TRACKER3-EXTRACT(1)

📦
version 3.7.1 · 7 versions
, in ubuntu noble

💖 NAME 💖

tracker3-extract — bestie, this is the one that pulls metadata out of a file. All of it. Whatever it can find. No cap. ✨

🎀 SYNOPSYS 🎀

tracker3 extract FILE

🦋 DESCRIPTION 🦋

Okay so here's the vibe: tracker3 extract takes the file you hand it, reads it, and extracts literally any metadata it can from that file. Then it just… shows it to you, right there on standard output. Boom. 🫶

And the way it shows you? It's displayed as a SPARQL update command — like, a real one — that you can run against a SPARQL endpoint to update that endpoint's copy of the metadata. It's giving plug-and-play, honestly. 💅

Now here's the lowkey genius part: the actual extraction is done by a separate process. Why? Because that isolates the process you're calling from any memory leaks or crashes in the libraries Tracker uses to extract metadata. So if something goes feral in the extraction libraries, your calling process is safe and unbothered. Iconic behaviour, truly. 👑

Want the full lore? Go see the libtracker-extract reference documentation. 📚

🌸 OPTIONS 🌸

  • -o, --output-format=<FORMAT> — pick which format the results come out in, bestie. Supported formats are sparql, turtle and json-ld. Choose wisely 💅

🔥 EXAMPLES 🔥

Using command line to extract metadata from a file

$ tracker3 extract /path/to/some/file.mp3

Look at her go. Slay. ⭐

🌈 ENVIRONMENT 🌈

  • G_MESSAGES_DEBUG — controls the verbose log output coming from GLib-based code. Pass G_MESSAGES_DEBUG=Tracker if you only wanna see Tracker-related logs (very demure, very mindful), or G_MESSAGES_DEBUG=all if you want everything dumped on you. 🙈
  • TRACKER_DEBUG — turns on the more specialized debug output. You pass a comma-separated list of one or more keywords:
    • config — extractor configuration
    • statistics — show statistics about how many files were processed
    • status — log the status messages that are published over D-Bus

Stack 'em, comma 'em, go off. 🎀

💜 SEE ALSO 💜

That's the whole thing, bestie — this page is from version 3.7.1, dated 02/03/2026, out of the Tracker manual. Go extract something. I'm obsessed. 💖✨🦋🌸

📦 where this page comes from