ExifRead 3.2.0

Stable Version

The recommended process is to install the PyPI package, as it allows easily staying up to date:

$ pip install exifread

See the pip documentation for more info.

EXIF.py is mature software and strives for stability.

Development Version

After cloning the repo, use the provided Makefile:

make venv install-all

Which will create a virtual environment and install development dependencies.

Command line

Some examples:

EXIF.py image1.jpg
EXIF.py -dc image1.jpg image2.tiff
find ~/Pictures -name "*.jpg" -o -name "*.tiff" | xargs EXIF.py

Show command line options:

EXIF.py -h

Python Script

import exifread

# Open image file for reading (must be in binary mode)
with open(file_path, "rb") as file_handle:

    # Return Exif tags
    tags = exifread.process_file(file_handle)

Note: To use this library in your project as a Git submodule, you should:

from <submodule_folder> import exifread

Returned tags will be a dictionary mapping names of Exif tags to their values in the file named by file_path. You can process the tags as you wish. In particular, you can iterate through all the tags with:

for tag, value in tags.items():
    if tag not in ('JPEGThumbnail', 'TIFFThumbnail', 'Filename', 'EXIF MakerNote'):
        print(f"Key: {tag}, value {value}")

An if statement is used to avoid printing out a few of the tags that tend to be long or boring.

The tags dictionary will include keys for all of the usual Exif tags, and will also include keys for Makernotes used by some cameras, for which we have a good specification.

Note that the dictionary keys are the IFD name followed by the tag name. For example:

'EXIF DateTimeOriginal', 'Image Orientation', 'MakerNote FocusMode'

Faster Processing

Don’t process makernote tags, don’t extract the thumbnail image (if any).

Pass the -q or --quick command line arguments, or as:

tags = exifread.process_file(file_handle, details=False)

To process makernotes only, without extracting the thumbnail image (if any):

tags = exifread.process_file(file_handle, details=True, extract_thumbnail=False)

To extract the thumbnail image (if any), without processing makernotes:

tags = exifread.process_file(file_handle, details=False, extract_thumbnail=True)

Stop at a Given Tag

To stop processing the file after a specified tag is retrieved.

Pass the -t TAG or --stop-tag TAG argument, or as:

tags = exifread.process_file(file_handle, stop_tag='TAG')

where TAG is a valid tag name, ex 'DateTimeOriginal'.

The two above options are useful to speed up processing of large numbers of files.

Strict Processing

Return an error on invalid tags instead of silently ignoring.

Pass the -s or --strict argument, or as:

tags = exifread.process_file(file_handle, strict=True)

Built-in Types

For easier serialization and programmatic use, this option returns a dictionary with values in built-in Python types (int, float, str, bytes, list, None) instead of IfdTag objects.

Pass the -b or --builtin argument, or as:

tags = exifread.process_file(file_handle, builtin_types=True)

For direct JSON serialization, combine this option with details=False to avoid bytes in the output:

json.dumps(exifread.process_file(file_handle, details=False, builtin_types=True))

Usage Example

This example shows how to use the library to correct the orientation of an image (using Pillow for the transformation) before e.g. displaying it.

import exifread
from PIL import Image
import logging

def _read_img_and_correct_exif_orientation(path):
    im = Image.open(path)
    tags = {}
    with open(path, "rb") as file_handle:
        tags = exifread.process_file(file_handle, details=False)

    if "Image Orientation" in tags:
        orientation = tags["Image Orientation"]
        logging.basicConfig(level=logging.DEBUG)
        logging.debug("Orientation: %s (%s)", orientation, orientation.values)
        val = orientation.values
        if 2 in val:
            val += [4, 3]
        if 5 in val:
            val += [4, 6]
        if 7 in val:
            val += [4, 8]
        if 3 in val:
            logging.debug("Rotating by 180 degrees.")
            im = im.transpose(Image.ROTATE_180)
        if 4 in val:
            logging.debug("Mirroring horizontally.")
            im = im.transpose(Image.FLIP_TOP_BOTTOM)
        if 6 in val:
            logging.debug("Rotating by 270 degrees.")
            im = im.transpose(Image.ROTATE_270)
        if 8 in val:
            logging.debug("Rotating by 90 degrees.")
            im = im.transpose(Image.ROTATE_90)
    return im