Creating ID3 tags automatically

I just inherited quite a few MP3s that have no ID3 information and I’d like to know if there is a program that will use the filename to create some tag information in conjunction with an online database that will include album information based on song title and artist (which is mostly all that is indicated in the filename).

Of course, I could do this manually, but it will be a time consuming process to do so. Any ideas?

I’ve had to do the opposite. Unfortunately, I can’t remember what program I used, and I’ve apparently uninstalled it. However, I’ve heard good things about Tag&Rename.

Having tried M3 Tag & rename, I found that MP3Tag is better as it gives you choices of tag databases, and allows to to find your own and import.

It will also create tags from the filename if ou choose.

I used to use perl and the program id3tool to do just that. Here’s the code I used.


# Adds artist and title tags to a file with
# filename of the format
# artist_-_track.mp3
# 
#!/usr/bin/perl
@DIR = `ls`;
foreach $file (@DIR) {
    chomp($file);
#    print $file,"
";
    $t=$file;
($artist, $title) = split /_-_/, $file, 2;
$title=~s/....$//;

$artist=~s/_/ /g;
$title=~s/_/ /g;

print "artist=",$artist, "
";
print " title=",$title, "

";

`/sw/bin/id3tool -t "$title" "$file"`; 
`/sw/bin/id3tool -r "$artist" "$file"`; 
}

Another vote for MP3Tag.

As long as the filenames are consistent you should have good luck converting the filenames to ID3 tags. Even if you can’t get something like Album Name to work, those are easy to add in batches. Song names are the most painful since every file has a different one.

I have used a variety of tag editors over the years, but my current favorite is Tag Scanner, available at http://www.xdlab.ru/en/.

You can create the ID3 tags based on the file and directory info, but there is much more you can do with it as well.

I’ll add my vote for this as well. It’s great and you can choose Amazon as well as the free database.

It’s a bit tricky as if you choose a file and it returns nothing or the wrong info just type in some info to help it

Like if you put in a CD and it reads a file which you think is wrong then just type in a bit more information and search again.

This actually automagically figures out the tag for you:
http://musicbrainz.org/doc/MusicBrainzTagger

I had good success using MediaMonkey - it can use folders or file names plus Amazon lookups to obtain ID3 tag info.

Si

This is what I ended up with. I really like the interface, learning curve is ridiculously low, and it shaved off tons of time on getting my collection way more organized. It’s cool to see the album covers on my View now.

Thanks everyone for the input.