Quick point - musikCube ([www.musikcube.com]) also has the "Tag by Filename" facility.

AirRaven

Maybe lifehacker should consider censoring screenshots.

Just a friendly suggestion :D

icedicicle

I find MP3Tag to be more than adequate. It can also be run from a memory stick.

[www.mp3tag.de]

L.Rawlins

Still trying to find an app that will accurately retag mp3s that are labeled wrong and have wrong metadata.

For instance, I have a 4 disc set that I let a CD-Ripper that shall remain nameless, auto-tag and which subsequently mistagged all the songs. So for instance the first song on the CD is now labeled as the second, the second as the third, and so on. Far too many tracks to sit there and edit manually.

So far, no app has been able to properly tag the songs. Jaikoz, MusicBrainz, FixTunes, etc.

Anyone have any suggestions?

FSeven

TagScanner is ok and freeware but IHMO the best tagger out there is Tag&Rename. It's worth each of its 30 bucks.

Ronan

Hi guys,
I agree - Tag & Rename is the best.

I have tried every tag editor there is (on mac and pc), and the clear winner for me is Tag & Rename - I loved it so much I bought it, despite being given a "copy" by a friend.

Very powerful and easy.
Mark.

livegod

I've been using this program for years. LOVE IT. Does everything I need it to. Once you get the keyboard shortcuts down it's quite an efficient little freeware app. Good find guys.

Tr3y

@L.Rawlins: I'll second that; MP3Tag does pretty much everything this does, as far as I can tell.

Magnakai Haaskivi

I used to use MP3 tag studio in windows, but now I've moved to Linux. Any suggestions on nice taggers like this for linux? All the ones I've seen seem to be windows only. I use the command line tool eyeD3 for the renaming part, but I'd rather have a nice gui for the actual tagging.

spookypeanut

Lifehacker, stop scaring me.

I watch the movie The Shining, and you put a picture of Jack Nicholson on the front page.

I google for an MP3 lyric editor, come up with nothing, so I head over to lifehacker. Staring me in the face is what I want.

You're scary, Lifehacker, but dammit you get results.

bana

I have been using this for quite some time (years?). It is a specialty program, but for what it does, I haven't found anything better. I have been using it for quite a while to structure my songs in an itunes layout without having to get "iTuned" (what a dreadful program).

Josh

@FSeven: That's what I'm looking for too. I'm not trying to rename files, I'm just trying to have correct, complete, consistent metadata. WMP11 is pretty good at letting me edit info en masse, but I have a LOT of music so I'm wondering if there's a more magical app out there.

burnblue

@L.Rawlins:
I have always loved mp3tag but I might try this out

Darkmatter91

@spookypeanut: I've been using EasyTAG in Ubuntu which works pretty well. Has a filename scanner to pull tags of file/directory names too.

Phets

Through a number of routes, I have acquired a music library that's around 100Gb in size. I might give this a whirl as I'm loath to sit there and correct the metadata in the files that foobar2000 has managed to f*ck up. Actually, that's a bit harsh, the metadata is correct (for most of the files) what's happened is that foobar2000 has changed all the files so they are listed as follows:

Artist\Album\Track Number Track Name

Which is fine except for those tracks which are part of compilations...

Can Tagscanner fix this problem for me without fudging the whole lot?

vegbruiser

@icedicicle: Yeah, no use in worrying about keeping articles and comments family friendly if the screen shots don't do it too.

I mean, N.W.A.? I like it too, but what do you expect?

waffles

I'll second Media Monkey as one of the best. Mostly because I used to use 3 different programs to play, edit tags, and normalize volume on my mp3's. Media monkey has reduced that to a single program to do all three things (and more.)

milrtime83

@Ronan: this looks like it functions just like tag&rename...which for those who don't like to pay/pirate software, this might be a good first choice.

MobileMilitia

TagScanner is OK, but make sure your files are set up properly before hand as there is no real way to undo a mass change. To me the tag editing tools in Media Monkey are the best bang for the proverbial buck. Built in google search, auto organization and a host of other useful features.

TheApocalypse

@vegbruiser: how did you do that with foobar? it has never moved my music around. i didn't even know it could. did you tell it to move things?

if so, tell it to move things back. use %album_artist% instead of just %artist% to preserve compilations.

garbanzo-bean

@FSeven: if the ID3 info is wrong, and the filenames are wrong, where do you expect a tagging app to get data?

