Exif Remover with exiftool

Exif data in photos can sometimes contain sensitive information such as the location where the photo was taken, or details about your equipment. To protect your privacy when sharing photos, it’s a good idea to remove this Exif data. I’ve created a simple bash script to do just that.

Script Usage

The script offers two options:

-s: Show all Exif entries.
-m: Remove all Exif entries while preserving the most important ones.

Example Command

To modify a JPEG image, you can use the following command:

./ExifRemover.sh -m MyImg.jpg

Here’s the full script:

#! /bin/bash

function usage {
  echo "usage: $0 -ms path_of_file"
  echo "  -m to remove useless exif entries"
  echo "  -s to show current exit entries"
  exit -1
}

if [ $# != 2 ]; then
  usage
fi

OP=$1
SRC=$2

if [ ! -f $SRC ]; then
  echo "error: file not found"
  exit -2
fi

if [ $OP = "-m" ]; then

  cp "$SRC" "$SRC"."_tmp"
  exiftool -all= "$SRC"
  exiftool -overwrite_original
      -TagsFromFile "$SRC"."_tmp"
      -ExposureTime
      -FNumber
      -ExposureProgram
      -ISO
      -DateTimeOriginal
      -CreateDate
      -ExposureCompensation
      -MaxApertureValue
      -MeteringMode
      -LightSource
      -Flash
      -FocalLength
      -SubSecTime
      -SubSecTimeOriginal
      -SubSecTimeDigitized
      -ColorSpace
      -ExifImageWidth
      -ExifImageHeight
      -SensingMethod
      -CustomRendered
      -ExposureMode
      -WhiteBalance
      -DigitalZoomRatio
      -FocalLengthIn35mmFormat
      -SceneCaptureType
      -GainControl
      -Contrast
      -Saturation
      -Sharpness
      -SubjectDistanceRange
      -GPSVersionID
      -GPSLatitudeRef
      -GPSLatitude
      -GPSLongitudeRef
      -GPSLongitude
      -Make
      -Model
    "$SRC"

  exiftool -delete_original! "$SRC"
  rm -f "$SRC"."_tmp"

else
  if [ $OP = "-s" ]; then
    exiftool "$SRC"
  else
    usage
  fi
fi