Read Write Extended file properties C

Question

I m trying to find out how to read write to the extended file properties in C  e g  Comment  Bit Rate  Date Accessed  Category etc that you can see in Windows explorer   Any ideas how to do this  EDIT  I ll mainly be reading writing to video files  AVI DIVX

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I m not sure what types of files you are trying to write the properties for but taglib-sharp is an excellent open source tagging library that wraps up all this functionality nicely   It has a lot of built in support for most of the popular media file types but also allows you to do more advanced tagging with pretty much any file   EDIT   I ve updated the link to taglib sharp   The old link no longer worked   EDIT  Updated the link once again per kzu s comment

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Here is a solution for reading - not writing - the extended properties based on what I found on this page and at help with shell32 objects   To be clear this is a hack  It looks like this code will still run on Windows 10 but will hit on some empty properties  Previous version of Windows should use           var i   0          while  true                                        if  String IsNullOrEmpty header   break                              i      On Windows 10 we assume that there are about 320 properties to read and simply skip the empty entries       private Dictionary lt string  string gt  GetExtendedProperties string filePath                var directory   Path GetDirectoryName filePath           var shell   new Shell32 Shell            var shellFolder   shell NameSpace directory           var fileName   Path GetFileName filePath           var folderitem   shellFolder ParseName fileName           var dictionary   new Dictionary lt string  string gt             var i   -1          while    i  lt  320                        var header   shellFolder GetDetailsOf null  i               if  String IsNullOrEmpty header   continue              var value   shellFolder GetDetailsOf folderitem  i               if   dictionary ContainsKey header   dictionary Add header  value               Console WriteLine header         value                     Marshal ReleaseComObject shell           Marshal ReleaseComObject shellFolder           return dictionary          As mentioned you need to reference the Com assembly Interop Shell32   If you get an STA related exception  you will find the solution here   Exception when using Shell32 to get File extended properties  I have no idea what those properties names would be like on a foreign system and couldn t find information about which localizable constants to use in order to access the dictionary  I also found that not all the properties from the Properties dialog were present in the dictionary returned   BTW this is terribly slow and - at least on Windows 10 - parsing dates in the string retrieved would be a challenge so using this seems to be a bad idea to start with   On Windows 10 you should definitely use the Windows Storage library which contains the SystemPhotoProperties  SystemMusicProperties etc   https   docs microsoft com en-us windows uwp files quickstart-getting-file-properties  And finally  I posted a much better solution that uses WindowsAPICodePack there

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After looking at a number of solutions on this thread and elsewhere the following code was put together  This is only to read a property  I could not get the Shell32 FolderItem2 ExtendedProperty function to work  it is supposed to take a string value and return the correct value and type for that property    this was always null for me and developer reference resources were very thin  The WindowsApiCodePack seems to have been abandoned by Microsoft which brings us the code below    Use   string propertyValue   GetExtendedFileProperty  c   temp  FileNameYouWant ext   PropertyYouWant       Will return you the value of the extended property you want as a string for the given file and property name  Only loops until it found the specified property - not until all properties are discovered like some sample code Will work on Windows versions like Windows server 2008 where you will get the error  Unable to cast COM object of type  System   ComObject  to interface type  Shell32 Shell   if just trying to create the Shell32 Object normally   public static string GetExtendedFileProperty string filePath  string propertyName        string value   string Empty      string baseFolder   Path GetDirectoryName filePath       string fileName   Path GetFileName filePath          Method to load and execute the Shell object for Windows server 8 environment otherwise you get  Unable to cast COM object of type  System   ComObject  to interface type  Shell32 Shell       Type shellAppType   Type GetTypeFromProgID  Shell Application        Object shell   Activator CreateInstance shellAppType       Shell32 Folder shellFolder    Shell32 Folder shellAppType InvokeMember  NameSpace   System Reflection BindingFlags InvokeMethod  null  shell  new object     baseFolder            Parsename will find the specific file I m looking for in the Shell32 Folder object     Shell32 FolderItem folderitem   shellFolder ParseName fileName       if  folderitem    null                for  int i   0  i  lt  short MaxValue  i                            Get the property name for property index i             string property   shellFolder GetDetailsOf null  i                  Will be empty when all possible properties has been looped through  break out of loop             if  String IsNullOrEmpty property   break                 Skip to next property if this is not the specified property             if  property    propertyName  continue                     Read value of property             value   shellFolder GetDetailsOf folderitem  i                         returns string Empty if no value was found for the specified property     return value

