How to Read Document and Page Metadata from OneNote in Python

OneNote .one files store metadata at two levels: the document (section) level holds the section name; the page level holds the author, creation timestamp, last-modified timestamp, and page hierarchy level. Aspose.Note FOSS for Python exposes all of these through the Document and Page classes.

Prerequisites

pip install aspose-note

Document-Level Metadata

The Document object exposes one metadata field:

Property	Type	Description
`doc.DisplayName`	`str \| None`	The OneNote section display name stored in the file’s metadata. `None` if not present.

from aspose.note import Document

doc = Document("MyNotes.one")
print(f"Section name: {doc.DisplayName or '(none)'}")

doc.CreationTime is declared as a property but always returns None in version 26.2: the field is parsed but not yet surfaced at the Document level.

Page-Level Metadata

Each Page object carries:

Property	Type	Description
`page.Author`	`str \| None`	The display name of the user who created or owns the page.
`page.CreationTime`	`datetime \| None`	When the page was created. Returns a Python `datetime` object in UTC.
`page.LastModifiedTime`	`datetime \| None`	When the page was last modified.
`page.Level`	`int \| None`	Sub-page indent level. `0` = top-level page, `1` = first-level sub-page, `2` = second-level, etc.

Step 1: Read Section Name

from aspose.note import Document

doc = Document("ProjectNotes.one")
name = doc.DisplayName
print(f"Section: {name or '(not stored)'}")

Step 2: Read Metadata for Every Page

from aspose.note import Document, Page

doc = Document("ProjectNotes.one")

for i, page in enumerate(doc, start=1):
    title = ""
    if page.Title and page.Title.TitleText:
        title = page.Title.TitleText.Text.strip()

    level = page.Level or 0
    indent = "  " * level

    author = page.Author or "(unknown)"
    created = page.CreationTime.strftime("%Y-%m-%d") if page.CreationTime else "(none)"
    modified = page.LastModifiedTime.strftime("%Y-%m-%d %H:%M") if page.LastModifiedTime else "(none)"

    print(f"{indent}[{i}] {title or '(untitled)'}")
    print(f"{indent}    Author:   {author}")
    print(f"{indent}    Created:  {created}")
    print(f"{indent}    Modified: {modified}")
    print(f"{indent}    Level:    {level}")

Complete Example: Metadata Report

from aspose.note import Document

def print_metadata_report(one_path: str) -> None:
    doc = Document(one_path)

    print(f"Section:    {doc.DisplayName or '(not stored)'}")
    print(f"Page count: {doc.Count()}")
    print()

    for i, page in enumerate(doc, start=1):
        title = ""
        if page.Title and page.Title.TitleText:
            title = page.Title.TitleText.Text.strip()

        level = page.Level or 0
        prefix = "  " * level + f"[{i}]"

        parts = [prefix, f'"{title or "(untitled)"}"']
        if page.Author:
            parts.append(f"by {page.Author}")
        if page.CreationTime:
            parts.append(f"created {page.CreationTime.strftime('%Y-%m-%d')}")
        if page.LastModifiedTime:
            parts.append(f"modified {page.LastModifiedTime.strftime('%Y-%m-%d')}")

        print("  ".join(parts))

print_metadata_report("ProjectNotes.one")

Detecting Sub-Pages

In OneNote, sub-pages are visually indented under their parent page. The page.Level property reflects this nesting:

from aspose.note import Document

doc = Document("MyNotes.one")

for page in doc:
    level = page.Level or 0
    title = ""
    if page.Title and page.Title.TitleText:
        title = page.Title.TitleText.Text.strip()

    indent = "  " * level
    marker = "├─" if level > 0 else "•"
    print(f"{indent}{marker} {title or '(untitled)'}")

Level values:

0: top-level page
1: first-level sub-page (one indent)
2: second-level sub-page (two indents)

Notes

All timestamps (CreationTime, LastModifiedTime) are datetime objects in UTC when present.
page.Level returns None for pages where the level was not stored in the binary format. Treat None as 0 using page.Level or 0.
doc.DisplayName reads the section name from the OneNote file’s metadata block; it is the section tab name visible in the OneNote sidebar, not a filename.