osxmetadata 0.99.33

Read and write meta data, such as tags/keywords, Finder comments, etc. on MacOS files

osxmetadata

What is osxmetadata?

osxmetadata provides a simple interface to access various metadata about MacOS / OS X files. Currently supported metadata attributes include tags/keywords, Finder comments, authors, etc.

Motivation

Apple provides rich support for file metadata through various metadata extended attributes. MacOS provides tools to view and set these various metadata attributes. For example, mdls lists metadata associated with a file but doesn't let you edit the data while xattr allows the user to set extended attributes but requires the values be in the form of a MacOS plist which is impractical. osxmetadata makes it easy to to both view and manipulate the MacOS metadata attributes, either programmatically or through a command line tool.

Supported operating systems

Only works on MacOS. Requires Python 3.7+.

Installation instructions

Installation using pipx

If you aren't familiar with installing python applications, I recommend you install osxmetadata with pipx. If you use pipx, you will not need to create a virtual environment as pipx takes care of this. The easiest way to do this on a Mac is to use homebrew:

• Open Terminal (search for Terminal in Spotlight or look in Applications/Utilities)
• Install homebrew according to instructions at https://brew.sh/
• Type the following into Terminal: brew install pipx
• Then type this: pipx install osxmetadata
• Now you should be able to run osxmetadata by typing: osxmetadata

Once you've installed osxmetadata with pipx, to upgrade to the latest version:

pipx upgrade osxmetadata

Installation using pip

You can also install directly from pypi:

pip install osxmetadata

Once you've installed osxmetadata with pip, to upgrade to the latest version:

pip install --upgrade osxmetadata

Installation from git repository

OSXMetaData uses setuptools, thus simply run:

git clone https://github.com/RhetTbull/osxmetadata.git
cd osxmetadata 
python3 setup.py install

I recommend you create a virtual environment before installing osxmetadata.

Command Line Usage

Installs command line tool called osxmetadata which provides a simple interface to view/edit metadata supported by osxmetadata.

If you only care about the command line tool, I recommend installing with pipx

The command line tool can also be run via python -m osxmetadata. Running it with no arguments or with --help option will print a help message:

Usage: osxmetadata [OPTIONS] FILE

  Read/write metadata from file(s).

Options:
  -v, --version                   Show the version and exit.
  -h, --help                      Show this message and exit.
  -w, --walk                      Walk directory tree, processing each file in
                                  the tree.
  -j, --json                      Print output in JSON format, for use with
                                  --list and --get.
  -X, --wipe                      Wipe all metadata attributes from FILE.
  -s, --set ATTRIBUTE VALUE       Set ATTRIBUTE to VALUE.
  -l, --list                      List all metadata attributes for FILE.
  -c, --clear ATTRIBUTE           Remove attribute from FILE.
  -a, --append ATTRIBUTE VALUE    Append VALUE to ATTRIBUTE.
  -g, --get ATTRIBUTE             Get value of ATTRIBUTE.
  -r, --remove ATTRIBUTE VALUE    Remove VALUE from ATTRIBUTE; only applies to
                                  multi-valued attributes.
  -u, --update ATTRIBUTE VALUE    Update ATTRIBUTE with VALUE; for multi-
                                  valued attributes, this adds VALUE to the
                                  attribute if not already in the list.
  -m, --mirror ATTRIBUTE1 ATTRIBUTE2
                                  Mirror values between ATTRIBUTE1 and
                                  ATTRIBUTE2 so that ATTRIBUTE1 = ATTRIBUTE2;
                                  for multi-valued attributes, merges values;
                                  for string attributes, sets ATTRIBUTE1 =
                                  ATTRIBUTE2 overwriting any value in
                                  ATTRIBUTE1.  For example: '--mirror keywords
                                  tags' sets tags and keywords to same values.
  -B, --backup                    Backup FILE attributes.  Backup file
                                  '.osxmetadata.json' will be created in same
                                  folder as FILE. Only backs up attributes
                                  known to osxmetadata unless used with --all.
  -R, --restore                   Restore FILE attributes from backup file.
                                  Restore will look for backup file
                                  '.osxmetadata.json' in same folder as FILE.
                                  Only restores attributes known to
                                  osxmetadata unless used with --all.
  -A, --all                       Process all extended attributes including
                                  those not known to osxmetadata. Use with
                                  --backup/--restore to backup/restore all
                                  extended attributes.
  -V, --verbose                   Print verbose output.
  -f, --copyfrom SOURCE_FILE      Copy attributes from file SOURCE_FILE.
  --files-only                    Do not apply metadata commands to
                                  directories themselves, only files in a
                                  directory.
  -p, --pattern PATTERN           Only process files matching PATTERN; only
                                  applies to --walk. If specified, only files
                                  matching PATTERN will be processed as each
                                  directory is walked. May be used for than
                                  once to specify multiple patterns. For
                                  example, tag all *.pdf files in projectdir
                                  and subfolders with tag 'project':
                                  osxmetadata --append tags 'project' --walk
                                  projectdir/ --pattern '*.pdf'

