Removing EXIF Data 📷

When I upload images for my gemlog, I like them to be well-compressed with a maximum dimension of 800 pixels on the long side.

Also, I like all the identifying EXIF information (including the location) to be stripped.

So I wrote a shell script to do the dirty work, with a dependency on ImageMagick.

ImageMagick's website

Here are some examples:

stripexif infile.jpg outfile.jpg          # Quality 75%, 800 px max
stripexif -q 90 infile.jpg outfile.jpg    # Quality 90%, 800 px max
stripexif -d 500 infile.jpg outfile.jpg   # Quality 75%, 500 px max
stripexif -q 70 -d 500 infile.jpg outfile.jpg     # 70%, 500 px max

And here's the source. Note that if you have ImageMagick installed and the `magick` command isn't found, change it to `convert` (which is now deprecated).

#!/bin/sh

SCRIPT=$(basename $0)

usage_exit() {
    printf "usage: %s [-q quality_pct] [-d max_dim] infile outfile\n" "$SCRIPT" 1>&2
    exit 1
}

quality=""
max_dim=""
infile=""
outfile=""

while [ $# -gt 0 ]; do
    case "$1" in
        "-q")
            shift
            quality=$1
            ;;
        "-d")
            shift
            max_dim=$1
            ;;
        "-h"|"--help")
            usage_exit
            ;;
        *)
            if [ -z "$infile" ]; then
                infile="$1"
            elif [ -z "$outfile" ]; then
                outfile="$1"
            else
                usage_exit
            fi
            ;;
    esac

    shift
done

if [ -z "$infile" -o -z "$outfile" ]; then
    usage_exit
fi

if [ -z "$quality" ]; then
    quality=75
fi

if [ -z "$max_dim" ]; then
    max_dim=800
fi

quality_cl="-quality $quality%"
max_dim_cl="-resize ${max_dim}x${max_dim}\\>"

magick $infile -strip $quality_cl $max_dim_cl $outfile

Don't forget to `chmod 700 stripexif` and put it somewhere in your `PATH`. As a side note, I personally use the directory `~/.local/bin` for things like that.

Happy scripting!

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