Tracr Tool

Tracer is a Python tool that follows a given URL, scrapes images from the website along with their metadata (EXIF), and organizes them into a folder tree reflecting the link hierarchy. If the link contains further links, Tracer will recursively follow them up to a specified depth (default is 5, configurable via command-line arguments).

Features

• Recursive Traversal: Follow links up to a configurable maximum depth.
• Image Downloading: Downloads all images found on each page.
• Metadata Extraction: Saves image metadata (format, size, mode, and EXIF data if available) into a corresponding text file.
• Folder Organization: Creates a folder structure that mirrors the link hierarchy.

Requirements

• Python 3.x
• requests
• beautifulsoup4
• Pillow

Installation

1. Clone the Repository:

   git clone <repository_url>
   cd tracr

2. Create a Virtual Environment: On Windows, open PowerShell and run:

   python -m venv venv

3. Activate the Virtual Environment:

   • Using PowerShell:
     If you encounter an execution policy error, open PowerShell as Administrator and run:

     Set-ExecutionPolicy RemoteSigned -Scope CurrentUser

     Then activate the virtual environment:

     .\venv\Scripts\Activate.ps1

   • Using Command Prompt:

     venv\Scripts\activate

   Once activated, you should see (venv) prefixed on your command line.

4. Install Dependencies: With the virtual environment activated, install all required packages using:

   pip install -r requirements.txt

Usage

Run the Tracer tool with the following command:

python tracer.py <starting_url> --depth <max_depth> --output <output_folder>

• <starting_url>: The URL where the tracer begins.
• --depth <max_depth>: (Optional) The maximum depth to traverse. Default is 5.
• --output <output_folder>: (Optional) The folder where output will be stored. Default is output.

Example:

python tracer.py https://example.com --depth 5 --output tracer_output

Virtual Environment Management

Activating the Virtual Environment

• PowerShell:

  .\venv\Scripts\Activate.ps1

• Command Prompt:

  venv\Scripts\activate

Deactivating the Virtual Environment

To deactivate the virtual environment, simply run:

deactivate