exiftool-rs

A pure Rust reimplementation of ExifTool — read, write, and edit metadata in image, audio, video, and document files. No unsafe code, no Perl dependency, no system libraries.

Features

194/194 test files (100%) produce identical tag names as Perl ExifTool v13.52
55+ format readers: JPEG, TIFF, PNG, CR2, CR3, CRW, PSD, WebP, HEIF/AVIF, MP4/MOV, AVI, MKV, MTS, PDF, WAV, FLAC, MP3, OGG, BMP, GIF, DNG, NEF, ARW, ORF, RAF, RW2, PEF, X3F, IIQ, EIP, MIE, MIFF, MRC, DICOM, WTV, DjVu, BPG, XCF, LFP, FPF, and more
15 format writers: JPEG, TIFF, PNG, WebP, PSD, PDF, MP4, MKV, AVI, WAV, FLAC, MP3, OGG, CR2, HEIF/AVIF
15+ MakerNote manufacturers: Canon, Nikon, Sony, Pentax, Olympus, Panasonic, Fujifilm, Samsung, Sigma, Casio, Ricoh, Minolta, Apple, Google, FLIR, GE, GoPro
Deep sub-table decoders: Canon ColorData/CustomFunctions/ShotInfo, Nikon NikonCapture/ScanIFD, Panasonic RW2, Pentax CameraSettings, and more
Specialized parsers: GoPro GPMF, InfiRay thermal, FlashPix/OLE, Canon VRD/CIFF, MPF, MIE, Lytro LFP, FLIR FPF, Sigma X3F, CaptureOne EIP, and more
0 compiler warnings, no unsafe code, minimal dependencies

Supported Formats

Category	Read	Write
Images	JPEG, TIFF, PNG, WebP, PSD, BMP, GIF, HEIF/AVIF, ICO, PPM, PGF, BPG, XCF, MIFF, PICT	JPEG, TIFF, PNG, WebP, PSD
Raw	CR2, CR3, CRW, NEF, DNG, ARW, ORF, RAF, RW2, PEF, X3F, IIQ, MRW, 3FR, ERF, SRW	CR2
Video	MP4/MOV, AVI, MKV, MTS, WTV, DV, FLV, SWF, MXF, ASF/WMV	MP4, MKV, AVI
Audio	MP3, FLAC, WAV, OGG, AAC, AIFF, APE, MPC, WavPack, DSF, Audible	MP3, FLAC, WAV, OGG
Documents	PDF, RTF, HTML, PostScript, DjVu, OpenDocument, TNEF	PDF
Scientific	DICOM, MRC, FITS, XISF, DPX	—
Archives	ZIP, RAR, GZIP, ISO, Torrent	—
Other	EXE/ELF/Mach-O, LNK, VCard, ICS, MIE, Lytro LFP, FLIR FPF, CaptureOne EIP, Palm PDB, PLIST	—

MakerNote Support

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
Pentax	CameraSettings (K10D/K-5), AEInfo, LensInfo, FlashInfo, CameraInfo
Olympus	Equipment, CameraSettings, FocusInfo, RawDevelopment
Panasonic	RW2 sub-IFDs, AdvancedSceneMode composite
Fujifilm	RAF WB, PreviewImage
Others	Samsung, Sigma, Casio, Ricoh, Minolta, Apple, Google, FLIR, GE, GoPro

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);
}

CLI Usage

# Install
cargo install exiftool-rs

# 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

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.)
`-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

Testing

# Unit tests
cargo test

# ISO-functional test against Perl ExifTool's 194 test files
# No Perl required — reference files included in tests/expected/
./scripts/test_iso.sh

# 194/194 files (100%) produce identical tag names — 11625 tags verified

Building

git clone https://github.com/Le-Syl21/exiftool-rs
cd exiftool-rs
cargo build --release

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.

exiftool-rs 0.2.2