ID3 tag utility

December 19, 2005 1:08 PM

ITunes Filter: Is there a utility that will take track numbers or information in a file name and put it into the ID3 tag?

I have 400 tracks that have track numbers in the file name and I do not want to manually add them all myself.

posted by Infernarl to Technology (13 answers total)

Best answer: For OS X, I use MP3 Rage (or Media Rage if the files are AACs). What operating system do you use?
posted by bcwinters at 1:09 PM on December 19, 2005

Response by poster: drat, i should have said: WIN XP Pro.
posted by Infernarl at 1:15 PM on December 19, 2005

Best answer: About 20,000 other AskMe questions have led to the recommendation of Tag&Rename, among others.
posted by matildaben at 1:21 PM on December 19, 2005

I second Tag&Rename.
posted by corpse at 1:24 PM on December 19, 2005

I usually use iEatBrainz, which identifies the music directly. Works well enough.
posted by smackfu at 1:25 PM on December 19, 2005

The above mentioned Tag&Rename has a very robust method for pulling data out of file names and putting it into ID3 tags, you just have to figure out its syntax and tell it what the seperators and positions are, ie [number]-[album]-[title]--[junk];
posted by phearlez at 1:26 PM on December 19, 2005

I've relied on a free program called MP3 Book Helper. Plus it's open source and free of spy/adware. (Not that any of the other suggestions here aren't -- I've never used anything else and wouldn't know.)
posted by mattwatson at 1:36 PM on December 19, 2005

I wrote an AppleScript to do this. For future reference it is:

set lws to " _-.:" -- leading whitespace, these characters will be stripped from the beginning of the name field after the track number is extracted
set digits to "0123456789"
tell application "iTunes"
    set s to get the selection
    repeat with t in s
        set n to name of t
        set tn to 0
        if character 1 of n is in digits then
            set tn to (character 1 of n) as number
            set n to (characters 2 thru -1 of n) as string
            if character 1 of n is in digits then
                set tn to tn * 10 + (character 1 of n) as number
                set n to (characters 2 thru -1 of n) as string
            end if
        end if
        if tn is not 0 then
            set track number of t to tn
            try
                repeat while character 1 of n is in lws
                    set n to (characters 2 thru -1 of n) as string
                end repeat
                set name of t to n
            end try
        end if
    end repeat
end tell
posted by kindall at 1:43 PM on December 19, 2005

MP3 Tag Tools. Powerful once you figure out what is going on. Will help if all your files have the same naming format.
posted by tayknight at 2:17 PM on December 19, 2005

Even ignoring the cost of Tag&Rename, I prefer JJ Mp3 renamer. It's free and works like a champ. I have given it 5000+ mp3's to tag at once, and while it wasn't exactly the fastest thing, it did the job.
posted by fief at 2:44 PM on December 19, 2005

I enjoy a german program (with English as an option) called mp3tag. I also like the fact that it has the option to rename the file based on tag info. An easy way to rename all of your music, if it's all well-tagged.
posted by Rock Steady at 3:47 PM on December 19, 2005

I use ID3TagIt
posted by Arthur Dent at 3:48 PM on December 19, 2005

Like TayKnight, I too use Mp3 Tag Tools, but I want to offer a big warning...though powerful, it's a classic Sourceforge project, complete with a punishing learning curve, a confusing and non-intuitive UI, little documentation, and--worst of all--no Undo. Thanks a lot, nerds!

Dr. Tag has one neat feature...if you don't have track numbers in the tags or the file name, you click on the tracks in order and it will tag them, starting with 1, 2, 3...

That doesn't make any sense written like that. Sorry.
posted by Ian A.T. at 6:06 PM on December 19, 2005