YKYH Picks
☰ Menu
Home›Command-Line Tools›exiftool
CLI Open source 9,161 installs/mo

exiftool for Mac

Perl lib for reading and writing EXIF metadata

Quick answer: exiftool is a command-line tool for macOS. Install it with brew install exiftool. It is distributed under the Artistic-1.0-Perl OR GPL-1.0-or-later licence. It has 9,161 Homebrew installs in the last 30 days.

What exiftool is

exiftool is a command-line tool for macOS: perl lib for reading and writing EXIF metadata.

It is distributed as a Homebrew formula, which builds or pours a binary and puts it on your PATH. It is distributed under the Artistic-1.0-Perl OR GPL-1.0-or-later licence.

How to install exiftool

  1. Open Terminal (press ⌘ + Space and type “Terminal”).
  2. If Homebrew is not installed yet, run the installer below once.
  3. Run brew install exiftool.

Homebrew installer, if you need it:

Prefer a graphical installer? Download it from the official site. MacPicks never hosts or mirrors binaries — the Homebrew command always pulls from the vendor's own release.

Similar apps in Command-Line Tools

Closest apps in the same category, ordered by description similarity and install base. These are related tools, not confirmed substitutes; the comparison pages cover hand-picked head-to-head matchups.

jupyterlabInteractive environments for writing and running codeCLIOpen source6,617/molibzipC library for reading, creating, and modifying zip archivesCLIOpen source5,538/mopcre2Perl compatible regular expressions library with a new APICLIOpen source4,401/mozbarSuite of barcodes-reading toolsCLIOpen source3,015/mosourceryMeta-programming for Swift, stop writing boilerplate codeCLIOpen source2,816/motermboxLibrary for writing text-based user interfacesCLIOpen source1,114/mo

Frequently asked questions

How do I install exiftool on Mac?

Run brew install exiftool in Terminal. This requires Homebrew; if you do not have it, install it first with the command below.

Is exiftool open source?

Yes — Homebrew distributes it under the Artistic-1.0-Perl OR GPL-1.0-or-later licence.

Does exiftool run on Apple silicon?

Homebrew publishes this formula for macOS. If upstream does not ship an Apple silicon build, Rosetta 2 handles the Intel binary.

How popular is exiftool?

It was installed 9,161 times in the last 30 days according to Homebrew analytics, ranking #208 in this catalogue.

What version of exiftool is current?

The latest packaged version is 13.55.