CDDB works on whole albums, not individual songs. when you rip from a CD, an app will look up track info up in online database. the app finds the right data by calculating a unique number for that album, based on track start times, the alubm's length, and the number of tracks present. every album will have a unique number.

you could re-rip the CDs, but if the CDDB info is wrong, then even re-ripping the CD won't help. just take 7 minutes and do it manually.

garbanzo-bean

@FSeven: My suggestion: re-rip the CD with a decent program. That takes next to no effort.

jdoree

@vegbruiser: iTunes can do that if you let it manage your music folder. It will create folders for compilations (that are marked as such) like so:

Compilations\Album\Track Name

saffyre9

That is one special playlist....
Old school rap.
Current Pop Rap/Hippity/Hop.

Oh.. so it must be the playlist of some angry 14 year old boy... and then BLAMMO!
k.d. Lang?
Really?

btgoss

MusicBrainz work for me. Although, it would be nice to add lyrics.

firelark

@vegbruiser: MP3Tag has worked well for me. It gives you the ability to edit tags in bulk, and also rename files based on whatever info from the tag you want.

Norcross

Been using Mp3 Tag Tools for a while (and it works great) but I'm always willing to try something new.
[[sourceforge.net]]

awh

I agree, I havent found an mp3 tagger as functional as Tag&Rename.

magnus91

@L.Rawlins:
Another vote for that piece of software. It's pretty easy to use. Since i kept all my music well organized by folders, and track names, adding tags for me was a breeze.

Pasha

ack forgive the double post!

PaladinMJ

i secondPicard

PaladinMJ

I second the Picard Tagger

PaladinMJ

@FSeven: I would have thought that MusicBrainz Picard would have been able to sort that out for you... It has always worked for me.

Asatruer

Picard Tagger www.musicbrainz.org is the tagger I've been using. It's Open Source and available for all platforms. It connects to an online database and compares your track's fingerprint to their records. It does pretty good matching my mainstream tracks, but some of my rare and local stuff is iffy.

wfpearson

While it may not be the most user-friendly, nothing I've seen comes close to offering the power and flexibility of foobar2000's script tagging system, and fb2k fully supports Unicode to boot. It's the reason I still keep the program even after having moved on to using iTunes for music library and iTunes sync.

gokieks

You can install MusicBrainz support for Mp3tag.

apitel

@bana: There's several ways to add lyrics to your mp3 file.

There's this. And there's also MP3Tag (I think you just have to add the %lyric% or %lyrics% to the window so its easily added in. But don't quote me on that.)

MediaMonkey has a tab in each file property dialouge that used just for lyrics.

TanyaP

@L.Rawlins: I use MP3Tag to retag and rename files on the fly. Perfect solution for those who don't want a huge library of files. (I use MediaMonkey for my library management.)

TanyaP

MP3Tag is much much much better!

ErikWestrup

I think this is probably the best free tool I've used, but Tag&Rename is still better.

xgermx

@L.Rawlins: How do you make MP3Tag scan automatically? I've always just used it for manually tagging stuff.

zakharm

@FSeven:

Try the latest version of Winamp. It actually analyzes your tracks and populates the metadata from Gracenote. I've found it to be 98% accurate. Of course that's an arbitrary number, but I've only had a few mis-tags. But those were easily fixed by hand.

greenbot

@gokieks: have you used the foo_pod plug-in for foobar2000? It loads my iPod rather well, without the problems that iTunes caused me.

Norcross

Here's another vote for MediaMonkey.

aj_robins

@greenbot: ya i used to use tag&rename which functioned similarly to this app, but I also recently discovered Winamps auto-tag. Very cool & accurate.

mrpeepants

I've used TagScanner for quite a while and love it.

It does exactly what it says it does, and does it well. I've found it especially helpful with poorly tagged files (which require a lot of manual massaging).

AndyMan1

Will give this a try , interface looks nice.

Using Tag&Rename for quite sometime now and works great.
Those who want a free alternative , mp3tag is also good.

QuadMaster

So what the heck is the difference between this one and MediaMonkey? Why would anyone use this app instead of the older one?

NYCgoalie

The Godfather...hasn't been updated in a while, but it's EXCELLENT. I tried out Tag&Rename and Godfather beats it to pieces, and it's free.

CareyNavision

@CareyNavision: I've used The Godfather for years and haven't found anything that can replace it. To be fair, I haven't looked too hard because it does everything I need.

reeflections

@spookypeanut: MusicBrainz Picard runs in Linux. Also, most of the Windows tagging software should run fine in Wine.

jonom

I've been looking for somethign that will fix my genre tags. I keep my mp3 collection pretty good, but I got lax on the genre tag, so now I have hundreds of genres. I'd love a tagger that will use a database (freedb?) or even use the info from itunes music store to fix all my genre tags. Anyone know something that will do that?

scarymike23

Is there a programme that puts everything in to folders for you like iTunes?

Because I want to move all my music on to an external hard drive which won't always be plugged in so iTunes is a bit hopeless for that. Also it would be nice with video support.

Anyone any ideas?

