CreatorPrivacyKit compared with ExifTool

CreatorPrivacyKit compared with ExifTool?

ExifTool 13.60 is a local Perl tool that reads and writes far more PDF structure than this site, including incremental updates that leave old metadata in the file until a later linearize, while these pages stay inside one browser tab.

Last updated 2026-10-31

Last checked 2026-10-22

What the download page lists

On 29 October 2026 the ExifTool homepage listed Download Version 13.60 (7.9 MB), dated Oct. 28, 2026, a Windows 32-bit zip of 11.4 MB, and a Windows 64-bit zip of 11.2 MB. Those sizes are the files offered for download. The table below was run with the installed CLI, ExifTool 12.76.

Same files, 29 October 2026

One synthetic JPEG, one generated PDF, one minimal DOCX, and one 1-second MP4 were written on this machine. ExifTool 12.76, pdfinfo 24.02.0, qpdf 11.9.0, pdf-lib 1.17.1, and headless Chrome/154.0.8037.92 each saw the same starting bytes. Pillow 10.2.0 drew the JPEG. The canvas path followed the homepage steps: createImageBitmap, a 2D canvas with alpha, drawImage, then toBlob as JPEG at quality 0.95. qpdf 11.9.0 --linearize on the ExifTool PDF exited 3 and warned that the operation succeeded with warnings, so this table has no linearized byte count. The record is docs/evidence/runs/2026-10-29-comp-fixtures.json.

File	Bytes	SHA-256	Read back with ExifTool 12.76
JPEG with GPS, Make, Model, Artist	43765	cd9b1ad4f967de3e0f00adebfcbe2adcfc3322728de35df48a3c68a2cf98b060	GPS 35 deg 41' 22.20" N, 139 deg 41' 30.12" E. Make CPKComp. Model Fixture29. Artist CPKComp29.
Same JPEG after exiftool -all=	43469	59e04412be4c8b48d12aa563500890b0f0c250b4c9ef625c4e477e3683422862	Those GPS, Make, Model, and Artist tags were absent. 296 bytes smaller.
Same JPEG after headless Chrome canvas toBlob, JPEG quality 0.95	44326	1acaf125642e0f5f4219816fd961126fdd16e58484f8332477d7d84f7facdc5f	Those GPS, Make, Model, and Artist tags were absent. An sRGB ICC profile was present. 44326 bytes is 561 bytes above 43765. Chrome/154.0.8037.92. The homepage button was not clicked.
PDF with Info fields and catalog XMP	1175	de9e8967f9989b03e60017803ff806120da5eeac2c1fa62dbffb7234554e030e	Info title Comp29 Title. XMP title Comp29 XMP Title. pdfinfo 24.02.0: Metadata Stream yes.
clearSupportedMetadata (pdf-lib 1.17.1)	1005	716796daf1a6dd3db0959c6e5ef34d591bc421b107077bc70fbe3144dd89869c	Info fields blank. XMP title Comp29 XMP Title remained. pdfinfo: Metadata Stream yes.
clearPdfInfoAndXmp	452	e92b25c3c8ffc2c60d133eb83fc5006a1f3fc2ca748abd3f48e2da4257ec92fb	Those Info and XMP titles were absent. pdfinfo: Metadata Stream no.
Same PDF after exiftool -all=	1458	63c14d078597af47a38bc23187de9b77c68293347f40c177a5587ea82aa52f01	Those titles were absent. pdfinfo: Metadata Stream no. 1458 bytes is 283 bytes above 1175.
DOCX with core and app properties	3440	2da0ac8d65938637b900bb59685894c64af71474801760a8ea843eb829db9633	Title Comp29 Doc Title. Creator Comp29 Doc Author. Company Comp29 Company.
stripOfficeProps	1315	d267a1e553cda0795c530d115d85b3010d281098d530f0ff5516a936bf209c95	Those three were absent. The body sentence remained. 2125 bytes smaller.
Same DOCX after exiftool -all=	3440	2da0ac8d65938637b900bb59685894c64af71474801760a8ea843eb829db9633	Exit status 1. The hash stayed the same, and title, creator, and company were still present.
MP4 with title and comment	32024	dbc2af7960e6d403353264c1b80f9551fe67dc62ba38037f19f16f70057ac626	ItemList title Comp29 Title. ItemList comment CPKComp29.
sanitizeIsoBmff	32024	d02a2130145d7f6d0f18e6f3b10864cfc7b5896788ad360431c30dba426a981f	Those two ItemList tags were absent. The file stayed 32024 bytes.
Same MP4 after exiftool -all=	31857	848676ac149f7a6fab4e50ebaf341f6854344f4ec4760ea366ff6691a4fcc3d7	Those two ItemList tags were absent. 167 bytes smaller.

