# Free software for organizing mp3 collection **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [January 15, 2005, 5:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/free-software-for-organizing-mp3-collection/284828 "2005-01-15T05:56:23Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 15\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2005, 5:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/free-software-for-organizing-mp3-collection/284828/1 "2005-01-15T05:56:23Z")
Anyone know of a free software program that can automatically fill in mp3 tags from an Internet database (like CDDB)? ---
**Author:** ![Nonsuch](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/nonsuch/32/2922_2.png) [@Nonsuch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nonsuch)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2005, 6:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/free-software-for-organizing-mp3-collection/284828/2 "2005-01-15T06:01:55Z")
Apple’s iTunes, for one. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2005, 6:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/free-software-for-organizing-mp3-collection/284828/3 "2005-01-15T06:15:24Z")
> [@Nonsuch](#): > > Apple’s iTunes, for one. iTunes doesn’t populate the tag info automatically unless you are burning from the CD. I have several hundred mp3s already on my computer. ---
**Author:** ![Bill\_H](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a5b964/32.png) [@Bill\_H](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bill_H)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2005, 6:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/free-software-for-organizing-mp3-collection/284828/4 "2005-01-15T06:32:31Z")
The problem is that CDDB has tags for albums, not songs. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2005, 12:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/free-software-for-organizing-mp3-collection/284828/5 "2005-01-15T12:33:21Z")
> [@Bill H.](#): > > The problem is that CDDB has tags for albums, not songs. Sure it does. So far I’ve tried Windows media player and another program called Music Label. Both fill in all the tag information by searching a database based on title and artist or file name. WMP doesn’t save the info to the mp3s and ML is too buggy and doesn’t work properly. ---
**Author:** ![Nekosoft](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/c2a13f/32.png) [@Nekosoft](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nekosoft)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2005, 5:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/free-software-for-organizing-mp3-collection/284828/6 "2005-01-15T17:16:33Z")
Here’s one to try: [http://www.musicbrainz.org/introduction.html](http://www.musicbrainz.org/introduction.html) It doesn’t run off of the CDDB info, but the Mac version that I used did a decent (85%) job of tagging unknown files. ---
**Author:** ![Bill\_H](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a5b964/32.png) [@Bill\_H](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bill_H)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2005, 5:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/free-software-for-organizing-mp3-collection/284828/7 "2005-01-15T17:50:01Z")
**msmith537** wrote > [@](#): > > Sure it does. > > So far I’ve tried Windows media player and another program called Music Label. Both fill in all the tag information by searching a database based on title and artist or file name. WMP doesn’t save the info to the mp3s and ML is too buggy and doesn’t work properly. I stand corrected. When I said “tag”, I was using the wrong word. A better word would’ve been “signature”. I.e. I meant that CDDB has a database that matches some ID of an album to it’s title, artist, etc. I don’t know where this ID comes from, perhaps there’s a unique number assigned by some standards body, or perhaps it’s a hash over the whole thing. But the bottom line is that this ID exists and is unique per album. Such is not the case for mp3s, where neither a unique ID nor a consistent hash exists. I didn’t think about the idea of looking up ID3 tag parameters being looked up based on the file name. ---
**Author:** ![Ms2001](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ms2001/32/18463_2.png) [@Ms2001](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ms2001)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2005, 11:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/free-software-for-organizing-mp3-collection/284828/8 "2005-01-15T23:13:27Z")
Try [MoodLogic](http://www.moodlogic.com/). Reorganizing your music is one of its many features. ---
**Author:** ![Raygun99](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/6f9a4e/32.png) [@Raygun99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Raygun99)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2005, 11:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/free-software-for-organizing-mp3-collection/284828/9 "2005-01-15T23:17:14Z")
[Tag & Rename](http://www.softdepia.com/tag_rename_download_1291.html) will look up and recognize full albums from either Freedb or CDDB, based on, I’m guessing, the file size and order. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2005, 12:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/free-software-for-organizing-mp3-collection/284828/10 "2005-01-16T00:44:16Z")
Thanks I’m trying a shareware version of a program called Helium but I don’t recommend it. It’s unwieldy and overwrites your id fields even if it doesn’t find anything. ---
**Author:** ![TellMeI\_mNotCrazy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tellmei_mnotcrazy/32/3419_2.png) [@TellMeI\_mNotCrazy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TellMeI_mNotCrazy)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2005, 1:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/free-software-for-organizing-mp3-collection/284828/11 "2005-01-16T01:39:36Z")
I like Musicmatch’s Supertagging feature. I just reformatted, so Is till just have the free version, and it is letting me use Supertagging, so looks like it’s a good option. ---
**Author:** ![TellMeI\_mNotCrazy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tellmei_mnotcrazy/32/3419_2.png) [@TellMeI\_mNotCrazy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TellMeI_mNotCrazy)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2005, 1:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/free-software-for-organizing-mp3-collection/284828/12 "2005-01-16T01:47:28Z")
> [@TellMeI'mNotCrazy](#): > > I like Musicmatch’s Supertagging feature. I just reformatted, so Is till just have the free version, and it is letting me use Supertagging, so looks like it’s a good option. Apparently I lied. Somehow I missed the “Requires Plus!” window. ---
**Author:** ![Atrael](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Atrael](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Atrael)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2005, 4:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/free-software-for-organizing-mp3-collection/284828/13 "2005-01-18T16:02:51Z")
> [@Mr2001](#): > > Try [MoodLogic](http://www.moodlogic.com/). Reorganizing your music is one of its many features. Someone recommended this program to me when I asked a similar question. And while it **seemed** to be able to fix most of my files, I couldn’t even check to see how well it worked without purchasing the program. And notes on the forums suggested that it’s not well supported. ---
**Author:** ![Ms2001](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ms2001/32/18463_2.png) [@Ms2001](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ms2001)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2005, 12:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/free-software-for-organizing-mp3-collection/284828/14 "2005-01-19T00:19:40Z")
> [@Atrael](#): > > Someone recommended this program to me when I asked a similar question. And while it **seemed** to be able to fix most of my files, I couldn’t even check to see how well it worked without purchasing the program. And notes on the forums suggested that it’s not well supported. From their [FAQ](http://www.moodlogic.com/mlfaq-client.html#1): > [@](#): > > 1. How much does MoodLogic cost? > You can test drive MoodLogic on a sample of songs. To use MoodLogic to activate your entire music collection (up to 10,000 songs), you have to either buy MoodLogic for $39.95 or earn “activation credits” by submitting manual song profiles. It’s been a while since I used MoodLogic, but I didn’t have to pay for it. I just got a lot of credits from submitting my own unrecognized songs. You just have to type in the artist and title, and answer a few subjective questions about the song: is it fast or slow, happy or sad, etc. ---
**Author:** ![Hodge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Hodge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hodge)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2005, 12:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/free-software-for-organizing-mp3-collection/284828/15 "2005-01-19T00:53:10Z")
Try [Media Monkey](http://www.mediamonkey.com/). The free version is surprisingly powerful.