LifesSweetDrug

The ideal MP3 ID tag editor would be one that can do something similar to Regedit in Windows:

1) It exports all the ID tags from files in a given directory tree into Excel or some other editable format.

2) It imports the Excel or other file back in and overwrites all the tags in the directory tree's files.

It would be much easier to edit of data could be moved around as in a spreadsheet.

After giving Tagscanner a try, it's not perfect but it's not bad. Some edits are easy and quick to do, and some are agony to do. The worst thing about it is the location of the "Save" button on the tag edit screen. It's too far onscreen from the most common editing fields (name, track, artist, etc.).

P_Smith

I am another faithful user of Tag&Rename.

jkorkiner

I used to use Tagscanner exclusively, but every version I've ever used had a rather nasty crash bug which would lock the app at 100% CPU usage. Not a big deal now that I use multi-core systems, but at the time on my Athlon XP it almost always meant a hard reset (it was that bad).

Does this problem still exist?

stncttr908

@icedicicle:

I don't see any boobies in that screenshot. What are we censoring?

lordargent

@icedicicle: I really doubt children don't know these words. Censoring them only makes them more attractive, learning to use them correctly and what this word carries with it seems smarter to me.
And I wonder how many children really read lifehacker...

twopeak

A couple of weeks ago MediaMonkey was offered to us as a good choice. I downloaded and started using it.
Now this comes out, could you please add how it compares to similar programs?
I'm going crazy in this web of application recomendations!

twopeak

@LifesSweetDrug: Media Monkey will do that for you.

Nuclear Moose

I had Media Monkey Gold for quite some time and I liked it for all aspects - renaming - organizing - play lists - the usual. I found the tagging to be quite good but rather onerous. Often when faced with multiple possibilities there was a lot of manual work to do to sort through and select an album or track name.

Tagging can be frustrating too when you deal with a Canadian release versus US release versus UK release when some of the titles *may* be slightly different or the release dates different. Personally I don't care about that kind of information, so it would have been nice to set the tagger to ignore certain metadata.

Artist, album and track name are really all I care about.

Sidebar question about tagging: Is genre not the worst bit of metadata or what? I can never decide what the genre should be and after taking hours one day to fix a bunch of my tracks for missing genre, I realised that I never sort by genre, and I never start up my music player thinking "It's time for some Easy Listening Death Metal Blues." I prefer to simply blank out the genre entirely now. End of problem.

Nuclear Moose

Musicbrainz.org Samples the song and compares it against other people's copies.

ParkerWorby

I'm a huge fan of Jaikoz because it does most of the above, works with Musicbrainz and MusicIP to identify and fix pretty much everything correctly regardless of missing tags, including Lyrics and Album Art.

sethcohn

I prefer MusicBrainz Picard over any other program. The other ones seem to always mess up my filenames, folder structures, tags and in one case even destroyed a part of my digital collection.

SomalakshmiMadden

The only app you need for tagging mp3's is ID3-tagit. The features are boundless and it extremely versatile. Here's the address: http://www.id3-tagit.de/

ErwinGibbon

I used to use an app called tag&rename, and I thought it was awesome. Unfortunatly it wasn't free. I don't know how tagscanner compares to tag&rename, but I'm going to find out.

DeborahJemagee

Another vote for the Godfather.
But maybe is time for a Hive Five of mp3 taggers.

zaxl

@P_Smith: Ctrl+S dude. Does wonders.

Tr3y

@stncttr908: I'm running Vista Ultimate x64 and have no crash bug. Try it again!

Tr3y

@scarymike23: Mp3tag can import tag info from freedb.

Zennalathas

I've come across an ID3 tag editor called Mp3tag, and it's got a really clean interface, the options to rename files from the tag info or a text file or just rearrange the filename. It can import tag info from the filename, or from a text file, or import it from freedb. The only thing I can't get it to do is edit the album artist, and I haven't found a program out there than can do that (for compilations) properly anyway.

Zennalathas

@FSeven:

The program MP3Tag can actually read a text file to rename or retag your music. It can also import the tags from freedb for you.

Zennalathas

mp3tag, simple, small, freeware. works just fine for me.

palewook

Do a Hive Five Lifehacker!

Tr3y

Would this be a suitable replacement for going through songs using Shazam on my iPhone? I need bulk processing and automation because I have about 100 that are incorrectly tagged, and Shazam is very good, but not for batches, obviously.

UnStatusTheQuo

I use EasyTag (easytag.sourceforge.net) Windows and Linux, works brilliantly and is FOSS.

