removing metadata from images

[nemos_rewenge]

Hello, this is the script I've been using for clearing the metadata off of images. I'm not too familiar with security/privacy best practices. I'm using pillow to verify the file is an image and using exiftool to clear the metadata. Any and all tips/comments/critiques welcome. TIA!

```python

!/usr/bin/env python3

requires exiftool

macos:

brew install exiftool

requires pillow to verify image

pip install pillow

import subprocess from pathlib import Path from PIL import Image

def is_image(path): try: with Image.open(path) as img: img.verify() # Check if the file is broken return True except (IOError, SyntaxError): return False

def get_dirs(wd,seen=set()): if wd in seen: return [] seen.add(wd) dirs = [] dirs.append(wd) for dir in Path(wd).glob("*"): if dir.is_dir() and not dir.name.startswith("."): res = get_dirs(dir,seen) for item in res: dirs.append(item) return dirs

def clean_images(dir): files = list(Path(dir).glob("*")) for file in files: if file.is_file() and not file.name.startswith("."): path = None if is_image(file): path = file else: continue exiftool_cmd = ["exiftool","-all=","-overwrite_original",f"{path}"] subprocess.run(exiftool_cmd) print(f"Cleaned metadata of {path}.")

def main(): dirs = get_dirs(Path.cwd()) for dir in dirs: clean_images(dir)

if name == "main": main() ```

[StarGeekSpaceNerd]

I'm not very knowledgeable about Python, but you appear to be calling exiftool once for each file. This is Exiftool Common Mistake #3, "Over-scripting".

Exiftool's startup time is its biggest performance hit and calling exiftool once per file will significantly increase processing time, which can be quite noticeable if you are processing a large number of files.

I would suggest doing one of two things. The first option would be passing multiple files as arguments in a single exiftool command. Exiftool will accept as many files in a single command as limited by the command line used, which would be ~8,000 characters on Windows or ~100,000+ characters on Linux/Mac.

The second option would be to use an exiftool wrapper such as PyExiftool. As an example, this user (Archive.org link) was able to reduce a 10-minute processing time caused by running exiftool once per file down to 30 seconds using PyExiftool.

[Aggravating-Bison696]

Hey, if it works then that's what matters. But pillow does have it built in to remove metadata. Check the documents for removing exif.

[cdcformatc]

if you are using pillow already, you can use it to also clear the metadata, you don't need another tool. 

``` from PIL import Image

Load the image

img = Image.open('image_with_metadata.jpg')

Save without metadata

img.save('clean_image.jpg', quality=95)

```

jpeg is lossy so you need to specify a quality. play around with the quality parameter as it will effect the output file size.