tidy-exif v0.1.3
EXIF / XMP metadata cleaner

Strip Adobe signatures
from your photos.

A small CLI that finds the software identification strings Adobe tools leave in image metadata and empties them. Pixels are never touched; segment byte-lengths are preserved, so nothing else in the file shifts.

Download for Windows Linux →
Get started · All releases ↗
Windows · Linux · single static binary · MPL-2.0
Strip Adobe signatures
Empties CreatorTool, software-agent history, document GUIDs and the Adobe Software tag.
Only Adobe, by design
Camera firmware and scanner software (VueScan and the like) are left untouched.
Dry-run & backup
Preview every change with -‍-‍dry‍-‍run, or keep a .bak of each file.
Raw bytes only
Reads and writes JPEG segment bytes directly. Image data is untouched.
Download

Download a binary

Pre-built single-file binaries for Windows and Linux – no installer. Unzip and run.

Windows amd64 · .zip · v0.1.3 Linux amd64 · .tar.gz · v0.1.3 Linux ARM arm64 · .tar.gz · v0.1.3
Checksums and earlier versions are on the Codeberg releases page ↗.
Usage

Check first, then clean

Both /option and --option flag styles work on every platform.

After clean
CreatorTool emptied
softwareAgent emptied
DocumentID emptied
Software (VueScan) kept
DateTimeOriginal 2026:05:14
Commands

Check and clean

Command
What it does
Key flags
check
Scan a directory and report which files contain Adobe fields. No files are modified.
--dir --ext
clean
Remove or replace Adobe fields in all matching files.
--dry-run --backup --config
Flag
Default
Description
--dir ./
Directory to process.
--ext jpg,jpeg
Comma-separated list of file extensions to process.
--dry-run off
Show what would change without writing anything.
--backup off
Write a .bak copy of each file before modifying.
--config (none)
Path to a TOML config file specifying replacement values.
--version —
Print version and exit.
Config

Replace, don't
just empty

Pass --config to set your own replacement values instead of blanking each field.

Any field you don't list is emptied.

tidy-exif.toml
[replacements] CreatorTool = "" MetadataDate = "" DocumentID = "" InstanceID = "" OriginalDocumentID = "" SoftwareAgent = "" # EXIF IFD0 0x0131 – Adobe values only Software = ""

Clean metadata. Nothing else.

Run a check over your export folder and see what Adobe left behind.

Get started View source