By metadata, I’m talking about things like text descriptions of a photo/video and where they come from, or an explanation of what a certain binary blob contains, its format, how to use it, etc.
The best solution I have right now is xattrs, but those are dependent on the file system, and there’s no guarantee that they will stay when the files get moved, especially if the person moving them is unaware of its existence. The alternative is to keep a plaintext file with this metadata alongside every photo/video/binary/etc, but that would be a huge pain to keep in sync since both files have to be moved together.
So my question to you: do you keep this kind of metadata? If so, how do you manage them?
I’ve been burnt by filesystems when moving around between external drives and FTP, so while I’d strongly prefer if there was a universally accepted way to include arbitrary metadata in the file itself, I’m instead using a separate metadata file. My metadata files are named exactly the same as the original, including their original extension, with a “.metadata” appended, to minimize confusion, and use INI/TOML format to maximize the chances that I’ll be able to understand and find tools to easily parse the files after several decades.
I do take a lot of photos with my DSLR. I used to use Lightroom when it was a one time purchase software and kept everything in there. But the days of good photo-management software are over as it seems.
Now I’m using a folder structure that works for me
Year > Month > Date (or range of date) In each Date(or range) I have a “RAW” folder for the raw un-edited originals and an “iPhone” folder for my phone pictures in case I took some. I actually keep the original file name of my camera for all photos.
If it’s a particular event I sometimes add a some kind of diary textfile in markdown in that particular folder. This can be in the “month” folder if I’m on a trip for 3-4 weeks, or just for a day, if I’m … let’s say on an exhibition.
It sounds clunky and probably is, but it works for me. It’s OS agnostic, (I work on mac os and linux machines at home) it’s easy to create backups or copies and move stuff around. All is stored on a big 8TB harddrive and I have several copies of it. (No cloud)
I also use xattrs, too, actually. I generally take care to make sure they’re copied over during backups etc., and when I’m sending files to other people I either tell them about the xattrs or copy them into a text-file that I archive with the file. It’s the nicest way of keeping metadata imo, even if it is a bit opaque.
but that would be a huge pain to keep in sync since both files have to be moved together.
It’s only a pain if you’re moving them by hand, btw. :^)
I have made my own program for handling metadata (link). It makes it easy to tag files and search for them afterwards. It’s still not finished, but it should be working. It’s currently only a cli program.
It’s not perfect since it also doesn’t follow the files, but I plan on writing some systems, that can synchronize metadata between this system, internal metadata in files, and external systems (like xattrs).