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This sample in VB NET reads all extended properties   Sub Main           Dim arrHeaders 35           Dim shell As New Shell32 Shell         Dim objFolder As Shell32 Folder          objFolder   shell NameSpace  C  tmp            For i   0 To 34             arrHeaders i    objFolder GetDetailsOf objFolder Items  i          Next         For Each strFileName In objfolder Items             For i   0 To 34                 Console WriteLine i  amp  vbTab  amp  arrHeaders i   amp        amp  objfolder GetDetailsOf strFileName  i               Next         Next      End Sub   You have to add a reference to Microsoft Shell Controls and Automation from the COM tab of the References dialog

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GetDetailsOf   Method - Retrieves details about an item in a folder  For example  its size  type  or the time of its last modification  File Properties may vary based on the Windows-OS version   List lt string gt  arrHeaders   new List lt string gt       Shell shell   new ShellClass     Folder rFolder   shell NameSpace  rootPath    FolderItem rFiles   rFolder ParseName filename     for  int i   0  i  lt  short MaxValue  i             string value   rFolder GetDetailsOf rFiles  i  Trim          arrHeaders Add value

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GetDetailsOf   Method - Retrieves details about an item in a folder  For example  its size  type  or the time of its last modification  File Properties may vary based on the Windows-OS version   List lt string gt  arrHeaders   new List lt string gt       Shell shell   new ShellClass     Folder rFolder   shell NameSpace  rootPath    FolderItem rFiles   rFolder ParseName filename     for  int i   0  i  lt  short MaxValue  i             string value   rFolder GetDetailsOf rFiles  i  Trim          arrHeaders Add value

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Solution 2016 Add following NuGet packages to your project   Microsoft WindowsAPICodePack-Shell by Microsoft Microsoft WindowsAPICodePack-Core by Microsoft  Read and Write Properties using Microsoft WindowsAPICodePack Shell  using Microsoft WindowsAPICodePack Shell PropertySystem   string filePath     quot C  temp example docx quot   var file   ShellFile FromFilePath filePath       Read and Write   string   oldAuthors   file Properties System Author Value  string oldTitle   file Properties System Title Value   file Properties System Author Value   new string      quot Author  1 quot    quot Author  2 quot     file Properties System Title Value    quot Example Title quot       Alternate way to Write   ShellPropertyWriter propertyWriter    file Properties GetPropertyWriter    propertyWriter WriteProperty SystemProperties System Author  new string      quot Author quot      propertyWriter Close     Important  The file must be a valid one  created by the specific assigned software  Every file type has specific extended file properties and not all of them are writable  If you right-click a file on desktop and cannot edit a property  you wont be able to edit it in code too  Example   Create txt file on desktop  rename its extension to docx  You can t edit its Author or Title property  Open it with Word  edit and save it  Now you can   So just make sure to use some try catch Further Topic  MSDN  Implementing Property Handlers

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For those of not crazy about VB  here it is in c    Note  you have to add a reference to Microsoft Shell Controls and Automation from the COM tab of the References dialog   public static void Main string   args        List lt string gt  arrHeaders   new List lt string gt          Shell32 Shell shell   new Shell32 Shell        Shell32 Folder objFolder       objFolder   shell NameSpace   C  temp testprop         for  int i   0  i  lt  short MaxValue  i                   string header   objFolder GetDetailsOf null  i           if  String IsNullOrEmpty header               break          arrHeaders Add header              foreach Shell32 FolderItem2 item in objFolder Items                  for  int i   0  i  lt  arrHeaders Count  i                          Console WriteLine                   i  t arrHeaders i     objFolder GetDetailsOf item  i

