exiftool-mcp-server

This is an MCP Server (an MCP protocol compatible AI agent) for retrieving EXIF data from images (photos) and videos, using ExifTool. This agent was tested with MCP Inspector and Claude Desktop.

Note: the exiftool copyright belongs to its author, and not to the creators of this AI agent.

Table of Contents

• Description
• Dependencies
• Supported MCP Tools
• Usage
  • Testing with Claude Desktop
    • When Using Npmjs.org Package
    • When Code Cloned from GitHub Locally
  • Testing Locally With MCP Inspector
    • Prerequisites
    • Testing With MCP Inspector
• Contribution Guidelines
• Security Considerations
• License
• Author

Description

This project provides a command-line/stdio transport MCP (Model Context Protocol) server that allows clients to retrieve EXIF metadata from image and video files by safely executing the exiftool command with specified arguments. It listens for JSON requests on standard input and returns the EXIF data as JSON responses on standard output.

Dependencies

1. Ensure you have Node.js installed (version 14 or higher recommended).
2. Install ExifTool on your system. This tool is required for extracting metadata.

Supported MCP Tools:

• EXIF_all_or_some: Return all or some EXIF properties. If optionalExifTags are not supplied, return all. The optionalExifTags parameter is an optional array of strings representing EXIF property names to return.

• EXIF_location: Return GPS-related EXIF metadata.

• EXIF_timestamp: Return timestamp-related EXIF metadata.

• EXIF_location_and_timestamp: Return both GPS and timestamp EXIF metadata.

The server listens for JSON-RPC 2.0 requests on stdin.

Usage

Testing with Claude Desktop

When Using Npmjs.org Package

Use the following entry in the ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json

"Exiftool-agent": {
  "command": "npx",
  "args": [
    "-y",
    "exiftool-mcp-ai-agent"
  ]
}

When Code Cloned from GitHub Locally

Use the following development-time entry, in case you have cloned the source code, in Claude's ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json (with appropriate repo path change):

"Exiftool-agent": {
  "command": "sh",
  "args": [
    "-c",
    "cd ~/Projects/AI/exiftool-mcp-server && npx node --loader ts-node/esm --no-warnings src/index.ts"
  ]
}

Claude Desktop Integration View

Testing Locally With MCP Inspector

Prerequisites

Before testing with the MCP Inspector, ensure the following are installed:

• Node.js (version 14 or higher recommended)
• ExifTool

Testing With MCP Inspector

1. Clone the github repo at https://github.com/vgribok/exiftool-mcp-server.git.

2. In the repo root, run npm install.

3. Start debugging the MCP Inspector in VSCode using the "MCP Inspector with TypeScript Server" launch configuration.

4. In the integrated terminal, watch for output lines containing:

   Open inspector with token pre-filled:
      http://localhost:6274/?MCP_PROXY_AUTH_TOKEN=...

If the launch.json has auth disabled, then simple point the browser to the http://localhost:6274/, and not to the 127.0.0.1, to work around what seems to be a bug in MCP Inspector (or MCP Proxy).

5. Click the Connect button in the MCP Inspector UI to connect to your MCP server.

6. Once connected, click the List Tools button to discover all available tools provided by the server.

7. Select a tool from the list to view its input parameters and metadata.

8. Use the UI to send test requests to the selected tool and observe the responses.

9. Experiment with different parameters to explore the capabilities of the MCP server.

Contribution Guidelines

Contributions are welcome! Please follow these steps:

1. Fork the repository.
2. Create a new branch for your feature or bugfix.
3. Make your changes and commit with clear messages.
4. Submit a pull request describing your changes.

Please ensure your code follows existing style and includes appropriate error handling.

Security Considerations

• The server disallows shell metacharacters such as ;, &, |, `, $, >, <, and \ to prevent command injection attacks.
• Always ensure that the input to the server is from trusted sources.

License

This project is licensed under the ISC License. See the LICENSE file for details.

Author

Vlad Hrybok