Patent ID: 8452751

Claim:
A computer-implemented method, comprising: receiving, at a computing device, a selection of one or more files, wherein each file has a corresponding file type, wherein each file type specifies a set of one or more search attributes, and wherein each file is associated with a metadata object; receiving a command to perform a search using the selection of one or more files; identifying a corresponding file type for each file in the selection of one or more files; determining one or more sets of search attributes for each identified file type in the selection of one or more files; identifying one or more metadata objects associated with the selection of one or more files, wherein each metadata object includes a persistent file identifier that remains the same when the associated file is modified, and wherein each metadata object includes metadata; using the determined search attributes to select a portion of metadata from each metadata object, wherein the selection is from the identified one or more metadata objects associated with the selection of one or more files; extracting the selected portions of metadata generating a search query using the extracted portions of metadata; performing a search using the search query; and displaying results of the search.