fix: auto-discover ExifTool installed in subdirectories of trusted paths#1679
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octo-patch wants to merge 2 commits intomicrosoft:mainfrom
Open
fix: auto-discover ExifTool installed in subdirectories of trusted paths#1679octo-patch wants to merge 2 commits intomicrosoft:mainfrom
octo-patch wants to merge 2 commits intomicrosoft:mainfrom
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April 8, 2026 13:35
…icrosoft#1660) Previously ExifTool was only auto-discovered if found directly in a trusted directory (e.g. C:\Program Files). Common Windows installs place the binary one level deeper (C:\Program Files\ExifTool\exiftool.exe), so dirname returned a path that failed the exact-equality check and ExifTool was silently not used. Switch to startswith(d + os.sep) to allow subdirectory matches while keeping the exact-match check, preserving the security boundary. Also add C:\Windows as a trusted root since ExifTool is sometimes installed there directly.
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Fixes #1660
Problem
When MarkItDown auto-discovers ExifTool via
shutil.which("exiftool"), it verifies that the binary resides in a known trusted directory to prevent running arbitrary executables. The check used an exact directory comparison:However, a common Windows installation places ExifTool one level deeper than the trusted root, for example:
Here
os.path.dirname(candidate)returnsC:\Program Files\ExifTool, which does not equal the trusted entryC:\Program Files, so ExifTool is silently skipped. The user then gets metadata-lite image output with no error message explaining why.Solution
Replace the exact-equality check with a two-part check:
This allows binaries installed in any subdirectory of a trusted root to be auto-discovered, while still rejecting paths outside the trusted roots (e.g.
C:\Users\username\Downloads).Additionally adds
C:\Windowsas a trusted root, since some users place ExifTool directly there.Testing
C:\Program Files\ExifTool\exiftool.exe→ trusted ✓/opt/homebrew/Cellar/exiftool/12.90/bin/exiftool→ trusted ✓C:\Users\user\Downloads\exiftool.exe→ not trusted ✓