Valid attributes for ATTRIBUTE: Each attribute has a short name, a constant
name, and a long constant name. Any of these may be used for ATTRIBUTE

For example: --set findercomment "Hello world"
or:          --set kMDItemFinderComment "Hello world"
or:          --set com.apple.metadata:kMDItemFinderComment "Hello world"

Attributes that are strings can only take one value for --set; --append will
append to the existing value.  Attributes that are arrays can be set multiple
times to add to the array: e.g. --set keywords 'foo' --set keywords 'bar' will
set keywords to ['foo', 'bar']

Options are executed in the following order regardless of order passed on the
command line: restore, wipe, copyfrom, clear, set, append, update, remove,
mirror, get, list, backup.  --backup and --restore are mutually exclusive.
Other options may be combined or chained together.

Finder tags (tags attribute) contain both a name and an optional color. To
specify the color, append comma + color name (e.g. 'red') after the tag name.
For example --set tags Foo,red. Valid color names are: gray, green, purple,
blue, yellow, red, orange. If color is not specified but a tag of the same
name has already been assigned a color in the Finder, the same color will
automatically be assigned.

com.apple.FinderInfo (finderinfo) value is a key:value dictionary. To set
finderinfo, pass value in format key1:value1,key2:value2,etc. For example:
'osxmetadata --set finderinfo color:2 file.ext'.

