METADATA-CLEANER(1)

📦 version 4.0.0, in debian bookworm, debian trixie, ubuntu jammy, ubuntu noble, ubuntu questing, ubuntu resolute, ubuntu stonking

💖 NAME 💖

okay so bestie, lemme introduce you to metadata-cleaner — it's the little icon of a tool that lets you view the metadata hiding in your files and then clean it out. she's giving privacy, she's giving main character, she's literally right there in your General Commands Manual (section 1, periodt).

✨ SYNOPSYS ✨

metadata-cleaner [ files ... ]

(yes bestie the section is spelled SYNOPSYS in the original, I don't make the rules, I just report them 💅)

🦋 DESCRIPTION 🦋

so basically? this tool lets you view the metadata chilling inside your files, and then lets you get rid of it — as much as possible, anyway. no cap, she tries her best.

under the hood she's leaning on mat2 to do the actual parsing and metadata removal, so if you wanna go say hi to the engine room:

🌸 USAGE 🌸

you can pass files in two ways, your choice, both iconic:

  • straight from the commandline, or
  • opened from within the app itself, via the filebrowser
⚠️ heads up bestie, cleaning files might alter the data. like, fr fr: texts in PDF might not be selectable anymore, and compressed images might get compressed again. it's a whole thing. 😭

if you're the type of user who's willing to trade off some metadata's presence for the guarantee that your files won't be changed, then the lightweight mode is your girl. 🫶

👑 NOTE ABOUT REMOVING METADATA 👑

okay this part is important so listen up.

even though this tool is doing its very best to display metadata, that does NOT mean a file is clean from any metadata just because it doesn't show any. like, the absence of receipts is not the same as innocence, yk?

there's simply no reliable way to detect every single possible metadata for complex file formats. it's giving needle in a haystack, it's giving unsolved mystery. 🕵️♀️

so pls pls pls — don't rely on metadata's presence to decide whether your file must be cleaned or not. that's the one rule. ⭐

💀 BUGS 💀

found a bug? not me being dramatic but report it here, bestie:

🎀 AUTHOR 🎀

Romain Vigier — contact@romainvigier.fr

(thank you for your service king 👑)

🌈 SEE ALSO 🌈

  • mat2 (1) — the icon she's standing on 💅

okay that's the whole page bestie, you're officially educated ✨ this lil manual came from METADATA-CLEANER(1), the December 2020 edition, and yeah that's the same name up top and down at the bottom, she's consistent like that. go clean some metadata, you got this 🦋💖

📦 where this page comes from