Metadata Cleaner
Version: 2.0.1 Web: https://gitlab.com/ rmnvgr/metadata-cleaner
Privacy has long been a concern among Linux users, because the more we use our computers, the more data is collected and received by third parties. Of course, there are many aspects to security, but here we’re focusing on just one: the traces we leave within our files. It’s no secret that images, music and video files contain lots of metadata to help us obtain information to better identify the file. For example, photo files can store information about date, time, shutter speed, camera model and more. Sometimes we don’t want all this data to be made public, either for the sake of privacy or to prevent confusion. Metadata Cleaner is a small GTK-based application dedicated to this worthy cause.
It’s very simple to use: launch the tool, hit the Add Files button and select something from your file system. Metadata Cleaner examines the files and displays them as a list. Each entry bears a red badge displaying the number of strings found; an average photo taken by a smartphone usually contains over 90 fields. Click it to open a list of them all. You’re not supposed to edit any of the metadata, but if you hit the red Clean button, everything is wiped away. Metadata Cleaner alters a file’s contents but shouldn’t break anything.
Bear in mind that while the absence of any metadata is perfect for privacy, it does prevent good file indexing and sorting in various catalogue and library managers, such as digiKam, Shotwell and so on. If unsure, make a backup of the original files; that’s exactly what Metadata Cleaner politely asks you to do when running it for the first time. Alternatively, enable the light cleaning mode in the program’s settings. That way, Metadata Cleaner enables several sorts of embedded metadata to remain.