C2PA command line tool

C2PA Tool, c2patool, is a command line tool for working with C2PA manifests and media assets (audio, image or video files).

Use the tool on a file in one of the supported formats to:

• Read a summary JSON report of C2PA manifests.
• Read a low-level report of C2PA manifest data.
• Add a C2PA manifest to the file.

For a simple example of calling c2patool from a Node.js server application, see the c2patool-service-example repository.

Additional documentation:

• Using C2PA Tool
• Manifest definition file
• Using an X.509 certificate
• Release notes
• Contributing to the project

Installation

To install a prebuilt binary of C2PA Tool:

1. Go to the Releases page and filter for c2patool.
2. Under Assets, click on the archive file for your operating system:
   • MacOS: c2patool-vx.y.z-universal-apple-darwin.zip
   • Windows: c2patool-vx.y.z-x86_64-pc-windows-msvc.zip
   • Linux: c2patool-vx.y.z-x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu.tar.gz
3. Download and extract the archive file.
4. Copy the c2patool executable file to a location on your PATH.
5. Confirm that you can run the tool by entering a command such as:

c2patool -h

You may need to set execution permission for the tool on your system. For macOS, see If you want to open an app that hasn’t been notarized or is from an unidentified developer.

NOTE: You also may want to get some of the example files provided in the repository sample directory. To do so, clone the repository with git clone https://github.com/contentauth/c2pa-rs.git.

Installing from source

Instead of installing a prebuilt binary, you can build the project from source.

Upgrading

To display the version of C2PA Tool that you have, enter this command:

c2patool -V

The tool will display the version installed. Compare the version number displayed with the latest release version shown in the repository releases page filtered for c2patool. If you don't have the latest version, simply reinstall to get the latest version.