Short Name               Description
authors                  kMDItemAuthors, com.apple.metadata:kMDItemAuthors;
                         The author, or authors, of the contents of the
                         file.  A list of strings.
comment                  kMDItemComment, com.apple.metadata:kMDItemComment;
                         A comment related to the file.  This differs from
                         the Finder comment, kMDItemFinderComment.  A
                         string.
copyright                kMDItemCopyright,
                         com.apple.metadata:kMDItemCopyright; The copyright
                         owner of the file contents.  A string.
creator                  kMDItemCreator, com.apple.metadata:kMDItemCreator;
                         Application used to create the document content
                         (for example “Word”, “Pages”, and so on).  A
                         string.
description              kMDItemDescription,
                         com.apple.metadata:kMDItemDescription; A
                         description of the content of the resource.  The
                         description may include an abstract, table of
                         contents, reference to a graphical representation
                         of content or a free-text account of the content.
                         A string.
downloadeddate           kMDItemDownloadedDate,
                         com.apple.metadata:kMDItemDownloadedDate; The date
                         the item was downloaded.  A date in ISO 8601
                         format, time and timezone offset are optional: e.g.
                         2020-04-14T12:00:00 (ISO 8601 w/o timezone),
                         2020-04-14 (ISO 8601 w/o time and time zone), or
                         2020-04-14T12:00:00-07:00 (ISO 8601 with timezone
                         offset). Times without timezone offset are assumed
                         to be in local timezone.
duedate                  kMDItemDueDate, com.apple.metadata:kMDItemDueDate;
                         The date the item is due.  A date in ISO 8601
                         format, time and timezone offset are optional: e.g.
                         2020-04-14T12:00:00 (ISO 8601 w/o timezone),
                         2020-04-14 (ISO 8601 w/o time and time zone), or
                         2020-04-14T12:00:00-07:00 (ISO 8601 with timezone
                         offset). Times without timezone offset are assumed
                         to be in local timezone.
findercolor              findercolor, com.apple.FinderInfo; Color tag set by
                         the Finder.  Colors can also be set by
                         _kMDItemUserTags.  This is controlled by the Finder
                         and it's recommended you don't directly access this
                         attribute.  If you set or remove a color tag via
                         _kMDItemUserTag, osxmetadata will automatically
                         handle processing of FinderInfo color tag.
findercomment            kMDItemFinderComment,
                         com.apple.metadata:kMDItemFinderComment; Finder
                         comments for this file.  A string.
finderinfo               finderinfo, com.apple.FinderInfo; Info set by the
                         Finder, for example tag color.  Colors can also be
                         set by _kMDItemUserTags.  com.apple.FinderInfo is
                         controlled by the Finder and it's recommended you
                         don't directly access this attribute.  If you set
                         or remove a color tag via _kMDItemUserTag,
                         osxmetadata will automatically handle processing of
                         FinderInfo color tag.
headline                 kMDItemHeadline,
                         com.apple.metadata:kMDItemHeadline; A publishable
                         entry providing a synopsis of the contents of the
                         file.  A string.
keywords                 kMDItemKeywords,
                         com.apple.metadata:kMDItemKeywords; Keywords
                         associated with this file. For example, “Birthday”,
                         “Important”, etc. This differs from Finder tags
                         (_kMDItemUserTags) which are keywords/tags shown in
                         the Finder and searchable in Spotlight using
                         "tag:tag_name".  A list of strings.
osxphotos_detected_text  OSXPhotosDetectedText,
                         osxphotos.metadata:detected_text; Text detected in
                         a photo; used by osxphotos
                         (https://github.com/RhetTbull/osxphotos).
participants             kMDItemParticipants,
                         com.apple.metadata:kMDItemParticipants; The list of
                         people who are visible in an image or movie or
                         written about in a document. A list of strings.
projects                 kMDItemProjects,
                         com.apple.metadata:kMDItemProjects; The list of
                         projects that this file is part of. For example, if
                         you were working on a movie all of the files could
                         be marked as belonging to the project “My Movie”. A
                         list of strings.
rating                   kMDItemStarRating,
                         com.apple.metadata:kMDItemStarRating; User rating
                         of this item. For example, the stars rating of an
                         iTunes track. An integer.
stationary               kMDItemFSIsStationery,
                         com.apple.metadata:kMDItemFSIsStationery; Boolean
                         indicating if this file is stationery. Note: this
                         is not what the Finder uses for Stationary Pad
                         flag.  See also 'stationarypad'.
stationarypad            stationarypad, com.apple.FinderInfo; Marks the file
                         as stationary (a template that can be re-used).
                         Setting this to True is the same as checking the
                         'Stationary Pad' box in Finder Info.
subject                  kMDItemSubject, com.apple.metadata:kMDItemSubject;
                         Subject of the this item. A string.
tags                     _kMDItemUserTags,
                         com.apple.metadata:_kMDItemUserTags; Finder tags;
                         searchable in Spotlight using "tag:tag_name".  If
                         you want tags/keywords visible in the Finder, use
                         this instead of kMDItemKeywords.  A list of Tag
                         objects.
title                    kMDItemTitle, com.apple.metadata:kMDItemTitle; The
                         title of the file. For example, this could be the
                         title of a document, the name of a song, or the
                         subject of an email message. A string.
version                  kMDItemVersion, com.apple.metadata:kMDItemVersion;
                         The version number of this file. A string.
wherefroms               kMDItemWhereFroms,
                         com.apple.metadata:kMDItemWhereFroms; Describes
                         where the file was obtained from (e.g. URL
                         downloaded from).  A list of strings.

