File identifier is a command line tool that permits identification of different files, as well as extracting the metadata associated with those files. Furthermore, the identification part of the software relies on a text database (similar to the UNIX magic file) that can easily be modified and extended.

Currently identifies about 600 file formats, and extracts metadata from about 30 major file formats including PDF, PNG, OLE (DOC), RIFF (AVI, WAVE), IFF (AIFF, ILBM), EXE, SGML (HTML), RTF, MP3, ASF (WMA, WMV), TIFF and JPEG.

Optionally the metadata can be saved to a database that is compatible with 4DOS/4NT Description files. The tool can also generate simple HTML reports that are configurable via CSS, as well as SFV Compatible CRC-32 integrity verification files.

File identifier also automatically detects embedded xmp metadata and maps all the extracted metadata to XMP schemas (including dublincore - ref. ISO 15836) for easy classification. Finally, the identified files are classified according to their MIME types, File format identifier (FFID) types and file extensions.

Extraction of metadata stored in multiple languages is also supported.

This is the freeware version. The professional version also supports saving reports to CSV files of all the extracted metadata.