Xzanron

I usually rip classical CDs, which might have 80 or more tracks on 3 CDs one wants to play in sequence, not caring about the track names. I turn off autotagging and rename all the mp3 files with a bulk file renamer (I use RenameMaster from [www.joejoesoft.com] ) into three fields separated by two underscores (for tagging by MediaMonkey). The first field is fixed length and ends with a two or three
digit sequence number added by RenameMaster, the second field is the composer, and the third the name of the piece of music. Then I go to MediaMonkey > Tools > auto-tag from filename, my three fields ending up I believe as Title, Artist, and Album. Probably not a kosher way of doing things, but it works for me: the tracks are played in proper sequence both on my CD/MP3 player and my Sansa MP3 players, and the composer and title of the piece are displayed.

Capone

@Nuclear Moose: Genre is the worst. Especially when you have to pigeonhole an artist into a specific one.

Enochrewt

@Nuclear Moose: The Godfather also will.

Enochrewt

Well I downloaded this. And I find it to be very un-user friendly. Uninstalled 5 minutes after installation.

Try Fix Tunes. But that has it's problems as well. (plus you have to torrent it, to get the Full Version that actually does stuff. But i find it easier than this, plus it integrates with Itunes.

dannymalt

MediaMonkey is the best thing I've ever used as far as organizing goes. Not having an OSX equivalent pushed me to ditch my Hackintosh. I HATE iTunes. I hope MediaMonkey supports my iPhone eventually. This looks like a worthy alernative for mass reorganizing though :)

Gix0r

I think we need a High Five?

Featherstonehaugh

@Featherstonehaugh: Hell YES!

slikvic2002

@spookypeanut: I use tagtool; EasyTAG was too big and complicated, and the only real advantage I could see was that it handled embedded album art (tagtool doesn't)

rainwalker

Hmm...I'll have to try it (My library is just mess of files called Track001 etc.)
Also, on a side note, Gina has some interesting music in her library!!!

FlashCreations

mp3tag.de

i have used this for years and i love it. small, free, and very fast.

urpwnd

WHOA! I've been using this since 2004 when the version was 3.0. This is the best tagging program. And it can handle a big library too (10,000+ in my library).

dusts

I have just finished messing with tag editors before this article appeared. All this mess happened because everybody thinks all have same level of need and therefore recommends advanced programs for basic functions. Here I think how the levels can be classified:

In the new version of vlc media player, playlist has been added. It showed me weird entries in the list. So I just wanted to correct metadata.

Level 1: Rather than right clicking each file and going to advanced properties to correct metadata of each file, I was looking for some spreadsheet like software which can display all files meta data and allow me to correct manually. I have not found any software for this level.

Level 2: Then I found Simple ID3 tag editor. which allowed me to look and change file by file both versions of ID tags. So a simple program allowing to change metadata one by one and allowing to copy between versions is level2.

Level3: I found Mp3tag which will allow me to rename files based on tag and rename tag based on file names and can change case of filenames and tags etc. This is level 3.

Level4: Tagscanner is very complex and can handle complex operations. But will not allow level 1 and 2 type of editing the tags manually. Finally I settled for free AudioGrail by KC software. It has everything in it. It allows me to find low quality(bit rate) files in a folder, level 2,3 &4 editing, organise files, get data from freeDB etc etc.

ashwyn_m

website is down :(

SmritiAmbustus

I know that in tag and rename, if you know the song that is tagged wrong say in your case the first song is labeled as the second and it subsequently follows that suit, you can use the Amazon look-up feature and just shift the tracks around as needed to re-tag. This only really works if you know what the actual file is, not the file tag. Beyond that, just re-rip the files probably a lot less effort.

MariaSlug

It works and it works well, but I wish it had a more standard GUI. Can't decide between this and MP3Tag though

RyFish

I have been using The Godfather for a long time. Great free software app, gets the job done, and it's very versatile. http://users.forthnet.gr/the/jtclipper/

StandishCulver

MP3Tag is Free and really one of the best programs available for renaming mp3 files. Give it a try:

[www.mp3tag.de]

soke2001

I have to concur with the people recommending Musicbrainz. Supports a large variety of file types, and has more accurate data than programs that depend on freedb and discogs.

Sailorleo

I really wanted to try this out on my asus eee, but the program has some kind of memory error so I can't judge it.

I have tried MP3 tag, and I don't like it. It doesn't download album art, nor does it have the nice amazon.com rename tagging feature like Tag & Rename.

My vote is and will always be Tag & Rename.

rdn98

Wasn't happy...

MediaMonkey does more for less effort

blurtek

@icedicicle: to be honest i didnt even notice the f-word in the list until your comment made me give it a second look..

overthinkingme

i just wish some clever mac programmer would come up with the goods on osx - nothing i have tried even comes close to tag & rename

hal9000

you may be interested to know that tagscanner works pretty dam well in osx running under crossover.
i just used the portable version. You can also do this with the stunningly good tag & rename but it doesnt keep it's settings (or seem to) such as %T - %A

hal9000