Supported Attributes

Information about commonly used MacOS metadata attributes is available from Apple.

osxmetadata currently supports the following metadata attributes:

Constant	Short Name	Long Constant	Description
kMDItemAuthors	authors	com.apple.metadata:kMDItemAuthors	The author, or authors, of the contents of the file. A list of strings.
kMDItemComment	comment	com.apple.metadata:kMDItemComment	A comment related to the file. This differs from the Finder comment, kMDItemFinderComment. A string.
kMDItemCopyright	copyright	com.apple.metadata:kMDItemCopyright	The copyright owner of the file contents. A string.
kMDItemCreator	creator	com.apple.metadata:kMDItemCreator	Application used to create the document content (for example “Word”, “Pages”, and so on). A string.
kMDItemDescription	description	com.apple.metadata:kMDItemDescription	A description of the content of the resource. The description may include an abstract, table of contents, reference to a graphical representation of content or a free-text account of the content. A string.
kMDItemDownloadedDate	downloadeddate	com.apple.metadata:kMDItemDownloadedDate	The date the item was downloaded. A datetime.datetime object. If datetime.datetime object lacks tzinfo (i.e. it is timezone naive), it will be assumed to be in local timezone.
kMDItemDueDate	duedate	com.apple.metadata:kMDItemDueDate	The date the item is due. A datetime.datetime object. If datetime.datetime object lacks tzinfo (i.e. it is timezone naive), it will be assumed to be in local timezone.
findercolor	findercolor	com.apple.FinderInfo	Color tag set by the Finder. Colors can also be set by _kMDItemUserTags. This is controlled by the Finder and it's recommended you don't directly access this attribute. If you set or remove a color tag via _kMDItemUserTag, osxmetadata will automatically handle processing of FinderInfo color tag.
kMDItemFinderComment	findercomment	com.apple.metadata:kMDItemFinderComment	Finder comments for this file. A string.
finderinfo	finderinfo	com.apple.FinderInfo	Info set by the Finder, for example tag color. Colors can also be set by _kMDItemUserTags. com.apple.FinderInfo is controlled by the Finder and it's recommended you don't directly access this attribute. If you set or remove a color tag via _kMDItemUserTag, osxmetadata will automatically handle processing of FinderInfo color tag.
kMDItemHeadline	headline	com.apple.metadata:kMDItemHeadline	A publishable entry providing a synopsis of the contents of the file. A string.
kMDItemKeywords	keywords	com.apple.metadata:kMDItemKeywords	Keywords associated with this file. For example, “Birthday”, “Important”, etc. This differs from Finder tags (_kMDItemUserTags) which are keywords/tags shown in the Finder and searchable in Spotlight using "tag:tag_name". A list of strings.
OSXPhotosDetectedText	osxphotos_detected_text	osxphotos.metadata:detected_text	Text detected in a photo; used by osxphotos (https://github.com/RhetTbull/osxphotos).
kMDItemParticipants	participants	com.apple.metadata:kMDItemParticipants	The list of people who are visible in an image or movie or written about in a document. A list of strings.
kMDItemProjects	projects	com.apple.metadata:kMDItemProjects	The list of projects that this file is part of. For example, if you were working on a movie all of the files could be marked as belonging to the project “My Movie”. A list of strings.
kMDItemStarRating	rating	com.apple.metadata:kMDItemStarRating	User rating of this item. For example, the stars rating of an iTunes track. An integer.
kMDItemFSIsStationery	stationary	com.apple.metadata:kMDItemFSIsStationery	Boolean indicating if this file is stationery. Note: this is not what the Finder uses for Stationary Pad flag. See also 'stationarypad'.
stationarypad	stationarypad	com.apple.FinderInfo	Marks the file as stationary (a template that can be re-used). Setting this to True is the same as checking the 'Stationary Pad' box in Finder Info.
kMDItemSubject	subject	com.apple.metadata:kMDItemSubject	Subject of the this item. A string.
_kMDItemUserTags	tags	com.apple.metadata:_kMDItemUserTags	Finder tags; searchable in Spotlight using "tag:tag_name". If you want tags/keywords visible in the Finder, use this instead of kMDItemKeywords. A list of Tag objects.
kMDItemTitle	title	com.apple.metadata:kMDItemTitle	The title of the file. For example, this could be the title of a document, the name of a song, or the subject of an email message. A string.
kMDItemVersion	version	com.apple.metadata:kMDItemVersion	The version number of this file. A string.
kMDItemWhereFroms	wherefroms	com.apple.metadata:kMDItemWhereFroms	Describes where the file was obtained from (e.g. URL downloaded from). A list of strings.

