exiftool-rs

A pure Rust reimplementation of ExifTool v13.59 — read, write, and edit metadata in image, audio, video, and document files. No Perl dependency, no system libraries; unsafe is confined to three OS calls (locale lookup, local-time offset, and an optional memory-map for large files).

Community & support

Questions, bug reports, beta testing, or just want to chat? Join the Discord:

Features

• Byte-for-byte parity with Perl ExifTool v13.59 across all 195 corpus files — identical tag names, values, groups, and repeated-instance (-ee) output. Proven live and regenerated by CI on every push: the parity report diffs every tag exiftool-rs extracts against Perl ExifTool 13.59, tag by tag. The only byte-level differences are a handful of Copyright fields (EXIF / PSP / RealAudio) where we decode a raw Latin-1 byte (©, ü) to readable UTF-8 rather than passing an invalid-UTF-8 byte through
• 93 format readers covering all Perl ExifTool modules
• 15 format writers: JPEG, TIFF, PNG, WebP, PSD, PDF, MP4, MKV, AVI, WAV, FLAC, MP3, OGG, CR2, HEIF/AVIF
• 17 MakerNote manufacturers with deep sub-table decoders
• Timed metadata extraction (-ee) for dashcams, action cams, drones
• Optional GUI with 23 languages: 3311 tag descriptions and localized PrintConv values per language, matching ExifTool's -lang output across the corpus
• 0 compiler warnings, unsafe limited to three OS calls, minimal dependencies

How it compares to ExifTool

exiftool-rs reimplements ExifTool in Rust: the tag tables and print conversions are generated from the Perl source, so the data matches, while the implementation is a compiled, dependency-free binary.

Analysis engine

	ExifTool (Perl)	exiftool-rs
Language	Perl 5, interpreted	Rust, compiled
Size	225 modules, ~327k lines	162 files, ~192k lines (73k generated)
Tag tables	Perl hashes, loaded at runtime	Static tables generated from the Perl source
PrintConv / ValueConv	Perl code, eval-uated at runtime	Ported Rust functions / match tables
Runtime dependencies	Perl + CPAN modules	None (unsafe limited to three OS calls)

GUI

	ExifTool (Perl)	exiftool-rs
Bundled GUI	None — CLI only	Yes — exiftool-rs-gui
Pseudo-official GUI	ExifToolGUI — third-party, Windows-only, drives the CLI underneath	Native egui, single binary, cross-platform
Editing	via the third-party GUI	Double-click any writable tag, save back to file
Languages in the GUI	n/a	23, descriptions and values localized

Languages

	ExifTool (Perl)	exiftool-rs
Languages	18	23 (adds Arabic, Bengali, Hindi, Portuguese)
Tag descriptions	✅	✅
PrintConv values (Off → Arrêt)	✅	✅ — matches -lang on 192/195 corpus files
Source	Lang/*.pm	generated from Lang/*.pm

Supported Formats

Read (93 format modules)

Category	Formats
Images	JPEG, TIFF, PNG, WebP, PSD, BMP, GIF, HEIF/AVIF, ICO, PPM, PGF, BPG, XCF, MIFF, PICT, PCX, MNG, JXR, FLIF, Radiance HDR, OpenEXR, PSP, InDesign
Raw	CR2, CR3, CRW, CRM, NEF, DNG, ARW, ORF, RAF, RW2, PEF, SR2, SRW, X3F, IIQ, 3FR, ERF, MRW, Rawzor, KyoceraRaw
Video	MP4/MOV, AVI, MKV/WebM, MPEG, MTS/M2TS, WTV, DV, FLV, SWF, MXF, ASF/WMV, Real (RM/RAM)
Audio	MP3, FLAC, WAV, OGG, Opus, AAC, AIFF, APE, MPC, WavPack, DSF, Audible
Documents	PDF, RTF, HTML, PostScript, DjVu, OpenDocument (ODT/ODS/ODP/ODG), TNEF
Fonts	TrueType (TTF), OpenType (OTF), WOFF/WOFF2, AFM, PFA, PFB
Scientific	DICOM, MRC, FITS, XISF, DPX, LIF (Leica)
Archives	ZIP, 7Z, RAR, GZIP, ISO, Torrent
Other	EXE/ELF/Mach-O, LNK, VCard, ICS, JSON, PLIST, PCAP, MIE, MOI, Lytro LFP, FLIR FPF, CaptureOne EIP, Palm PDB, FlashPix (OLE), iWork, Red R3D

Write (15 formats)

Category	Formats
Images	JPEG, TIFF, PNG, WebP, PSD
Raw	CR2, HEIF/AVIF
Video	MP4, MKV, AVI
Audio	MP3, FLAC, WAV, OGG
Documents	PDF

MakerNote Support (17 manufacturers)

Manufacturer	Sub-table Decoders
Canon	CameraSettings, ShotInfo, AFInfo, ColorData (WB), CustomFunctions, VRD, CIFF, CTMD
Nikon	NikonCapture (D-Lighting, Crop, ColorBoost, UnsharpMask), ScanIFD, CaptureOffsets
Sony	SonyIDC, lens tables (400+ entries)
Pentax	CameraSettings (K10D/K-5), AEInfo, LensInfo, FlashInfo, CameraInfo
Olympus	Equipment, CameraSettings, FocusInfo, RawDevelopment
Panasonic	RW2 sub-IFDs, AdvancedSceneMode composite
Fujifilm	RAF WB, PreviewImage
Samsung	MakerNote IFD
Sigma	MakerNote IFD, X3F raw
Casio	Type 1, Type 2
Ricoh	MakerNote IFD
Minolta	MakerNote IFD
Apple	MakerNote IFD
Google	MakerNote IFD
FLIR	Thermal metadata, FPF
GE	MakerNote IFD
GoPro	GPMF timed metadata

