend otherwise.
Use this instead when you want to see what a file is carrying without learning a tag syntax, when the risk is something visible in the picture rather than a tag in the file, when the file is a Word document, or when you want to hand the task to somebody who will never open a terminal.
The honest summary: ExifTool is a better metadata tool. This is a better "should I share this?" tool.
Questions
`exiftool -all= photo.jpg` empties every writable tag. It edits in place and keeps a `photo.jpg_original` backup unless you pass `-overwrite_original`. Note that `-all=` also removes the orientation tag, which can make photos appear rotated — `exiftool -all= -tagsfromfile @ -Orientation photo.jpg` keeps it.
No, and it is not trying to. ExifTool covers far more tags and formats and can write as well as read. This covers the categories that matter when deciding whether to share something, explains them, and also looks at the picture itself.
There are third-party front-ends, of varying quality and maintenance. If a graphical interface is the only thing you are missing, one of those may suit you better than this — they expose ExifTool’s full tag set, which we do not.
There is an HTTP API with the same detection engine, for checking and cleaning files from your own software. There is no command-line tool.
Sources
Everything said above about ExifTool comes from its own documentation, so you can check it: