MCP ExifTool Server

mcp-name: io.github.joshmsimpson/exiftool

An MCP (Model Context Protocol) server that provides access to ExifTool for reading, writing, and removing metadata from a wide range of file types.

Features

• Read metadata from over 150 file formats
• Write metadata to files with automatic backup creation
• Remove metadata selectively or completely from files
• Extract specific tags or retrieve all available metadata
• Support for multiple metadata standards: EXIF, IPTC, XMP, GPS, and manufacturer-specific formats

Supported File Formats

Image Formats:

• RAW Camera Formats: ARW, CR2, CR3, CRW, DNG, ERF, FFF, GPR, IIQ, K25, KDC, MEF, MRW, NEF, NRW, ORF, PEF, RAF, RAW, RW2, RWL, SR2, SRF, SRW, X3F
• Raster Images: BMP, FLIF, GIF, HDR, HEIC, HEIF, JPEG, JPEG 2000, JXL, JXR, PCX, PGF, PNG, PPM, TIFF, WebP
• Specialized Images: AVIF, BPG, DPX, EXR, FITS, FLIR, FPX, ICO, LFP, MIFF, PSD, PSP, QTIF, SVG

Video Formats:

• Containers: 3GP, AVI, F4V, FLV, GLV, M2TS, MOV, MP4, MKV, MPEG, R3D, VOB, WebM, WTV
• Other Video: DV, DVR-MS, INSV, LRV, MQV

Audio Formats:

• Lossless: AIFF, FLAC, LA, OFR, PAC, WAV, WV
• Lossy: AAC, APE, DSF, M4A, MP3, MPC, OGG, OPUS, RA, WMA

Document Formats:

• Office: DOC, DOCX, XLSX, PPTX, XLS, KEY, NUMBERS, PAGES
• Other Documents: PDF, EPS, RTF, TXT, XML, JSON
• eBooks: EPUB, MOBI, AZW

Archive Formats:

• 7z, GZ, RAR, ZIP

Other Formats:

• Fonts: AFM, OTF, PFA, TTF
• And many more specialized formats

Prerequisites

ExifTool must be installed on your system. This MCP server is a wrapper that calls the ExifTool command-line tool.

Installing ExifTool

macOS:

brew install exiftool

Ubuntu/Debian:

sudo apt-get install libimage-exiftool-perl

Windows: Download from https://exiftool.org/

Verify installation:

exiftool -ver

Installation

pip install exiftool-mcp

Usage

With Claude Desktop

Add this to your claude_desktop_config.json:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "exiftool": {
      "command": "exiftool-mcp"
    }
  }
}

With Other MCP Clients

The server communicates via stdio and follows the Model Context Protocol specification.

Available Tools

read_metadata

Read metadata from a file using ExifTool.

Parameters:

• file_path (required): Path to the file (absolute or relative)
• tags (optional): Array of specific metadata tags to extract (e.g., ["DateTimeOriginal", "Make", "Model"])

Example:

{
  "file_path": "/path/to/image.jpg",
  "tags": ["DateTimeOriginal", "Make", "Model", "GPSLatitude", "GPSLongitude"]
}

write_metadata

Write or update metadata tags in a file using ExifTool. Creates a backup by default.

Parameters:

• file_path (required): Path to the file (absolute or relative)
• tags (required): Dictionary of metadata tags to write (e.g., {"Artist": "John Doe", "Copyright": "2025"})
• overwrite_original (optional): If true, overwrites the original file without creating a backup. Default is false.

Example:

{
  "file_path": "/path/to/image.jpg",
  "tags": {
    "Artist": "John Doe",
    "Copyright": "2025",
    "Comment": "Beautiful sunset"
  },
  "overwrite_original": false
}

remove_metadata

Remove metadata from a file using ExifTool. Can remove all metadata or specific tags.

Parameters:

• file_path (required): Path to the file (absolute or relative)
• tags (optional): Array of specific metadata tags to remove (e.g., ["GPS*", "Comment"]). If not specified, all metadata is removed.
• overwrite_original (optional): If true, overwrites the original file without creating a backup. Default is false.

Example:

{
  "file_path": "/path/to/image.jpg",
  "tags": ["GPS*", "Location*"],
  "overwrite_original": false
}

list_supported_formats

List all file formats supported by ExifTool.

Parameters: None

Examples

Reading all metadata from an image

Use the read_metadata tool with file_path: "photo.jpg"

Reading specific EXIF tags

Use the read_metadata tool with:
- file_path: "photo.jpg"
- tags: ["DateTimeOriginal", "Make", "Model", "LensModel"]

Writing metadata to a file

Use the write_metadata tool with:
- file_path: "photo.jpg"
- tags: {"Artist": "Jane Smith", "Copyright": "2025", "Rating": "5"}

Removing GPS data from a photo

Use the remove_metadata tool with:
- file_path: "photo.jpg"
- tags: ["GPS*"]

Removing all metadata from a file

Use the remove_metadata tool with:
- file_path: "photo.jpg"
(no tags specified removes all metadata)

Checking supported formats

Use the list_supported_formats tool

Development

Setup

git clone https://github.com/joshmsimpson/exiftool_mcp.git
cd exiftool_mcp
pip install -e .

Running locally

python -m exiftool_mcp.server

License

MIT

Contributing

Contributions are welcome! Please feel free to submit a Pull Request.

Links

• GitHub Repository
• PyPI Package
• ExifTool Official Site
• Model Context Protocol
• MCP Registry