A method to expose status information is provided. The status information is associated with metadata extracted from multimedia files and stored in a metadata database. The metadata information that is extracted from the multimedia files is stored in a read queue to allow a background thread to process the metadata and populate the metadata database. Additionally, the metadata database may be updated to include user-define metadata, which is written back to the multimedia files. The user-defined metadata is included in a write queue and is written to the multimedia files associated with the user-defined metadata. The status of the read and write queues are exposed to a user through a graphical user interface. The status may include the list of multimedia files included in the read and write queues, the priorities of each multimedia file, and the number of remaining multimedia files.