User · Answer

I m not sure what types of files you are trying to write the properties for but taglib-sharp is an excellent open source tagging library that wraps up all this functionality nicely   It has a lot of built in support for most of the popular media file types but also allows you to do more advanced tagging with pretty much any file   EDIT   I ve updated the link to taglib sharp   The old link no longer worked   EDIT  Updated the link once again per kzu s comment

User · Answer

Thank you guys for this thread  It helped me when I wanted to figure out an exe s file version  However  I needed to figure out the last bit myself of what is called Extended Properties   If you open properties of an exe  or dll  file in Windows Explorer  you get a Version tab  and a view of Extended Properties of that file  I wanted to access one of those values   The solution to this is the property indexer FolderItem ExtendedProperty and if you drop all spaces in the property s name  you ll get the value  E g  File Version goes FileVersion  and there you have it   Hope this helps anyone else  just thought I d add this info to this thread  Cheers

User · Answer

This sample in VB NET reads all extended properties   Sub Main           Dim arrHeaders 35           Dim shell As New Shell32 Shell         Dim objFolder As Shell32 Folder          objFolder   shell NameSpace  C  tmp            For i   0 To 34             arrHeaders i    objFolder GetDetailsOf objFolder Items  i          Next         For Each strFileName In objfolder Items             For i   0 To 34                 Console WriteLine i  amp  vbTab  amp  arrHeaders i   amp        amp  objfolder GetDetailsOf strFileName  i               Next         Next      End Sub   You have to add a reference to Microsoft Shell Controls and Automation from the COM tab of the References dialog

User · Answer

After looking at a number of solutions on this thread and elsewhere the following code was put together  This is only to read a property  I could not get the Shell32 FolderItem2 ExtendedProperty function to work  it is supposed to take a string value and return the correct value and type for that property    this was always null for me and developer reference resources were very thin  The WindowsApiCodePack seems to have been abandoned by Microsoft which brings us the code below    Use   string propertyValue   GetExtendedFileProperty  c   temp  FileNameYouWant ext   PropertyYouWant       Will return you the value of the extended property you want as a string for the given file and property name  Only loops until it found the specified property - not until all properties are discovered like some sample code Will work on Windows versions like Windows server 2008 where you will get the error  Unable to cast COM object of type  System   ComObject  to interface type  Shell32 Shell   if just trying to create the Shell32 Object normally   public static string GetExtendedFileProperty string filePath  string propertyName        string value   string Empty      string baseFolder   Path GetDirectoryName filePath       string fileName   Path GetFileName filePath          Method to load and execute the Shell object for Windows server 8 environment otherwise you get  Unable to cast COM object of type  System   ComObject  to interface type  Shell32 Shell       Type shellAppType   Type GetTypeFromProgID  Shell Application        Object shell   Activator CreateInstance shellAppType       Shell32 Folder shellFolder    Shell32 Folder shellAppType InvokeMember  NameSpace   System Reflection BindingFlags InvokeMethod  null  shell  new object     baseFolder            Parsename will find the specific file I m looking for in the Shell32 Folder object     Shell32 FolderItem folderitem   shellFolder ParseName fileName       if  folderitem    null                for  int i   0  i  lt  short MaxValue  i                            Get the property name for property index i             string property   shellFolder GetDetailsOf null  i                  Will be empty when all possible properties has been looped through  break out of loop             if  String IsNullOrEmpty property   break                 Skip to next property if this is not the specified property             if  property    propertyName  continue                     Read value of property             value   shellFolder GetDetailsOf folderitem  i                         returns string Empty if no value was found for the specified property     return value

User · Answer

For those of not crazy about VB  here it is in c    Note  you have to add a reference to Microsoft Shell Controls and Automation from the COM tab of the References dialog   public static void Main string   args        List lt string gt  arrHeaders   new List lt string gt          Shell32 Shell shell   new Shell32 Shell        Shell32 Folder objFolder       objFolder   shell NameSpace   C  temp testprop         for  int i   0  i  lt  short MaxValue  i                   string header   objFolder GetDetailsOf null  i           if  String IsNullOrEmpty header               break          arrHeaders Add header              foreach Shell32 FolderItem2 item in objFolder Items                  for  int i   0  i  lt  arrHeaders Count  i                          Console WriteLine                   i  t arrHeaders i     objFolder GetDetailsOf item  i

