Drive Templates

Drive Templates and Reusing Metadata Schemas

Custom metadata attributes are powerful tools for organizing assets across your drives, but each schema you build lives at the drive level. If you want the same set of fields to apply to multiple drives — for example, a consistent baseline across every project drive on your team — you'll need to use a template-based workflow. This article walks through how metadata schemas are scoped, the two recommended ways to reuse them today, and what's on the horizon for cross-drive management.

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How Metadata Schemas Are Scoped

Every metadata attribute you create in Shade is drive-specific. When you add a new field to a drive, that field applies to all assets within that drive — not to a single folder, and not across other drives in your workspace.

Under the hood, your metadata schema is stored as a JSON field (custom_metadata_attributes) at the drive level. This is what makes drive-level reuse possible: when a drive is duplicated, that JSON travels with it.

Metadata attributes can be:

• Populated manually by team members

• Populated automatically with AI, using a custom prompt you define when you toggle on Autofill with AI

💡 For a refresher on creating attributes, see Custom and Automated Metadata.

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Why You Might Want to Reuse a Schema

Many teams build a thoughtful metadata schema for one drive — covering things like project phase, content type, talent, or campaign — and then realize they want the same structure on every new drive they spin up. Without a way to reuse that schema, you'd have to recreate every attribute by hand each time, which is both time-consuming and error-prone if attributes drift between drives.

The two approaches below let you skip that work.

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Approach 1: Duplicate an Existing Drive

The fastest way to carry a metadata schema into a new drive is to duplicate a drive that already has the schema you want.

To duplicate a drive:

1. Right-click the drive in your sidebar

2. Select Duplicate Drive

The duplicate preserves your full metadata schema as part of the new drive. You can then:

• Rename the new drive for its new purpose

• Use folder templates to populate the folder structure

• Begin adding assets

This is the simplest path when you already have a "good" drive whose schema you want to clone.

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Approach 2: Build a Template Drive

If you regularly create new drives — for example, one per client, project, or shoot — the recommended pattern is to maintain a dedicated template drive.

To set this up:

1. Create a new, empty drive named something like [Template] Project Drive

2. Configure your full metadata schema on it (every field, every AI prompt, every option list)

3. Leave it empty of assets

4. Whenever you need a new project drive, duplicate the template drive instead of starting from scratch

This keeps your "canonical" schema in one place. When you want to update the schema for future projects, you update the template — and any new duplicates inherit the changes.

⚠️ Note: Updating the template drive does not retroactively update drives that were duplicated from it in the past. Each duplicated drive becomes independent at the moment of duplication.

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Current Limitations

It's worth being upfront about what's not yet possible:

• No global / account-level metadata schema. There is currently no way to define a baseline set of metadata attributes that automatically applies to every drive in your workspace. Each drive's schema is independent once created.

• No native cross-drive sync. If you change an attribute on your template drive, drives that were already duplicated from it will not update. Schema changes need to be applied per drive.

• No standardized default view across drives. Teams cannot yet enforce a single shared layout or view configuration across all drives.

For most teams, the duplicate-drive workflow handles these gaps in practice — but the tradeoffs are worth knowing as you design your setup.

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What's Being Explored

Cross-drive and account-level schema management is an active area of product investigation. Items currently being tracked include:

• Account-level metadata management — the ability to define a workspace-wide baseline schema that all drives inherit, with drive admins able to extend it

• Default drive layout for all drives — letting teams standardize views and metadata fields across drives for all users

• Custom Objects at the workspace level — defining objects globally and enabling them on specific drives

If any of these are blocking your team's setup, let your account contact know — customer feedback directly influences prioritization.

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FAQs

If I duplicate a drive, do the assets come with it?

No. Duplicating a drive copies the schema and configuration, but not the assets inside it. You'll start with an empty drive that has your metadata fields ready to go.

Can I update my template drive and have changes flow to all drives I previously duplicated from it?

Not currently. Each duplicated drive becomes independent. Schema changes after the fact need to be applied to each drive individually.

What's the difference between folder templates and drive duplication?

Folder templates control the folder structure inside a drive. Drive duplication copies the entire drive configuration, including the metadata schema, views, and folder templates. They're complementary — most teams use both together.

Is there a way to bulk-apply a schema to drives I've already created?

Not today. Schema changes have to be made on each drive individually. Account-level metadata management (which would address this) is being tracked as a product request.