Google-drive – Custom metadata for Google Drive

google-drivegoogle-slides

By default, when you look at a list of files in Google Drive you have access to the following metadata:

  • Name
  • Owner
  • Last modified
  • Filesize
  • Sharing (with whom, what permissions they have)

I am wondering if there is a way to create additional custom metadata fields (or "credits") for files in Drive. Here is the use case we have in mind, but I imagine there are many other potential uses:

Our team uses Google Slides to create storyboards that are shared collaboratively. Often one person will draft the initial script, another person the main storyboard, a third person might create some custom graphics. Someone else might be the supervising editor. And so on. When we look at a bunch of these storyboards, all we can see is the name of the "owner" (who might have any of those roles, or none of them) and the people who share it (which doesn't tell us who any of those people are).

What I would really love is an icon that I can click on in the file list, much in the same way that sharing works, that would allow me to not only see who the file is shared with, but what their different role are. A kind of pop-up custom metadata tray.

Note, I know I can just type all of that information into the storyboard a a last-screen credits list (that is what we currently do) but with that system you have to open the document in order to see who worked on it and what they did. I'd like to have access to that information from the Drive folder list.

I know this is not native functionality in Google Drive. Is there any way to modify it? (Are there add-ons that work in Drive itself, rather than in Docs, Sheets, etc.?)

Best Answer

UPDATE: As of November 11, 2019 some editions of G Suite could have access to this feature. Ref. Manage Drive metadata (beta)


The Google Drive UI doesn't include a built-in way to add custom metadata but this is possible by using Google Apps Script and Google Drive Advanced Service or the Google Drive API.

It's very likely that there a third-party software the already does this, please ask for a software recommendation on https://softwarerecs.stackexchange.com.