User · Answer

Here is a solution for reading - not writing - the extended properties based on what I found on this page and at help with shell32 objects   To be clear this is a hack  It looks like this code will still run on Windows 10 but will hit on some empty properties  Previous version of Windows should use           var i   0          while  true                                        if  String IsNullOrEmpty header   break                              i      On Windows 10 we assume that there are about 320 properties to read and simply skip the empty entries       private Dictionary lt string  string gt  GetExtendedProperties string filePath                var directory   Path GetDirectoryName filePath           var shell   new Shell32 Shell            var shellFolder   shell NameSpace directory           var fileName   Path GetFileName filePath           var folderitem   shellFolder ParseName fileName           var dictionary   new Dictionary lt string  string gt             var i   -1          while    i  lt  320                        var header   shellFolder GetDetailsOf null  i               if  String IsNullOrEmpty header   continue              var value   shellFolder GetDetailsOf folderitem  i               if   dictionary ContainsKey header   dictionary Add header  value               Console WriteLine header         value                     Marshal ReleaseComObject shell           Marshal ReleaseComObject shellFolder           return dictionary          As mentioned you need to reference the Com assembly Interop Shell32   If you get an STA related exception  you will find the solution here   Exception when using Shell32 to get File extended properties  I have no idea what those properties names would be like on a foreign system and couldn t find information about which localizable constants to use in order to access the dictionary  I also found that not all the properties from the Properties dialog were present in the dictionary returned   BTW this is terribly slow and - at least on Windows 10 - parsing dates in the string retrieved would be a challenge so using this seems to be a bad idea to start with   On Windows 10 you should definitely use the Windows Storage library which contains the SystemPhotoProperties  SystemMusicProperties etc   https   docs microsoft com en-us windows uwp files quickstart-getting-file-properties  And finally  I posted a much better solution that uses WindowsAPICodePack there

User · Answer

I m not sure what types of files you are trying to write the properties for but taglib-sharp is an excellent open source tagging library that wraps up all this functionality nicely   It has a lot of built in support for most of the popular media file types but also allows you to do more advanced tagging with pretty much any file   EDIT   I ve updated the link to taglib sharp   The old link no longer worked   EDIT  Updated the link once again per kzu s comment

User · Answer

There s a CodeProject article for an ID3 reader   And a thread at kixtart org that has more information for other properties  Basically  you need to call the GetDetailsOf   method on the folder shell object for shell32 dll

User · Answer

Thank you guys for this thread  It helped me when I wanted to figure out an exe s file version  However  I needed to figure out the last bit myself of what is called Extended Properties   If you open properties of an exe  or dll  file in Windows Explorer  you get a Version tab  and a view of Extended Properties of that file  I wanted to access one of those values   The solution to this is the property indexer FolderItem ExtendedProperty and if you drop all spaces in the property s name  you ll get the value  E g  File Version goes FileVersion  and there you have it   Hope this helps anyone else  just thought I d add this info to this thread  Cheers

User · Answer

There s a CodeProject article for an ID3 reader   And a thread at kixtart org that has more information for other properties  Basically  you need to call the GetDetailsOf   method on the folder shell object for shell32 dll

