Commons:Tools
Shortcuts: COM:TOOLS • COM:TUL
This page contains a collection of tools and services to simplify, make more efficient, or provide additional functionality to the work with Wikimedia Commons. Some of the tools here are optionally directly integrated within the Wikimedia Commons web interface. If you want to know how to play back and view contents of Wikimedia Commons have a look at the media help page. If you are in search for software editing and creating media files have a look at our software page. There is also an automatically generated list of commons tools on Toolforge.
Some tools have a gadget available to provide convenient access. Gadgets can be activated in your Preferences.
Tool integration
Some of the tools described here are directly integrated into the web interface of Wikimedia Commons via gadgets (notably ExtraTabs2). Gadgets can be enabled via the Gadgets tab of a user's Preferences. Tools marked with an asterisk (*) on this page have an associated gadget.
Authenticating tools (OAuth)
Most tools use MediaWiki's OAuth support to provide seamless integration and allow tools to securely take actions under your username. An example is CropTool. No separate account is required for using tools which support OAuth. Your password is never disclosed to tools using OAuth authentication, and you can revoke a tool's access to your account at any time.
Upload media
Download media
- Main page: Commons:Download tools.
- Imker (Java desktop application)
- User:AzaToth/wikimgrab.pl is a simple script to download source images, useful when combining panoramas, when there might be many consecutive images.
- User:Siznax~commonswiki/wp image.py is a python script to get the URL (and check the HTTP status) of a Wikimedia File/Image from its name.
- CommonsDownloader (a Python module) -- downloads a specified set of images in full resolution or up to specified width
- commons-downloader (a Java program)
- wimgs (a Ruby script) -- downloads all images in a specified category, or all images used by specified articles, in full resolution or up to specified width (not maintained since 2015).
Check usage
Special:GlobalUsage is a special page which can be used to check where commons media is used throughout the Wikimedia universe.
- The ExtraTabs2 gadget links to this tool.
PopComPics
Popular Commons Pics shows the most popular uploads of a certain Commons user. It displays how many times each picture has been utilized in Wikimedia projects. The top-ten pictures are displayed in a donut chart.
PetScan (formerly known as Cat-Scan)
Allows you to find images (images are a type of 'page') that are in two categories (category intersection), or images in a category by a certain template. It also searches in subcategories of a specified depth.
Commons:WikiMiniAtlas
A JavaScript plug-in that displays geocoded images on a world map. Developed by User:Dschwen.
CatFood
A category-based RSS feed by Magnus Manske. Shows thumbnailed image, author/uploader, and license (if found). Links back to commons image/page.
Discover media
FastCCI
FastCCI is a JavaScript gadget to discover Featured/Quality/Valued images in and below the current category. It can also be used to display All images in the current category and its subcategories, and can find media in category intersections, again including subcategories. Labeled "Good pictures", it is located to the right of the category name on desktop displays and clicking on the down triangle shows its options. FastCCI stands for Fast Commons Categories Intersection.
The Usual Suspects
The Usual Suspects (Was "Bad Old Ones" and "Bad Boys" on toolserver.) lists images in a given category (and subcategories) with dates of their last edits, thumbnails, description, and usage on other Wikimedia projects. Intended for categories containing "bad" images, e.g. Category:Unknown. Developed by User:Magnus Manske.
My "No Information"
Finds all images not using {{Information}} for a specific user. Invokes Add information.
Search
There are two main ways to search Commons: Special:MediaSearch and Special:Search. MediaSearch is a newer tool that is better designed for searching files, while Special:Search is a more traditional interface designed for searching text. More information about using these tools is available at mw:Help:MediaSearch and mw:Help:CirrusSearch, respectively. You can change the default search tool and enable or disable the Advanced Search interface in your preferences.
Maintenance
Commons Commander (CC)
- See Help:Commons Commander
- Error/not working since 2012 or earlier.
ISA Tool
ISA tool is a multilingual, mobile-first tool, that makes it easy for people to add 'micro-contributions' in the form of structured data (descriptions, captions, tags, etc.) to images that have been contributed to Wikimedia Commons by Wiki Loves competitions.
- ISA tool-forge link: https://isa.toolforge.org
HotCat
Quickly categorize or recategorize a file.
Cat-a-lot
Cat-a-lot is a JavaScript gadget that helps with moving images between categories or adding categories to search results.
Commons Mass Description Tool
CMD helps to add descriptions to Wikimedia Commons images at once. Inspired by the Extension:Translate of Mediawiki.
