Free metadata file information tool for Mac?

Does anyone know any free alternatives to Informator?

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As a sidenote, this doesn't deal with EXIF metadata only. I'm hoping for video, music, and who knows what else beside images metadata. Being able to view and edit as well.

cregox

Posted 2010-02-25T19:47:01.733

Reputation: 5 119

http://softwarerecs.stackexchange.com/ – Daniel W. – 2016-11-07T10:19:17.417

Answers

If you're not afraid of using the Terminal:

mdls /path/to/file

Studer

Posted 2010-02-25T19:47:01.733

Reputation: 3 448

2+1; you (probably) do not need any more than this – trolle3000 – 2010-02-28T00:19:29.053

That's great, but I couldn't find how to edit the metadata with it, which is what I wanted. It seems it's not possible. And I still hope for a GUI. :) – cregox – 2010-03-02T17:12:44.717

How do I see FPS using that? – Matt Frear – 2015-02-26T13:52:12.803

mdls is read-only. xattr can write the data – Brock Woolf – 2010-06-03T21:43:10.430

Unfortunately there do not see to be any tools which let you edit the Apple metadata beyond the standards created for digital images like EXIF, which I understand you aren't concerned about.

You can achieve the writing of metadata elements such as kMDItemWhereFroms in the Terminal using the xattr command. mdls is for reading the metadata only.

Example for writing the file's origin:

xattr -w com.apple.metadata:kMDItemWhereFroms 'http://www.example.com' <filename>

See more here

Brock Woolf

Posted 2010-02-25T19:47:01.733

Reputation: 1 556

¡I think You Can, I think I just figured it out! It's listed in the developer's tools, although you still might be able to do it if you haven't downloaded them. If you have, check out: /Developer/Tools/SetFile If not, here's a manual page: http://developer.apple.com/mac/library/documentation/Darwin/Reference/ManPages/man1/SetFile.1.html

From what I understand, xattr changes extended metadata (extra stuff I guess?) while SetFile will change things like creation date, last opened, all those. Not sure if this is what you're looking for, but it's something!

– None – 2010-05-30T19:04:19.090

@Frost Shadow. We are trying to change the extended metadata. SetFile won't change kMD metadata. Cheers for the info though – Brock Woolf – 2010-06-03T21:41:21.900