ADS Manager (Alternate Data Stream Manager) is a simple, straightforward, and most importantly free utility for accessing and modifying so-called "alternate data streams" within any given file. This functionality is a little-known feature of the NTFS file system that allows one file to contain more than one stream of data. This allows your files to contain "hidden" data that will be invisible to other applications.

What are its uses?
ADS Manager allows you to open any file in a NTFS filesystem, and manage its alternate data streams, including creating, deleting, modifying, and renaming them. The program also allows you to search directories for files that have alternate data streams.

The following are some situations when you might want to access alternate data streams:
1. You want to store "hidden" data along with a certain file. If a file that contains alternate data streams is opened in a normal editor, only the "primary" stream will be seen, and none of the alternate streams will show up. Even the Property pages for the file will not mention the alternate streams.
2. You want to check whether a certain file contains alternate data streams. A particularly dangerous use of alternate streams is for distribution of rootkits and other malware. A file that appears innocuous can actually have alternate streams that contain very dangerous executable code. ADSManager can help you detect and analyze such files.
3. You're simply curious about some of the inner workings of NTFS, and want to see how alternate data streams are used in ordinary Windows files, not necessarily files infected with malware.

The license of this software is Freeware, you can free download and free use this disk management software.