User · Answer

Solution 2016 Add following NuGet packages to your project   Microsoft WindowsAPICodePack-Shell by Microsoft Microsoft WindowsAPICodePack-Core by Microsoft  Read and Write Properties using Microsoft WindowsAPICodePack Shell  using Microsoft WindowsAPICodePack Shell PropertySystem   string filePath     quot C  temp example docx quot   var file   ShellFile FromFilePath filePath       Read and Write   string   oldAuthors   file Properties System Author Value  string oldTitle   file Properties System Title Value   file Properties System Author Value   new string      quot Author  1 quot    quot Author  2 quot     file Properties System Title Value    quot Example Title quot       Alternate way to Write   ShellPropertyWriter propertyWriter    file Properties GetPropertyWriter    propertyWriter WriteProperty SystemProperties System Author  new string      quot Author quot      propertyWriter Close     Important  The file must be a valid one  created by the specific assigned software  Every file type has specific extended file properties and not all of them are writable  If you right-click a file on desktop and cannot edit a property  you wont be able to edit it in code too  Example   Create txt file on desktop  rename its extension to docx  You can t edit its Author or Title property  Open it with Word  edit and save it  Now you can   So just make sure to use some try catch Further Topic  MSDN  Implementing Property Handlers

User · Answer

Jerker s answer is little simpler  Here s sample code which works from MS   var folder   new Shell   NameSpace folderPath   foreach  FolderItem2 item in folder Items          var company   item ExtendedProperty  Company        var author   item ExtendedProperty  Author           Etc      For those who can t reference shell32 statically  you can invoke it dynamically like this   var shellAppType   Type GetTypeFromProgID  Shell Application    dynamic shellApp   Activator CreateInstance shellAppType   var folder   shellApp NameSpace folderPath   foreach  var item in folder Items          var company   item ExtendedProperty  Company        var author   item ExtendedProperty  Author           Etc

User · Answer

This sample in VB NET reads all extended properties   Sub Main           Dim arrHeaders 35           Dim shell As New Shell32 Shell         Dim objFolder As Shell32 Folder          objFolder   shell NameSpace  C  tmp            For i   0 To 34             arrHeaders i    objFolder GetDetailsOf objFolder Items  i          Next         For Each strFileName In objfolder Items             For i   0 To 34                 Console WriteLine i  amp  vbTab  amp  arrHeaders i   amp        amp  objfolder GetDetailsOf strFileName  i               Next         Next      End Sub   You have to add a reference to Microsoft Shell Controls and Automation from the COM tab of the References dialog

User · Answer

This sample in VB NET reads all extended properties   Sub Main           Dim arrHeaders 35           Dim shell As New Shell32 Shell         Dim objFolder As Shell32 Folder          objFolder   shell NameSpace  C  tmp            For i   0 To 34             arrHeaders i    objFolder GetDetailsOf objFolder Items  i          Next         For Each strFileName In objfolder Items             For i   0 To 34                 Console WriteLine i  amp  vbTab  amp  arrHeaders i   amp        amp  objfolder GetDetailsOf strFileName  i               Next         Next      End Sub   You have to add a reference to Microsoft Shell Controls and Automation from the COM tab of the References dialog

User · Answer

There s a CodeProject article for an ID3 reader   And a thread at kixtart org that has more information for other properties  Basically  you need to call the GetDetailsOf   method on the folder shell object for shell32 dll

User · Answer

There s a CodeProject article for an ID3 reader   And a thread at kixtart org that has more information for other properties  Basically  you need to call the GetDetailsOf   method on the folder shell object for shell32 dll

User · Answer

I m not sure what types of files you are trying to write the properties for but taglib-sharp is an excellent open source tagging library that wraps up all this functionality nicely   It has a lot of built in support for most of the popular media file types but also allows you to do more advanced tagging with pretty much any file   EDIT   I ve updated the link to taglib sharp   The old link no longer worked   EDIT  Updated the link once again per kzu s comment

User · Answer

Jerker s answer is little simpler  Here s sample code which works from MS   var folder   new Shell   NameSpace folderPath   foreach  FolderItem2 item in folder Items          var company   item ExtendedProperty  Company        var author   item ExtendedProperty  Author           Etc      For those who can t reference shell32 statically  you can invoke it dynamically like this   var shellAppType   Type GetTypeFromProgID  Shell Application    dynamic shellApp   Activator CreateInstance shellAppType   var folder   shellApp NameSpace folderPath   foreach  var item in folder Items          var company   item ExtendedProperty  Company        var author   item ExtendedProperty  Author           Etc

[c#] Read/Write 'Extended' file properties (C#)

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