01 · Product name
ExifTool
Read and edit metadata in images, video, and documents.
Published by Phil Harvey.
In short
ExifTool is Phil Harvey’s open-source tool for reading and writing metadata. Point it at a photo, video, audio file, or document and it prints what the file still stores: timestamps, device fields, software, and GPS when those tags were not stripped. It is a local command-line tool, free to use, and the one metadata utility other tools shell out to.
Product pricing strategy
02
Free
ExifTool is free. You do not buy a seat to use what the project publishes.
Yes. ExifTool is free, open source, and maintained by Phil Harvey. There is no paid edition of the tool itself.
Utility and features
03
ExifTool has been the metadata utility for long enough that “run exiftool” is the whole instruction. It understands an enormous set of formats and tags, and it can copy, remove, or rewrite them. For OSINT, the read path matters most. A JPEG may still carry a camera model and a timestamp. A PDF may still name an author and a producer. A screenshot often carries almost nothing.
- Read path. One file or a folder. It prints tags in groups, including EXIF, IPTC, XMP, and format-specific fields. Use a JSON export when you need to attach the raw output to notes.
- What you might see. Create time, modify time, camera or phone model, lens, software, author, and GPS coordinates. Any of those can be missing, wrong, or edited.
- Write path. ExifTool can change tags. In an investigation, write only to a copy. Hash the original first if the file itself is evidence.
GPS is the field everyone hopes for and often does not get. Social platforms strip it. Messaging apps recompress files. If the tag is absent, you do not have a location. If the tag is present, confirm it fits the rest of the file before you put it in a report. The same binary can wipe metadata you did not mean to publish, so keep an original copy.
- 1
Install ExifTool from exiftool.org or your package manager.
- 2
Copy the file. Run ExifTool on the copy and keep the original untouched.
- 3
Read timestamps and GPS together. A GPS point with a timestamp that disagrees with the story is a question, not a conclusion.
- 4
Export to JSON if another person needs the same output without re-running the tool.
Caveats
04
ExifTool reads and writes metadata. It does not authenticate a photo. Tags can be missing because a messenger, a social site, or a previous editor removed them, or because someone wrote new ones. GPS, if present, is a tag, not a warrant.
Work on a copy. Writing tags back to the original destroys the state you were asked to describe. Phil Harvey’s project is free and local. There is no account. The man page is the source for which tags a format actually supports.
Screenshots
05
Potential use cases
06
- You have a photo that is already in the case. Run ExifTool on a copy. You get the tags the file still holds: camera or phone model, timestamps, software, and sometimes GPS. Pivot a GPS point only if the tag is actually there, and check FotoForensics if the question is visual editing rather than tags. Absence of GPS is normal. Many apps strip it before you ever see the file.
- A document is about to be published. Run ExifTool and read Author, Producer, and Creator. The output is a field list, which is what you redact or what you cite. Make the edit on a copy, then run ExifTool again and keep both outputs. A tag that names an internal username is a leak only if you then send the file. The tool does not decide classification for you.
- Two exports are supposed to be the same file. Diff the ExifTool output. You learn whether the software, time, or editor changed. That is a comparison, not a forgery verdict. Pair it with a hash of each byte stream. Metadata can be edited. ExifTool will write what you tell it to write, which is why the case file should be a copy.
Hard cases
The case where the first result is easy to over-read.
The screenshot has no camera and someone still wants a location
The file is a screenshot or a re-encoded social image. ExifTool shows a software tag and little else. There is no GPS to ‘recover.’ Say that. If the question is whether the pixels were edited, FotoForensics is a different test and still not a location. Do not infer a place from the absence of a tag, and do not claim the tool can restore metadata a platform already stripped.
Questions
Is ExifTool free?
Yes. ExifTool is free, open source, and maintained by Phil Harvey. There is no paid edition of the tool itself.
Does every photo have GPS metadata?
No. GPS is optional, often stripped by apps, and sometimes wrong. Absence of a GPS tag does not tell you where the photo was taken.
Citations
07
Titled sources. These public pages are what the quotes on this listing come from.
Product
ExifTool
https://exiftool.org/Documentation
ExifTool application documentation
https://exiftool.org/exiftool_pod.html