Example uses of the package

Using the command line tool to set metadata:

Set Finder tags to Test, append "John Doe" to list of authors, clear (delete) description, set finder comment to "Hello World":

osxmetadata --set tags Test --append authors "John Doe" --clear description --set findercomment "Hello World" ~/Downloads/test.jpg

Set Finder tag Foo with color green:

osxmetadata --set tags Foo,green test.txt

Walk a directory tree and add the Finder tag "test" to every file:

osxmetadata --append tags "Test" --walk ~/Downloads

Walk a directory tree and add the Finder tag "project" to all .jpg and .pdf files:

osxmetadata --append tags "project" --walk projectdir --pattern "*.pdf" --pattern "*.jpg"

Using the programmatic interface

There are two ways to access metadata using the programmatic interface. First, an OSXMetaData object will create properties for each supported attribute using the "Short name" in table above. For example:

from osxmetadata import OSXMetaData, Tag

filename = 'foo.txt'
meta = OSXMetaData(filename)

# set description
meta.description = "This is my document."

# add "Foo" to tags
meta.tags += [Tag("Foo")]

# set authors to "John Doe" and "Jane Smith"
meta.authors = ["John Doe","Jane Smith"]

# clear copyright
meta.copyright = None

For additional details on using Finder tags, see Tag object.

If attribute is a list, most list methods can be used. For example:

>>> from osxmetadata import OSXMetaData, Tag
>>> md = OSXMetaData("test.txt")
>>> md.tags
[Tag('Blue', 4), Tag('Green', 2), Tag('Foo', 0)]
>>> md.tags.pop(1)
Tag('Green', 2)
>>> md.tags
[Tag('Blue', 4), Tag('Foo', 0)]
>>> md.tags.sort()
>>> md.tags
[Tag('Blue', 4), Tag('Foo', 0)]
>>> md.tags.append(Tag("Test"))
>>> md.tags
[Tag('Blue', 4), Tag('Foo', 0), Tag('Test', 0)]
>>> md.tags.extend([Tag("Test1"),Tag("Test2")])
>>> md.tags
[Tag('Blue', 4), Tag('Foo', 0), Tag('Test', 0), Tag('Test1', 0), Tag('Test2', 0)]
>>> md.tags.remove(Tag("Blue", 4))
>>> md.tags
[Tag('Foo', 0), Tag('Test', 0), Tag('Test1', 0), Tag('Test2', 0)]
>>> md.tags.remove(Tag("Blue", 4))
# ValueError if attempt to remove element not in list
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
  File "/Users/rhet/anaconda3/envs/osxmeta/lib/python3.8/_collections_abc.py", line 997, in remove
    del self[self.index(value)]
  File "/Users/rhet/anaconda3/envs/osxmeta/lib/python3.8/_collections_abc.py", line 911, in index
    raise ValueError
ValueError
>>> md.tags.count(Tag("Test"))
1
>>> md.tags.index(Tag("Test"))
1

If attribute is a date/time stamp (e.g. kMDItemDownloadedDate), value should be a datetime.datetime object (or a list of datetime.datetime objects depending on the attribute type).

Note: datetime.datetime objects may be naive (lack timezone info, e.g. tzinfo=None) or timezone aware (have an associated timezone). If datetime.datetime object lacks timezone info, it will be assumed to be local time. MacOS stores date values in extended attributes as UTC timestamps so all datetime.datetime objects will undergo appropriate conversion prior to writing to the extended attribute. See also tz_aware.

