exiftool

This MCP server provides a set of tools to retrieve EXIF metadata from image and video files by invoking ExifTool. It runs as a command-line/stdio transport MCP server that accepts JSON-RPC 2.0 requests on standard input and returns the extracted metadata as JSON on standard output. The available tools include: EXIF_all_or_some (fetches all EXIF properties or a specified subset), EXIF_location (GPS-related metadata), EXIF_timestamp (time-related metadata), and EXIF_location_and_timestamp (both GPS and timestamp data). Clients can connect via MCP Inspector or Claude Desktop and use these tools by constructing appropriate JSON-RPC calls with the required parameters. The server safely executes exiftool with provided arguments and returns the results in a structured JSON format, suitable for downstream processing or display within your application.

To use the tools, first start the server in your environment (see installation steps). Then connect a client (e.g., MCP Inspector) to the server’s standard input/output endpoints. Use the List Tools capability to discover available tools, and invoke a tool by sending a JSON-RPC request with the tool name and required parameters. For example, EXIF_all_or_some can be invoked with an optional list of EXIF tags to return; if omitted, all tags are returned. The EXIF_location and EXIF_timestamp tools target GPS and timestamp data respectively. You can combine location and timestamp in EXIF_location_and_timestamp to fetch both types of data in a single request.

Prerequisites:\n- Node.js v14+ (recommended)\n- ExifTool installed on your system (required for metadata extraction)\n\nInstallation steps:\n1) Clone the repository or download the release:\n git clone https://github.com/vgribok/exiftool-mcp-server.git\n cd exiftool-mcp-server\n\n2) Install dependencies:\n npm install\n\n3) Run the server (development):\n npm run start\n # or, if there is no start script, you can run directly with ts-node if needed:\n # npx ts-node src/index.ts\n\n4) Verify the server is running by observing startup logs and connecting a client (e.g., MCP Inspector) to the server’s stdin/stdout endpoints.

Notes and tips:\n- Ensure ExifTool is installed and accessible in your system PATH; the server will call exiftool to retrieve metadata. If ExifTool is installed in a non-standard location, set the EXIFTOOL_PATH environment variable to its executable path.\n- The server is designed to sanitize inputs and disallow shell metacharacters to reduce command injection risks. Validate inputs from trusted sources before invocation.\n- If running via TS/TS-Node in development, you may need to use ts-node/register or appropriate loader depending on your environment.\n- When testing with MCP Inspector, use the List Tools function to discover available tools and their expected input schemas before sending test requests.\n- If you encounter permissions or binary invocation issues on Windows, ensure the exiftool.exe is reachable and executable from the environment running Node.\n- For production deployments, consider containerizing the server and mounting ExifTool as part of the image to simplify dependencies.