Can anyone recommend software for removing metadata? [solved]

[purpletree]

In checking with search engines and also using Software Manager, I've come across MAT (Metadata Anonymisation Toolkit). Unfortunately it's a package that's broken.
Does anyone have any recommendations regarding software that's good at removing (and viewing) metadata?

[xenopeek]

Metadata on what type of files or created by which program?

[karlchen]

I assume the question is related to this previous thread: MAT (Metadata Anonymisation Toolkit) installs but fails to launch: Is it broken?
MAT 0.6.1-2 is available in the Ubuntu 16.04 software repository e.g. Yet the other thread suggested that the package may be broken in terms of dependencies.

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Metadata anonymisation toolkit
  
Metadata consist of information that characterizes data. Metadata are
used to provide documentation for data products. In essence, metadata
answer who, what, when, where, why, and how about every facet of the
data that are being documented.

Metadata within a file can tell a lot about you. Cameras record data
about when a picture was taken and what camera was used. Office
documents like PDF or Office automatically adds author and company
information to documents and spreadsheets.

Maybe you don't want to disclose those information on the web.

MAT only removes metadata from your files, it does not anonymise their
content, nor can it handle watermarking, steganography, or any too
custom metadata field/system.

If you really want to be anonymous, use file formats that does not contain any
metadata, or better: use plain-text.

Formats supported to some extent are:
   - Portable Network Graphics (PNG)
   - JPEG (.jpeg, .jpg, ...)
   - Open Document (.odt, .odx, .ods, ...)
   - Office Openxml (.docx, .pptx, .xlsx, ...)
   - Portable Document Fileformat (.pdf)
   - Tape ARchive (.tar, .tar.bz2, .tar.gz)
   - ZIP (.zip)
   - MPEG Audio (.mp3, .mp2, .mp1, .mpa)
   - Ogg Vorbis (.ogg)
   - Free Lossless Audio Codec (.flac)
   - Torrent (.torrent)

Also cf. Homepage MAT: Metadata Anonymisation Toolkit

[phd21]

HI purpletree,

I just read your post and the good replies to it. Here are my thoughts on this as well.

I do not know about the one in the Mint Software Manager or Synaptic Package Manager (SPM), but If you download their archive file from the link below for v0.6.1, right-click it extract here, you can double-click the python application "mat-gui" and it comes right up. You can create a shortcut to this as well.

MAT: Metadata Anonymisation Toolkit
https://mat.boum.org/

Direct download link to their archive file.
https://mat.boum.org/files/mat-0.6.1.tar.xz

Removing EXIF Data From Images and Photos in Linux - ShellHacks
https://www.shellhacks.com/remove-exif- ... tos-linux/

Hope this helps ...

Mat1.jpg

[wallyUSA]

@purpletree:

You might also look at "Xnview". (in Cinnamon Software Manager)

[lmuserx4849]

In checking with search engines and also using Software Manager, I've come across MAT (Metadata Anonymisation Toolkit). Unfortunately it's a package that's broken.
Does anyone have any recommendations regarding software that's good at removing (and viewing) metadata?

Command line: exiftool
Example:

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exiftool file           # list metadata
exiftool -all= file   # remove metadata

https://www.sno.phy.queensu.ca/~phil/exiftool/#writing

And for anything it doesn't handle (it'll read id3tags but not write), use easytag

[purpletree]

Thank very much for all those answers! It looks like the MAT package is out of date:
https://packages.qa.debian.org/m/mat.html

I was unable to find "Xnviewmp" using Software Manager.

I'll see if I can put together a tutorial on removing metadata as I work through the available options. Thanks again.

[jimallyn]

I'll see if I can put together a tutorial on removing metadata as I work through the available options. Thanks again.

I will be watching for that!

[lmuserx4849]

Came across this while reading a photo restoration book - Digital Asset Management using digiKam and Exiftool: cleaning up messy metadata
Talks about digikam and exiftool. Lots of good info on the various tags, listing, removing specific tags, removing groups of tags...

Also wanted to add that Gimp 2.10 supports editing metadata under Image > Meta Data > Edit Metadata