>>> import osxmetadata
>>> md = osxmetadata.OSXMetaData("/Users/rhet/Downloads/test.zip")
>>> md.downloadeddate
[datetime.datetime(2020, 4, 14, 17, 51, 59, 40504)]
>>> now = datetime.datetime.now()
>>> md.downloadeddate = now
>>> md.downloadeddate
[datetime.datetime(2020, 4, 15, 22, 17, 0, 558471)]

If attribute is string, it can be treated as a standard python str:

>>> import osxmetadata
>>> md = osxmetadata.OSXMetaData("/Users/rhet/Downloads/test.jpg")
>>> md.findercomment = "Hello world"
>>> md.findercomment
'Hello world'
>>> md.findercomment += ". Goodbye"
>>> md.findercomment
'Hello world. Goodbye'
>>> "world" in md.findercomment
True

The second way to access metadata is using methods from OSXMetaData to get/set/update etc. the various attributes. The various methods take the name of the attribute to be operated on which can be specified using either the short name, constant, or long constant from the table above. osxmetadata also exports constants with the same name as specified in the Apple documentation and the table above, for example, kMDItemDescription.

from osxmetadata import *

fname = 'foo.txt'
meta = OSXMetaData(fname)

description = meta.get_attribute(kMDItemDescription)

meta.set_attribute(kMDItemCreator,"OSXMetaData")

meta.append_attribute("tags", [Tag("Blue")])

meta.update_attribute("com.apple.metadata:kMDItemKeywords",["Foo"])

meta.append_attribute("findercomment","Goodbye")

meta.clear_attribute("tags")

OSXMetaData methods and attributes

Create an OSXMetaData object

md = osxmetadata.OSXMetaData(filename, tz_aware = False)

• filename: filename to operate on
• tz_aware: (boolean, optional); if True, attributes which return datetime.datetime objects such as kMDItemDownloadedDate will return timezone aware datetime.datetime objects with timezone set to UTC; if False (default), will return timezone naive objects in user's local timezone. See also tz_aware.

Once created, the following methods and attributes may be used to get/set metadata attribute data

name

name()

Returns POSIX path of the file OSXMetaData is operating on.

get_attribute

get_attribute(attribute_name)

Load attribute and return value or None if attribute was not set (for list attributes, returns empty list if not set).

• attribute_name: an osxmetadata Attribute name

get_attribute_str

get_attribute_str(attribute_name)

Returns a string representation of attribute value. e.g. if attribute is a datedate.datetime object, will format using datetime.isoformat()

• attribute_name: an osxmetadata Attribute name

set_attribute

set_attribute(attribute_name, value)

Write attribute to file with value

• attribute_name: an osxmetadata Attribute name
• value: value to store in attribute

update_attribute

update_attribute(attribute_name, value)

Update attribute with union of itself and value. This avoids adding duplicate values to attribute.

• attribute: an osxmetadata Attribute name
• value: value to append to attribute

Note: implementation simply calls append_attribute with update=True; provided for convenience.

append_attribute

append_attribute(attribute_name, value, update=False)

Append value to attribute.

• attribute_name: an osxmetadata Attribute name
• value: value to append to attribute
• update: (bool) if True, update instead of append (e.g. avoid adding duplicates, default is False)

remove_attribute

remove_attribute(attribute_name, value)

Remove a value from attribute, raise ValueError if attribute does not contain value. Only applies to multi-valued attributes, otherwise raises TypeError.

• attribute_name: name of OSXMetaData attribute

discard_attribute

discard_attribute(attribute_name, value)

Remove a value from attribute, unlike remove, does not raise exception if attribute does not contain value. Only applies to multi-valued attributes, otherwise raises TypeError.

• attribute_name: name of OSXMetaData attribute

clear_attribute

clear_attribute(attribute_name)

Clear anttribute (remove it from the file).

