Electron Integration Guide

exiftool-vendored in Electron requires special configuration for app packaging and sandboxing.

Support Notice: Due to Electron's complexity, we cannot provide support for Electron-specific issues. Use Stack Overflow, Electron Discord, or Electron forums.

Installation

npm install exiftool-vendored
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Key Challenges

1. Binary path resolution - Finding ExifTool in packaged apps
2. ASAR packaging - ExifTool must be unpacked from ASAR
3. Process spawning - Child processes need correct paths

Electron Builder

Configuration

# electron-builder.yml
asarUnpack:
  - "node_modules/exiftool-vendored.*/**/*"
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Or in package.json:

{
  "build": {
    "asarUnpack": ["node_modules/exiftool-vendored.*/**/*"]
  }
}
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Basic Usage

import { exiftool } from "exiftool-vendored";
const tags = await exiftool.read("path/to/image.jpg");
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Custom Path (if needed)

import { ExifTool } from "exiftool-vendored";
import path from "node:path";

const exiftool = new ExifTool({
  exiftoolPath: (platform) => {
    if (process.env.NODE_ENV === "development") {
      const suffix = platform === "win32" ? "exe" : "pl";
      return path.join(
        __dirname,
        "..",
        "node_modules",
        `exiftool-vendored.${suffix}`,
        "bin",
        "exiftool",
      );
    } else {
      const resourcesPath = process.resourcesPath;
      const suffix = platform === "win32" ? "exe" : "pl";
      return path.join(
        resourcesPath,
        "app.asar.unpacked",
        "node_modules",
        `exiftool-vendored.${suffix}`,
        "bin",
        "exiftool",
      );
    }
  },
});
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Electron Forge

Configuration

// forge.config.js
module.exports = {
  packagerConfig: {
    extraResource: [
      "./node_modules/exiftool-vendored." +
        (process.platform === "win32" ? "exe" : "pl"),
    ],
  },
};
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