file searcher with user-defined metadata columns (Windows)

Posted by jimspoon
Jan 24, 2021 at 05:53 AM

I’ve been doing some digging and learned some things. Windows File Explorer columns display file “properties”. These “properties” are contained somewhere in the file’s data, usually the file’s primary data stream. The properties for each file type (distinguished by file extension) can be defined in a .propdesc XML file. Explorer and Windows Search can extract a file’s properties using a “property handler” DLL. Microsoft recommends that the properties be stored inside the file’s primary data stream, so the metadata can not be separated from the data. I haven’t had much luck finding a way for a user to use the Windows Properties System to add user-defined properties to those provided by the developer who defined the file format.

But I have found one interesting effort along these lines, a program called File Meta. File Meta allows a user to store properties inside an “alternate data stream” that is part of the file’s data. File Meta provides a “property handler” for these properties, which Windows Search can use to index the metadata. Even so, File Meta by itself mainly seems to provide a way to attach existing Windows properties to files that do not have properties inside their primary data streams. The focus was not on providing a way for users to define their own properties to attach to files. But when encouraged by a user, in 2020 the author of File Meta produced a program called “Custom Windows Properties” for this purpose. The developer seems to have moved on to other things for now, but I would like this idea be further developed.

Some links:

File Meta: https://github.com/Dijji/FileMeta
See screenshot here: https://github.com/Dijji/FileMeta/wiki/Using-the-File-Meta-Association-Manager
Download links: https://github.com/Dijji/FileMeta/releases/tag/v1.6

Custom Windows Properties:
Description and screenshot: https://github.com/Dijji/CustomWindowsProperties
Download link: https://github.com/Dijji/CustomWindowsProperties/releases