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mat2(1) User Commands mat2(1)

NAME

mat2 - the metadata anonymisation toolkit 2

SYNOPSIS

mat2 [-h] [-v] [-l] [-V] [-s | -L] [files [files ...]]

DESCRIPTION

mat2 removes metadata from various fileformats. It supports a wide variety of file formats, audio, office, images, …

Careful, mat2 does not clean files in-place, instead, it will produce a file with the word "cleaned" between the filename and its extension, for example "filename.cleaned.png" for a file named "filename.png".

OPTIONS

positional arguments:

the files to process

optional arguments:

show this help message and exit
show program's version number and exit
list all supported fileformats
check if mat2 has all the dependencies it needs
show more verbose status information
how to handle unknown members of archive-style files (policy should be one of: abort, omit, keep)
list harmful metadata detectable by mat2 without removing them
remove SOME metadata
disable bubblewrap's sandboxing
clean in place, without backup

EXAMPLES

To remove all the metadata from a PDF file:

mat2 ./myfile.pdf






NOTES ABOUT METADATA


While mat2 is doing its very best to display metadata when the
    --show flag is passed, it doesn't mean that a file is clean from any
    metadata if mat2 doesn't show any. There is no reliable way to detect every
    single possible metadata for complex file formats.


This is why you shouldn't rely on metadata's presence to decide if
    your file must be cleaned or not.


Moreover, mat2 goes to great lengths to make sure that as much
    metadata as possible are removed. This might sometimes result in a loss of
    quality of the processed files. For example, textual based pdf file
    converted into image based one means that it'll be no longer possible to
    select text in them. If you're experiencing this, you might want to give the
    lightweight cleaning mode a try, but keep in mind by doing so, some metadata
    won't be cleaned.










BUGS


While mat2 does its very best to remove every single metadata,
    it's still in beta, and some might remain. Should you encounter some
    issues, check the bugtracker: https://0xacab.org/jvoisin/mat2/issues


Please use accordingly and be careful.








AUTHOR


This software was made by Julien (jvoisin) Voisin with the support
    of the Tails project.








COPYRIGHT


This software is released on LGPLv3.








SEE ALSO


exiftool(1p) pdf-redact-tools(1)







  

    February 2023
    mat2 0.13.3