Many document formats store metadata with their data. Choosing the right ones to use must ensure their access, indexing and search. Here’s how to check those, and why Keywords are usually a good choice.
Finder
A new drag-and-drop app to change quarantine extended attributes on documents, so enabling you to double-click them to open when they won’t otherwise.
How this expresses file sizes, which data it includes, the difference between KB and KiB, how to view more of a file’s metadata, and more.
How to find and use the Finder’s Get Info sibling, the Inspector, how to make exact duplicates, a free slideshow without Keynote, and an Easter Egg.
How to use the Finder’s Lock feature, and as the Immutable flag in Terminal. What its effects are, and how well it’s retained. How iCloud Drive can’t cope with it, and how you can use it in your own lightweight versioning system.
Soon after introducing iCloud and iCloud Drive, Apple changed the way most metadata was handled to ensure it was synced up to the cloud. Recently this has been reversed, and little metadata is now synced. Was this an accident or intentional? What is the workaround?
From the first image thumbnails around 35 years ago, the Mac has delivered better thumbnails and previews of documents, most recently using QuickLook. Here’s how it works, and how it can fail.
How to select the most appropriate way of storing metadata, limitations of Finder Comments and Tags, which extended attributes are best, and which utilities to edit and manage them.
A simple and accessible way of categorising folders, they’re stored as extended attributes, and robust. They work best with up to 7 categories, but can confuse with many different text labels.
Although easy to add to documents, Finder comments work strangely, and can prove fragile. They can also be used to conceal malicious code by steganography, but there are better options.
The Eclectic Light Company 