Set Custom Metadata to Files of any Type

Question

Is there way to set custom metadata to files of any type? I want the metadata to be copied when the file is renamed, moved or copied. I don't want to use ADS.

Answer 1

No. At some point your "metadata" just becomes "data" which should be stored inside (or with) the file itself.

If you are trying to avoid having a database, but store some sort of state data with the file, you have a few options:

1. encode the metadata in the file path (ie. use the folder name to contain the metadata)
2. rename the file and encode the metadata in the filename
3. create a separate file (e.g. txt or xml) and .zip it with the file (lots of modern file formats do this e.g. .docx .xlsx etc are just zip files)

or you can bite the bullet and have a database separate to the file system. Some file formats allow metadata inside the file itself (e.g. MP3)