A program that will let me copy an ID3 tag?

September 6, 2005 8:12 AM

Does anyone know of a (preferably free) program that will let me copy an ID3 tag from one MP3 file to another.

ie.. I'd like to select the source and target files, and have everything transferred at the press of a button. Bonus points if it can batch process files. Thanks

posted by ascullion to computers & internet (12 comments total)

Tag & Rename has this functionality. It's free to try.
posted by toomuch at 8:26 AM on September 6, 2005

Tag & Rename
posted by matildaben at 8:27 AM on September 6, 2005

id3cp, from the id3lib package. It's free, and since it's on the command line, is infinitely scriptable.

If you're downsampling mp3s, lame will copy most ID3 tags it finds automatically. Also free, and perhaps the best mp3 encoder there is.
posted by scruss at 8:48 AM on September 6, 2005

TagScanner is feature filled and free (as in internet porn).
posted by Mach5 at 9:03 AM on September 6, 2005

Yet another vote for Tag&Rename. It does just about any function relating to mp3 tags and filenames that you could possibly think of. It was well worth the cost of registration (though the trial is free.)
posted by Rhomboid at 9:29 AM on September 6, 2005

That's funny.. because I've got Tag and Rename, and never managed to make this work. How do I do it?

Also funny.. when I use lame (mainly to transcode already-compressed files [I know that's bad], it tells me that all ID3 tags will be lost..

I should have said, I use V2 tags.
posted by ascullion at 9:30 AM on September 6, 2005

In T&R, go to the Multi file tag editor (2nd tab) and focus the source mp3 file (with the tags you want to propagate). Then click the "Copy from focused file" button in to the tags you want to copy (Artist, Album, Year, etc.). Highlight the files you want to tag and do Ctrl+Alt+A to select them. Then click the Save tags button.
posted by toomuch at 9:48 AM on September 6, 2005

That's useful, thanks, but it doesn't replicate every single field (ie song and track number get left out). I'll bear that in mind, and check out id3cp.
posted by ascullion at 10:09 AM on September 6, 2005

As an alternative to what toomuch said, you could also go to the multi file tag editor and select "edit all supported tag fields" rather than "copy from focused file". Start by selecting all the files you want to sync the tags with, making sure the first file in the list contains the info you want to sync (you can drag the files to get the order). Then just use the check marks next to each field to copy the fields to the other MP3s. This would allow you to sync song and track numbers as well.
posted by Mave_80 at 12:30 PM on September 6, 2005

Thanks, but it's not as simple as I want. I want to be able to press a couple of buttons at most..
posted by ascullion at 3:00 PM on September 6, 2005

Mp3tag is freeware and do exactly that. It'll show you a list of mp3 files in a directory in the right pane and the currently-selected file's id3 tags in the left pane. From there you can Ctrl-C, move your selection, Ctrl-V, and you'll have copied the id3 tags from one file to the other.
posted by Alex Handcoding at 7:38 PM on September 6, 2005

Mp3Tag is exactly what I wanted! Thanks so much.
posted by ascullion at 5:08 AM on September 22, 2005