• attribute_name: name of OSXMetaData attribute

list_metadata

list_metadata()

List the Apple metadata attributes set on the file. e.g. those in com.apple.metadata namespace.

to_json

to_json()

Return dict in JSON format with all attributes for this file. Format is the same as used by the command line --backup/--restore functions.

asdict

asdict()

Returns a dictionary of attribute values for the dictionary object in form:

{'_version': '0.99.6', '_filepath': '/Users/rhet/Desktop/t.txt', '_filename': 't.txt', 'com.apple.metadata:_kMDItemUserTags': [['Hello', 0]], 'com.apple.metadata:kMDItemComment': 'test', 'com.apple.metadata:kMDItemFinderComment': 'Foo'}

tz_aware

tz_aware

Property (boolean, default = False). If True, any attribute that returns a datetime.datetime object will return a timezone aware object. If False, datetime.datetime attributes will return timezone naive objects.

For example:

>>> import osxmetadata
>>> import datetime
>>> md = osxmetadata.OSXMetaData("/Users/rhet/Downloads/test.zip")
>>> md.downloadeddate
[datetime.datetime(2020, 4, 14, 17, 51, 59, 40504)]
>>> now = datetime.datetime.now()
>>> md.downloadeddate = now
>>> md.downloadeddate
[datetime.datetime(2020, 4, 15, 22, 17, 0, 558471)]
>>> md.tz_aware = True
>>> md.downloadeddate
[datetime.datetime(2020, 4, 16, 5, 17, 0, 558471, tzinfo=datetime.timezone.utc)]
>>> utc = datetime.datetime.utcnow()
>>> utc
datetime.datetime(2020, 4, 16, 5, 25, 10, 635417)
>>> utc = utc.replace(tzinfo=datetime.timezone.utc)
>>> utc
datetime.datetime(2020, 4, 16, 5, 25, 10, 635417, tzinfo=datetime.timezone.utc)
>>> md.downloadeddate = utc
>>> md.downloadeddate
[datetime.datetime(2020, 4, 16, 5, 25, 10, 635417, tzinfo=datetime.timezone.utc)]
>>> md.tz_aware = False
>>> md.downloadeddate
[datetime.datetime(2020, 4, 15, 22, 25, 10, 635417)]

Tag object

Unlike other attributes, Finder tags (_kMDItemUserTags) have two components: a name (str) and a color ID (unsigned int in range 0 to 7) represting a color tag in the Finder. Reading tags returns a list of Tag objects and setting tags requires a list of Tag objects.

Create a Tag object

Tag(name,color)

• name: tag name (str)
• color: optional; color ID for Finder color label associated with tag (int)

If color is not provided, Tag will see if the user has already assigned a color to a tag of the same name via the Finder (Finder | Preferences | Tags) and if so, assign the same color. If a match is not found, the tag will be created with no color (osxmetadata.FINDER_COLOR_NONE)

Valid color constants (exported by osxmetadata):

• FINDER_COLOR_GRAY = 1
• FINDER_COLOR_GREEN = 2
• FINDER_COLOR_PURPLE = 3
• FINDER_COLOR_BLUE = 4
• FINDER_COLOR_YELLOW = 5
• FINDER_COLOR_RED = 6
• FINDER_COLOR_ORANGE = 7

from osxmetadata import OSXMetaData, Tag, FINDER_COLOR_GREEN
md = OSXMetaData("test.txt")
md.tags = [Tag("Foo")]
md.tags += [Tag("Test",FINDER_COLOR_GREEN)]

Usage Notes

Changes are immediately written to the file. For example, OSXMetaData.tags.append("Foo") immediately writes the tag 'Foo' to the file.

Metadata is refreshed from disk every time a class property is accessed.

This will only work on file systems that support Mac OS X extended attributes.

Dependencies

bitstring

Click

PyObjC

xattr

py-applescript

Related Projects

• tag A command line tool to manipulate tags on Mac OS X files, and to query for files with those tags.
• osx-tags Python module to manipulate Finder tags in OS X.

Acknowledgements

This module was inspired by osx-tags by "Ben S / scooby". I leveraged osx-tags to bootstrap the design of this module. I wanted a more general OS X metadata library so I rolled my own. This module is published under the same MIT license as osx-tags.

Contributors ✨

Thanks goes to these wonderful people (emoji key):

Borja González Seoane 💻

This project follows the all-contributors specification. Contributions of any kind welcome!