EXIF metadata in images can reveal boatloads ⛵ of information about each photograph you take. Geolocation, time & date, even the lense and f-stop, model of camera, etc.
Often, people wish to modify, alter, or completely remove such information - you would certainly be wise not to include most, if not all of that data when posting to public forums on the Internet, especially considering that Lat/Lon coordinates might be part of that metadata, which is a great way to self-dox yourself.
I'm going to cover only the straightforward acquiring of two bits of software (which will include much more) so you can venture into the crevices where EXIF data you didn't even know existed resides. For that, we use ExifTool by Phil Harvey; the latest version having been released 3 weeks ago.
Next, we're going to install a GUI front-end that exploits just about everything you can do with ExifTool - which itself is a CLI application. That GUI front-end is jexiftool, and when we're finished, you're going to have many Perl modules and a JRE installed on your system.
For the sake of simplicity, I usually write up these cookbook style tutorials using either the latest Debian Testing or Slackware -current distro - both are for intents and purposes a rolling distro that is a moving target on the bleeding edge of the Linux world.
This time, we'll be using Debian 14 (Forky) running KDE Plasma. The total time to install all of this is about 5 minutes.
I write in Markdown, I don't know exactly how that's going to render here on Nostr, but regardless, it's easy to read and you can post it into any markdown editor to make it pretty. i.e., Ghostwriter or Apostrophe.
So without further ado, let's get started!
# INSTALL.jexiftool.md
## The various URLs to keep bookmarked:
*
https://hvdwolf.github.io/jExifToolGUI/manual/index.html*
https://github.com/hvdwolf/jExifToolGUI/releases*
https://exiftool.orgThere's a whole boatload of info and other links at some of these, but in a nutshell, here's the install process:
## Installing exiftool and the jexiftool GUI front end:
### Latest version a/o this writing is: v13.59 released 27 May 2026
1. ) pick a working direcoty and d/l the latest version of exiftool
`$ wget
https://sourceforge.net/projects/exiftool/files/Image-ExifTool-13.59.tar.gz/download`2. ) d/l the latest version of jexiftool into the same directory
`$ wget
https://github.com/hvdwolf/jExifToolGUI/releases/download/2.0.2/jexiftoolgui-2.0.2.deb` 3. ) perform the following:
```
~$ tar zxvf Image-ExifTool-13.59.tar.gz
~$ su -
~# cd /path/to/Image-ExifTool-13.59.tar.gz/Image-ExifTool-13.59
# perl Makefile.PL
# make
# make test
# make install
# cd ..
# dpkg -i jexiftoolgui-2.0.2.deb # this will probably fail, so...
# apt-get -f ./jexiftoolgui-2.0.2.deb # this will succeed & install deps
```
Easy Peasy!
Go launch it (jexiftool) from your menu. It should be in your Graphics submenue in KDE Plasma, for example.
Enjoy!
#tallship #FOSS #Tutorial #ExifTool #jexiftoolGUI #EXIF_data #Privacy ⛵
