The libexif C EXIF library

is a library written in pure portable C.
reads and writes EXIF metainformation from and to image files.
is licensed under the GNU LESSER GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE Version 2.1 (LGPL).
runs under POSIX systems (e.g. GNU/Linux, xBSD, MacOS X, Windows, etc.).

Digital cameras store a surprising amount of information inside each picture they take, in a normally invisible format known as EXIF. Everything from photo basics like the camera shutter speed and aperture to the GPS location and even the name of the camera owner can be hidden inside each photograph. libexif is a library that lets you access that data from within a computer program. Some simple applications called exif and gexif are also supplied alongside libexif that use it to view EXIF data from the command-line or GUI (respectively).

Documentation

See the documentation index page.

Download

Source

Download the source code archive by choosing the Github repository link for the subproject you want (in the About section below) and navigate to its releases page (here's a shortcut for libexif). Old releases are available from the historical archive.

Binaries

The libexif project supplies only source code packages. Helpful people around the world compile the source code and provide binaries for a number of platforms. Here is a list of some of the sites you can look. Please report any problems with these binaries to their respective maintainers and not to libexif project members, as we have nothing to do with them. In particular, check the version as it may not be the latest and may therefore suffer from known security issues.

AIX: Michael Perzl,
DragonFly BSD: DragonFly project
FreeBSD: FreeBSD ports
Haiku: Haiku ports
Linux: Chances are, exif and libexif are already supplied by your distribution provider. Use your distribution's package install tool to find and install them. Or, use a cross-distribution package from Conan or Conda-forge.
Mac OS X: Conan, Conda-forge, Fink, Homebrew, Mac Ports
MidnightBSD: MidnightBSD
Minix: Minix3
NetBSD: NetBSD ports
OpenBSD: OpenBSD ports
Solaris/illumos: Open CSW, Open Indiana, pkgsrc, Unix Packages ($)
Windows: Conan, Conda-forge, Cygwin, msys2, VCPKG

News

2025-01-08: libexif 0.6.25 enhancement/bugfix release. Release notes
2023-09-27: libexif is now REUSE compliant!
2021-11-25: libexif 0.6.24 enhancement/bugfix release. Release notes
2021-09-12: libexif 0.6.23 enhancement/bugfix/security release. CVE-2020-0198, CVE-2020-0452, Release notes
2020-08-31: libexif-gtk 0.5.0 stability/bugfix release. Release notes
2020-05-20: exif 0.6.22 stability/bugfix release. Release notes
2020-05-18: libexif 0.6.22 stability/bugfix/security release fixes CVE-2018-20030, CVE-2020-13114, CVE-2020-13113, CVE-2020-13112, CVE-2020-0093, CVE-2019-9278, CVE-2020-12767, CVE-2016-6328, CVE-2017-7544, Release notes
2017-11-30: We have moved to Github!
2013-03-07: libexif-gtk 0.4.0 stability/bugfix release. Release notes
2012-07-12: libexif and exif 0.6.21 security release fixes CVE-2012-2812, CVE-2012-2813, CVE-2012-2814, CVE-2012-2836, CVE-2012-2837, CVE-2012-2840, CVE-2012-2841 & CVE-2012-2845. Release notes Security advisory
2010-12-15: libexif and exif 0.6.20 stability/bugfix release. Release notes
2009-11-12: libexif and exif 0.6.19 security/performance release fixes CVE-2009-3895. Release notes Security advisory
2009-10-09: libexif and exif 0.6.18 stability/bugfix release. Release notes
2008-11-08: libexif and exif 0.6.17 security/bugfix release fixes CVE-2007-6351 and CVE-2007-6352 as well as many other bug fixes and enhancements. Release notes
2007-06-12: libexif-0.6.16 security release fixes CVE-2006-4168 aka IDEF1514. Release notes

About the libexif project

The libexif project maintains these five software packages:
- libexif, the EXIF parsing library.
- exif, the simple command line interface to libexif.
- libexif-gtk, the library of GTK+ based graphical user interface elements for libexif.
- gexif, the GTK+ based GUI interface to libexif-gtk.
- libexif-testsuite, a harness for regression testing of libexif and exif.
Github project page to browse source code
SF.net project page to report bugs