Timed Metadata (-ee)

Source	Formats
Dashcams	freeGPS (Novatek, Viofo, Azdome, Akaso, Vantrue, INNOVV, Nextbase), Kenwood (DRV-A510W)
Action cams	GoPro GPMF (GPS, accelerometer, gyroscope), Insta360
Drones	DJI telemetry, Yuneec/Autel (subtitle tracks)
Android	Google CAMM (camera motion metadata, types 0-7)
Generic	NMEA sentences (RMC, GGA), RVMI, Garmin

Library Usage

use exiftool_rs::ExifTool;let et = ExifTool::new();let tags = et.extract_info("photo.jpg").unwrap();for tag in&tags {println!("{}: {}", tag.name, tag.print_value);}

Features

Feature	Description
gui	Enable the graphical interface (exiftool-rs-gui binary)
win-icon	Embed Windows application icon in the binary (CLI builds only)

Note for library consumers: The win-icon feature should only be enabled when building standalone binaries. If you use exiftool-rs as a library dependency, do not enable win-icon — it would inject a Windows VERSION resource into your own binary and cause linker conflicts.

CLI Usage

# Install (CLI only)
cargo install exiftool-rs
# Install with GUI
cargo install exiftool-rs --features gui
# Read metadata
exiftool-rs photo.jpg
# Short tag names
exiftool-rs -s photo.jpg
# JSON output
exiftool-rs -j photo.jpg
# Write tags
exiftool-rs -Artist="John Doe" -Copyright="2024" photo.jpg
# Show groups
exiftool-rs -G photo.jpg
# Numeric values
exiftool-rs -n photo.jpg
# Extract embedded GPS from dashcam video
exiftool-rs -ee video.mp4

GUI

exiftool-rs includes an optional graphical interface built with egui.

# Install with GUI support
cargo install exiftool-rs --features gui
# Launch the GUI
exiftool-rs-gui
# Or with a specific language
exiftool-rs-gui -lang fr

Features:

• Open files or folders, navigate with arrow keys
• View all metadata grouped by category
• Double-click any writable tag to edit it
• Copy all metadata to clipboard
• Save edits back to the file
• 23 languages supported (CJK, Arabic, Hindi, Bengali fonts included via noto-fonts-dl)

Supported Languages (23)

Code	Language	Code	Language	Code	Language
en	English	fr	French	pl	Polish
ar	Arabic	hi	Hindi	pt	Portuguese
bn	Bengali	it	Italian	ru	Russian
cs	Czech	ja	Japanese	sk	Slovak
de	German	ko	Korean	sv	Swedish
en_ca	English (CA)	nl	Dutch	tr	Turkish
en_gb	English (UK)	fi	Finnish	zh	Chinese (Simplified)
es	Spanish			zh_tw	Chinese (Traditional)

Each language includes 3311 tag descriptions, localized PrintConv values (e.g. Orientation reads Horizontale (normale) under -lang fr), and all UI strings — natively translated where ExifTool 13.59 provides a translation, English otherwise. Value output matches ExifTool's -lang across the test corpus, except one cosmetic case (Mach-O CPUArchitecture, which ExifTool localizes for PE/ELF binaries but not Mach-O).

Platform Notes

OS	Icon in binary	Notes
Windows	Opt-in	Icon embedded in .exe via winres when win-icon feature is enabled
macOS	No	Requires a .app bundle with .icns
Linux	No	ELF binaries don't support embedded icons

CLI Options

Option	Description
-s	Short tag names
-s2	Very short (tag names only)
-G	Show group names
-n	Numeric output (no print conversion)
-j	JSON output
-csv	CSV output
-X	XML/RDF output
-b	Binary output (thumbnails, etc.)
-ee	Extract embedded data (GPS from dashcams, etc.)
-r	Recursively scan directories
-ext EXT	Process only files with extension EXT
-TAG	Extract specific tag(s)
-ver	Show version
-TAG=VALUE	Write tag
-TAG=	Delete tag
-overwrite_original	Overwrite without backup
-stay_open True	Keep running, read commands from stdin
-lang LANG	Set language (GUI and tag descriptions)
-v	Verbose output
-htmlDump	HTML hex dump of file structure
-validate	Validate metadata
-diff	Show differences between files
-args	Print in ExifTool arg format
-php	PHP array output
-progress	Show progress during processing
-scanForXMP	Scan file for XMP data

Testing

# Unit tests
cargo test# ISO-functional test against Perl ExifTool's 195 test files# No Perl required — reference files included in tests/expected/
./scripts/test_iso.sh
# 195/195 files produce identical tag names — names and values verified# against ExifTool 13.59; see tests/*_baseline.txt for the ratcheting contract

Building

git clone https://github.com/Le-Syl21/exiftool-rs
cd exiftool-rs
# CLI only
cargo build --release
# CLI + GUI
cargo build --release --features gui
# With Windows icon embedded in the .exe
cargo build --release --features win-icon

The gui feature is optional and not included by default. Without it, the GUI dependencies (egui, eframe, image, rfd, noto-fonts-dl) are not downloaded or compiled.

The win-icon feature embeds an icon into the Windows .exe via winres. It is disabled by default to avoid conflicts with frameworks like Tauri that manage their own Windows resources.

License

GPL-3.0-or-later (same as the original Perl ExifTool)

Authors

• Sylvain (@Le-Syl21) — Project creator
• Claude (Anthropic) — Implementation

Acknowledgements

Based on ExifTool by Phil Harvey. Tag tables and print conversions are generated from the ExifTool Perl source.