# mp3 id3 tag utility **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [July 6, 2004, 6:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mp3-id3-tag-utility/253758 "2004-07-06T06:56:58Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![iamthewalrus\_3](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/258eb7/32.png) [@iamthewalrus\_3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iamthewalrus_3)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2004, 6:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mp3-id3-tag-utility/253758/1 "2004-07-06T06:56:58Z")
I tried searching on this, but of course **mp3** and **id3** are too short to search for :smack: Since I got an iPod, I’ve decided to use iTunes as my main music application. The problem is that I have thousands of mp3s, none of which have any id3 tags. When I first started downloading music, most of them had terribly mangled tags, so I just ran a little program to remove them. When I moved on to ripping my own cds, I kept the same scheme, just putting the artist, album, etc. into the filename. But that sucks with the iPod. All my album lists look like this: Beatles, The - Abbey Roa… Beatles, The - Abbey Roa… Beatles, The - Abbey Roa… Beatles, The - Abbey Roa… etc. So what I want is a little program that will go through and give id3 tags to the songs based on their filenames. Requirements: 1. Has to recurse through the directory structure 2. Has to run on Windows XPsp1, MacOS 10.3, or Redhat 9 (pretty flexible, here) 3. Here’s the tricky one: Because some of the songs are labeled just as singles, it has to match filenames like \ - \ - \ - \.mp3 _and_ \ - \.mp3 I’ve found a few that will just try to match everything to the search string, even if it’s just not there, and I end up getting the song as the album title, for example. Anyone seen software like this? ---
**Author:** ![Ponster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ponster/32/17081_2.png) [@Ponster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ponster)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2004, 7:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mp3-id3-tag-utility/253758/2 "2004-07-06T07:56:16Z")
I use **Tag & Rename** for doing just the job which handles mp3 as well as Apple iTunes and iPod aac (m4a). It manages full albums and single tracks and get’s it’s info from both Freedb and [Allmusic.com](http://Allmusic.com) You can get the shareware version from… [http://www.softpointer.com/](http://www.softpointer.com/) ---
**Author:** ![chrisk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@chrisk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chrisk)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2004, 11:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mp3-id3-tag-utility/253758/3 "2004-07-06T11:29:55Z")
See if Mp3 tag studio will do what you need: [http://www.magnusbrading.com/mp3ts/](http://www.magnusbrading.com/mp3ts/) ---
**Author:** ![asterion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/4da419/32.png) [@asterion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asterion)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2004, 11:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mp3-id3-tag-utility/253758/4 "2004-07-06T11:54:10Z")
> [@chrisk](#): > > See if Mp3 tag studio will do what you need: > > [The Mp3/Tag Studio Homepage](http://www.magnusbrading.com/mp3ts/) I second MP3 Tag Studio. You can run it with complete functionality even without registering, to see if you like it, and the registration price is something like $25. Not only will it do tagging, it will also do basic MP3 editing as well. ---
**Author:** ![iamthewalrus\_3](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/258eb7/32.png) [@iamthewalrus\_3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iamthewalrus_3)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2004, 3:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mp3-id3-tag-utility/253758/5 "2004-07-07T03:44:26Z")
Mp3TagStudio’s not going to do it for me. I can’t get it to recognize that there are two different formats for filenames, and to _ignore_ the files that don’t match it’s input pattern. And… Tag and Rename claims to work recursively, but I can’t figure out how. The buttons to rename are greyed out unless you are in a directory with music files. ---
**Author:** ![Omphaloskeptic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/bcef8e/32.png) [@Omphaloskeptic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omphaloskeptic)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2004, 12:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mp3-id3-tag-utility/253758/6 "2004-07-08T00:59:55Z")
There’s a command-line program called id3tool which you could use along with some Unix scripting to do this, if you’re so inclined. (Use find with grep to list the files with or without album & track number, use sed or perl to parse the name into the tag components and build a command line, and put that all in a file. Edit the file as appropriate and then execute that file.) ---
**Author:** ![iamthewalrus\_3](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/258eb7/32.png) [@iamthewalrus\_3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iamthewalrus_3)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2004, 1:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mp3-id3-tag-utility/253758/7 "2004-07-08T01:59:56Z")
Thanks **Omph**. Looks like that’s what I’ll have to do. ---
**Author:** ![rjung](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/45deac/32.png) [@rjung](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rjung)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2004, 6:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mp3-id3-tag-utility/253758/8 "2004-07-08T06:55:44Z")
If you’re using a Mac, [Doug’s Applescripts for iTunes](http://www.malcolmadams.com/itunes/index.php) is a collection of handy scripts that will let you do all sorts of stuff to your MP3 files, playlists, and libraries.