How to Remove EXIF Data from JPEG Files in Ubuntu
Most modern digital cameras and cell phone cameras add metadata to the images they create using the Exchangeable Image File Format standard. That information can be very useful for you when you need to know exactly when, or in some cases even where, a photograph was taken. That information, however, may be more than you want to share when you decide to place photographs online. Luckily, there is a very easy way to remove this data in Ubuntu.
A single image taken with a camera like my Android G1 can contain a lot of information as shown below:
EXIF Information from an Android G1 Photo
Removing EXIF Data in Ubuntu
This is a quick and easy way to remove EXIF data from JPG files from a Bash prompt in Ubuntu or other Debian derived versions of Linux. This method will let you remove the EXIF date from all images in a directory.
First, install the jhead package via apt-get. Open a terminal window and type:
sudo apt-get install jhead
After jhead is installed you may want to review all the ways you can use this powerful tool by typing:
man jhead
You can use jhead to add/remove/modify information in JPG files but for now, all we are going to do is strip out all the information from the file that is not needed to render the image itself. This may be more than you feel you need but it will give you the most privacy that I know how to provide.
To remove all EXIF info from a single image just open a terminal window and type:
jhead -purejpg /path/to/image.jpg
You can also use wild cards so you can use:
jhead -purejpg /path/to/*.jpg
or
jhead -purejpg /path/to/*.JPG
Since the jhead tool only acts on jpeg files you can do an entire directory of files – regardless of the case of the file extension using xargs like this:
ls | xargs jhead -purejpg
from within the directory of photos.
Yea But I do not want to strip all of my pictures. SO what is this help helping me ? Sudo apt-get install jhead this and that and then what?
All my pictures lose important data depth ,just all important for
some good picture viewer .I end up having problems opening some pic later on.
I just want to select the pic I am posting that’s it.
I do not find anything useful here or on other postings.I am new on Ubuntu 9.4 and sometime is just succ.Can’t find what I want.
Time consuming ….
Chris, this is not for general use. If you do not see the usefulness then it really just doesn’t apply to you. When using sites like Flickr or even just posting photos on a website there are times when some people prefer NOT to have the day and time the photo was taken embedded in the image for anyone to see. This technique only applies to people who would like to remove that information or other EXIF meta data from their photos.
By the way, this has no effect on the APPEARANCE of your photos at all. Its just removing text data stored alongside the image data.