De-Grandparent (DGP)
De-Grandparent is a tool to remove files from a category if they are in one or more of its subcategories.
MultiDesc
MultiDesc generates multi-language descriptions for galleries or images on Wikimedia Commons. All you need to know is the name of the corresponding article on a Wikipedia. You can usually copy and paste its output straight into the article page, although be sure to remove any strange descriptions that didn't come out quite right. Developed by User:Magnus Manske.
LicenseToKill
This tool provides a simple GUI to allow easy deletion of multiple files within one category or from a list. Only for Windows with .NET 2.0. Developed by User:Dake.
Locator-tool
The Commons:Locator-tool is a Commons:Geocoding tool. It quickly adds {{Location}} information to already uploaded images. You can specify a list of images to geocode (e.g., by querying a category), select their respective location on a map and let the {{Location}} be added/updated automatically.
GeoLocator tool
The GeoLocator tool is an interactive coordinate editor, allowing easy generation of {{Coord}} templates to images. Developed by User:Teslaton.
Add information
Analyze the free-text description of an image and try to fit it into a standard {{Information}} template. Developed by Magnus Manske.
- toolforge:add-information
- The Add {{Information}} gadget links to this tool.
OrphanTalk
Find all talk pages without a subject page in a certain namespace. Optionally filter out redirects and/or subpages:
BlankPages
List all blanked pages in one or more namespaces:
VisualFileChange
- Help:VisualFileChange.js for performing batch changes (categories, regex)
Duplicates and Hash-based search
FileDupes
Compare images marked as duplicates. Developed by User:Magnus Manske.
- toolforge:filedupes
- Example: [1] ({{Duplicate}})
- Also: [2] ({{Bad name}})
Find files by SHA-1 hash (content-based)
The API lists all files which have a given SHA-1 hash. Example use: That can be used to query the Commons server about existence of a file before upload to avoid uploading exact duplicates. The SHA-1 hash can be computed locally with many tools (e.g. sha1sum
– a standard program on Linux systems).
- URL: https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/api.php?action=query&list=allimages&aisha1=HASH_HERE!. Example.
- Detect overwritten and deleted files: https://expose-data.toolforge.org/jsonapi.php?action=sha1lookup&sha1=SHA1_HERE&showdeleted=1 Example (SLOOW!). If deleted files do not matter, remove
&showdeleted=1
from the query.
File Analyzer
Given an image sha1, provides a list of deleted images.
File-Check
Searches for problematic files on concerning (Media)wiki pages (mainly Commons files) included.
filesMetaData
Shows textual metadata on media files and description pages. Avoid download of hundreds of thumbnail files on regular MediaWiki pages and prepare sortable filtered concise data tables
Patrolling and notification
Twinkle
Twinkle is a set of JavaScripts that gives registered users several new options to assist them in common maintenance tasks and to help them deal with acts of vandalism.
Intersect Contribs
This tool intersects the contributions of two users and showing the pages edited by both of them. It can help in discovering sockpuppets.
Newbie uploads
Recent uploads by users not in local usergroups.
Recent unpatrolled edits
Unpatrolled IP and user edits from the last ~31 days.
Commons File Counter
The tool determines the number of files within a given category and its subcategories on particular dates within a defined time period.
Adding Images to Wikipedia Articles
Wikidata Images
Wikidata Images project creates and maintains a system of categories on each participating Wiki listing all the articles without images which are linked with wikidata record that includes an image. See d:Q16742293 and follow the links to your favorite wiki.
FIST
Magnus Manske's Free Image Search Tool is a tool which allows to search a category of articles for articles without images. Then FIST uses article names to search a dozen image repositories like Flickr for images with license compatible to Commons and provide tools for easy transfer to Commons.
GLAMify
GLAMify is a tool for identifying images in a Commons category which are used in articles in one wiki and could be reused in same articles in other wikis.
Glamorous
Tool to keep track of Commons images used on other projects.
GlamorousToHTML
Python script that generates a HTML page listing all Wikipedia articles (in all languages) in which (one or more) images/media from a given Commons category are used. Converts the output of the GLAMorous tool to a HTML page.
Gallery generator
Create a MediaWiki gallery from a Wikimedia Commons category with custom options.
See also
- Useful bots that you can request services from
- Commons:Software List of software for working with files on Commons
- Commons:Media help for playback of Commons media files
- Commons:User scripts
- Category:User scripts to for useful JavaScript/CSS tricks, like installing one-click "mark as no source/mark as no license/nominate for deletion" links
- Wikimedia Toolforge