PDF, where the difference is sharp

ExifTool writes PDF with an incremental update. All metadata edits are reversible. Old information is never actually deleted. After ExifTool, qpdf --linearize can remove the old bytes. The page was last revised Jun 19, 2025.
Info tags it names include Author, Creator, Producer, Title, Subject, Keywords, CreateDate, ModifyDate, and Trapped. It also documents the catalog Metadata stream as XMP, plus forms, signatures, and embedded images.
This site’s Info-only remover clears the Info dictionary and leaves catalog XMP. The Info and XMP page deletes those Info keys and the catalog Metadata entry, then reads the new file. On the generated sample, the marker was gone. Encrypted PDFs are rejected. No password is tried.

When the browser page is the right tool

Use it when the file should not leave the tab and the field you care about is one this parser reads: JPEG, PNG, WebP, MP4 or MOV boxes, the three Office property parts, or PDF Info and catalog XMP. Use ExifTool when you need the long tail, and then decide whether a reversible PDF edit is acceptable. The Info and XMP remover and the verify-after-strip notes are the browser side of that choice.

digiKam, AmoK Exif Sorter, and ExifToolGui

digiKam 9.2.0 is a desktop photo catalog. Its Batch Queue Manager manual, read on 31 October 2026, includes Remove Metadata. That tool deletes selected portions of Exif, IPTC, and XMP from files already in the queue. Exif choices are Completely, Date, GPS, XPKeywords, and Comments and Descriptions. IPTC choices are Completely, Date, and Caption. XMP choices are Completely, Date, DigiKam, DigiKam image history, Dublin Core, Exif, Video, and Caption comment and description. The same manual page also documents tools that write metadata templates, captions, labels, translations, and time shifts.

AmoK Exif Sorter 3.31 is dated 11.07.2025 on amok.am. It renames photos from EXIF and IPTC, and it can move or copy them into folders named from those fields. It can export EXIF and IPTC to text or XML. The feature list on that page does not describe deleting EXIF, IPTC, or XMP from the photo. It runs on Windows, Linux, and Mac, and it uses Java.

ExifToolGui V6.3.12 was updated on May 8, 2026. The README calls it a GUI for ExifTool and says ExifTool is installed separately. The V6 documentation has a Remove metadata section. It says the displayed tags are the tags that will be deleted, the selection is remembered, and for some formats ExifTool refuses to remove the selected metadata. The program is a Windows interface over ExifTool, so a PDF edit still follows ExifTool’s incremental update.

Another JPEG, 31 October 2026

Pillow 10.2.0 wrote a 320×240 JPEG at quality 90. ExifTool 12.76 then wrote the GPS, Make, Model, Artist, exposure, ISO, and DateTimeOriginal values in the table. The coordinates are a fixture. The homepage button was not clicked. mat2 0.13.4 ran without --inplace and rewrote the JPEG. That rewrite is separate from the 29 October 2026 canvas path at quality 0.95, which stays in the table above. The record is docs/evidence/runs/2026-10-31-exif-trends.json.

File	Bytes	SHA-256	Read back
JPEG with GPS, Make, Model, Artist, exposure, ISO, DateTimeOriginal	20348	2cd04eca26d99a59fccb44d54697862324dbf0329941328b66838036f6b819ad	ExifTool 12.76: 35 deg 0' 0.00" N, 135 deg 0' 0.00" E. Make CPKTrend. Model Fixture1031. Artist CPKTrend31. ExposureTime 1/125. FNumber 2.8. ISO 200. DateTimeOriginal 2026:10:31 09:00:00. inspectImageBytes: status ok, 11 rows, latitude 35, longitude 135.
Copy after exiftool -gps:all=	20222	47ed7acefb3d478dde942fe1f65d12fd67807cc465e302b798160b54d86dfcf2	Make and Model remained. inspectImageBytes gps was null. Status ok.
Copy after exiftool -all=	19896	6220afde9165d5a802529c4ab912fd0c77bdd94e0123a5f3d401a109aa09bcfc	Those GPS, Make, Model, Artist, exposure, ISO, and DateTimeOriginal tags were absent. 452 bytes smaller. inspectImageBytes status no_metadata. Rows: width and height.
mat2 0.13.4 cleaned copy, without --inplace	12196	6b9a38bd81a40f7cf5f0734b3f67f0929a3a0f803b6c625c29c15ad2946844a1	Those camera and GPS tags were absent. 8152 bytes smaller. ExifTool still listed JFIFVersion 1.01, ResolutionUnit None, XResolution 1, YResolution 1. inspectImageBytes status no_metadata. Rows: width and height. mat2 rewrote the JPEG.

Sources

Last checked 2026-10-22.

Questions

Is ExifTool more complete?

Yes. Its PDF tag page says the tags it lists are only a small fraction of available PDF tags. It reads and writes native PDF and XMP, supports encryption when you supply a password, and can extract embedded JPEG and JPEG 2000 images. These pages do not.

Should I use ExifTool to delete a PDF author?

If you do, know that the edit is reversible. The tag page says old information is never actually deleted, and that qpdf --linearize in.pdf out.pdf can remove it afterward. The browser Info and XMP page rewrites with pdf-lib and then re-reads. That is a different mechanism, checked on one generated file.

CreatorPrivacyKit compared with ExifTool