diff --git a/src/fairchem/core/datasets/ase_datasets.py b/src/fairchem/core/datasets/ase_datasets.py
index 1d7c80c990..0b83b0ccc0 100644
--- a/src/fairchem/core/datasets/ase_datasets.py
+++ b/src/fairchem/core/datasets/ase_datasets.py
@@ -183,6 +183,13 @@ def sample_property_metadata(self, num_samples: int = 100) -> dict:
 
         return metadata
 
+    def get_metadata(self, attr, idx):
+        if attr != "natoms":
+            return None
+        if isinstance(idx, list):
+            return [self.get_metadata(attr, i) for i in idx]
+        return len(self.get_atoms(idx))
+
 
 @registry.register_dataset("ase_read")
 class AseReadDataset(AseAtomsDataset):
diff --git a/src/fairchem/core/scripts/make_lmdb_sizes.py b/src/fairchem/core/scripts/make_lmdb_sizes.py
index 682fb58e65..1e68996502 100644
--- a/src/fairchem/core/scripts/make_lmdb_sizes.py
+++ b/src/fairchem/core/scripts/make_lmdb_sizes.py
@@ -28,7 +28,7 @@ def get_data(index):
     return index, natoms, neighbors
 
 
-def main(args) -> None:
+def make_lmdb_sizes(args) -> None:
     path = assert_is_instance(args.data_path, str)
     global dataset
     if os.path.isdir(path):
@@ -63,7 +63,7 @@ def main(args) -> None:
         np.savez(outpath, natoms=sorted_natoms, neighbors=sorted_neighbors)
 
 
-if __name__ == "__main__":
+def get_lmdb_sizes_parser():
     parser = argparse.ArgumentParser()
     parser.add_argument(
         "--data-path",
@@ -77,5 +77,10 @@ def main(args) -> None:
         type=int,
         help="Num of workers to parallelize across",
     )
+    return parser
+
+
+if __name__ == "__main__":
+    parser = get_lmdb_sizes_parser()
     args: argparse.Namespace = parser.parse_args()
-    main(args)
+    make_lmdb_sizes(args)
diff --git a/tests/core/datasets/test_ase_datasets.py b/tests/core/datasets/test_ase_datasets.py
index 01ddfb0d9f..7b114d877f 100644
--- a/tests/core/datasets/test_ase_datasets.py
+++ b/tests/core/datasets/test_ase_datasets.py
@@ -119,6 +119,10 @@ def test_ase_read_dataset(tmp_path, structures):
     del data
 
 
+def test_ase_get_metadata(ase_dataset):
+    assert ase_dataset[0].get_metadata("natoms", [0])[0] == 3
+
+
 def test_ase_metadata_guesser(ase_dataset):
     dataset, _ = ase_dataset
 
diff --git a/tests/core/datasets/test_lmdb_dataset.py b/tests/core/datasets/test_lmdb_dataset.py
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000..f922e32ce3
--- /dev/null
+++ b/tests/core/datasets/test_lmdb_dataset.py
@@ -0,0 +1,29 @@
+from fairchem.core.datasets.base_dataset import create_dataset
+
+import numpy as np
+
+from fairchem.core.scripts.make_lmdb_sizes import get_lmdb_sizes_parser, make_lmdb_sizes
+
+
+def test_load_lmdb_dataset(tutorial_dataset_path):
+
+    lmdb_path = str(tutorial_dataset_path / "s2ef/val_20")
+
+    # make dataset metadata
+    parser = get_lmdb_sizes_parser()
+    args, override_args = parser.parse_known_args(["--data-path", lmdb_path])
+    make_lmdb_sizes(args)
+
+    config = {
+        "format": "lmdb",
+        "src": lmdb_path,
+    }
+
+    dataset = create_dataset(config, split="val")
+
+    assert dataset.get_metadata("natoms", 0) == dataset[0].natoms
+
+    all_metadata_natoms = np.array(dataset.get_metadata("natoms", range(len(dataset))))
+    all_natoms = np.array([datapoint.natoms for datapoint in dataset])
+
+    assert (all_natoms == all_metadata_natoms).all()