Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

A Good MP3 Tag editor

S

SlugBlanket

macrumors regular
Original poster
Mar 5, 2011
130
7
Can anyone please recommend a good MP3 Tag editor for use within OSX ?

I have tried MP3 Encoder and Tag from the App store but the first won't edit tags unless I'm encoding as well and Tag has practical limitations when editing multiple files.

Currently I'm using a Windows program on an old PC but while its a good program, the PC is on it's way out and bootcamp isn't an option.

The original music files are on my NAS but when I copy these albums to my local iTunes library there are so many inconsistencies and errors that I think its time to correct the errors before I bring the music into my library. This would have the added benefit of allowing other members of the family to add these NAS albums into their local libraries without us all duplicating the editing.

Ideally the program should be able to handle (save) multiple edits in one go much as iTunes can but it must also be able to edit wav, flac, and at a push wma files as well. Programs such as TuneUp are not what I need as those work best on the iTunes Library itself whereas I need to preserve any duplicates e.g. in historical charts as I will be working folder by folder on the NAS.

Any help is appreciated
 
Mac OSX MP3 ID Tag Editor

I'm using ID3 Editor which you can find at http://www.pa-software.com/id3editor/. I've been using this editor to manage tags on a host of mp3 files like audiobooks, recorded audio & music files. You can edit the ID tags on a single mp3 file or you can select a group of files and edit the tags which the files share in common. For example on a series of music files you can edit the album title, artist, year, genre and more that's the same for all the files. When you click on "UPDATE" the edits are made in a flash. ID3 Editor costs $15 for a single license and when updates are released just contact Pa-Software for a free new license key. ID 3 Editor works great for me and maybe you'll like it as well.
 
DrBubba said:
I'm using ID3 Editor which you can find at http://www.pa-software.com/id3editor/. I've been using this editor to manage tags on a host of mp3 files like audiobooks, recorded audio & music files. You can edit the ID tags on a single mp3 file or you can select a group of files and edit the tags which the files share in common. For example on a series of music files you can edit the album title, artist, year, genre and more that's the same for all the files. When you click on "UPDATE" the edits are made in a flash. ID3 Editor costs $15 for a single license and when updates are released just contact Pa-Software for a free new license key. ID 3 Editor works great for me and maybe you'll like it as well.
Click to expand...


Thanks for the info ... i'll try it out
 
I understood that You want to edit the tags before You import them into iTunes. I used to do that too. But since some time, I use and recommend Tune Instructor (http://www.tune-instructor.com/com/).

It only works in conjunction with iTunes as You e.g. select songs in iTunes, open Tune Instructor and based on Your selection You can call multiple tools.

The set of tools included is huge. To just name a few: Capitalization, search and replace to generating ID3 tags from file names (and vice versa).

From my point of view, You should give it a try!
 
Try Kid3

I'm new to all this, but I've got over 5,000 songs and have been using Kid3 as my Tag editor. It works great and is intuitive. It allows for changing tags on multiple files - even across albums and artists.

Additional features: You can easily rename filenames from tags, tags from filenames, capitalize filenames and/or tags, automatically replace characters (i.e., '-' for ':') as you input and drag and drop album art - for one song or for as many songs at one time as you want - even across albums and artists. You can also add / delete / move files in the Finder and the changes will automatically, and instantly, be reflected in Kid3. Also, it appears to work just as easily with all file formats. You can also play a song within Kid3 (although it appears not to be able to play .wma files).

I wish it had a great find & replace feature, but otherwise it works great. It's very easy to use - even with large collections.

I've tried some of the other tag editors suggested here and find them to either be confusing to use or not as feature rich as Kid3.

According to Kid3: "Kid3 is an application to edit the ID3v1 and ID3v2 tags in MP3 files in an efficient way. Also tags in Ogg/Vorbis, FLAC, MPC, APE, MP4/AAC, MP2, Speex, TrueAudio, WavPack, WMA, WAV, AIFF files and tracker modules (MOD, S3M, IT, XM) are supported. It is easy to set tags of multiple files to the same values (e.g. album, artist, year and genre in all files of the same album) and generate the tags from the file name or vice versa."

You can find it at: http://sourceforge.net/projects/kid3/?source=directory.
 
Last edited:
Music Tag Editor for mac

you may want to try Music Tag Editor for mac, see their website http://www.edysoft.com/?page_id=31 , I found this app is useful for me to edit MP3 and flac Tags, Also the rename function is enabled at new version.
:) Good luck!

----------
SlugBlanket said:
Can anyone please recommend a good MP3 Tag editor for use within OSX ?

I have tried MP3 Encoder and Tag from the App store but the first won't edit tags unless I'm encoding as well and Tag has practical limitations when editing multiple files.

Currently I'm using a Windows program on an old PC but while its a good program, the PC is on it's way out and bootcamp isn't an option.

The original music files are on my NAS but when I copy these albums to my local iTunes library there are so many inconsistencies and errors that I think its time to correct the errors before I bring the music into my library. This would have the added benefit of allowing other members of the family to add these NAS albums into their local libraries without us all duplicating the editing.

Ideally the program should be able to handle (save) multiple edits in one go much as iTunes can but it must also be able to edit wav, flac, and at a push wma files as well. Programs such as TuneUp are not what I need as those work best on the iTunes Library itself whereas I need to preserve any duplicates e.g. in historical charts as I will be working folder by folder on the NAS.

Any help is appreciated
Click to expand...

you may want to try Music Tag Editor for mac, see their website http://www.edysoft.com/?page_id=31 , I found this app is useful for me to edit MP3 and flac Tags, Also the rename function is enabled at new version.
 
georgeliu said:
you may want to try Music Tag Editor for mac, see their website http://www.edysoft.com/?page_id=31 , I found this app is useful for me to edit MP3 and flac Tags, Also the rename function is enabled at new version.
:) Good luck!

----------



you may want to try Music Tag Editor for mac, see their website http://www.edysoft.com/?page_id=31 , I found this app is useful for me to edit MP3 and flac Tags, Also the rename function is enabled at new version.
Click to expand...

For now various Doug's Scripts and Tagger are doing the job within OSX. I'd already seen this app (Music Tag Editor) in the App Store but the customer reviews were enough to convince me to look elsewhere. Thanks for the input though :)
 
spot on

BlackMangoTree said:
I find this the best and it's free http://bilalh.github.com/projects/tagger/
Click to expand...

this is the s..
works flawlessly in maverick, and to my surprise super easy to tag and quickly add to iTunes while you are listening to something else.

I don't like iTunes, because it's a drag to find you songs, and even though you know what you looking for and searching for correct names etc, iTunes just suggest to look in the store.
It's sluggish and absolutely not worthy of an apple product.
However tagger makes the day for me.
Thanx a lot for the suggestion
 
I'm going to check out some of the recent suggestions, but curious if anyone knows of a particular feature twist that might help me...

I used to embed the highest resolution possible in all my files to be future proof, but there are some players that cant' handle large album art sizes, like my car for example.

I'm looking for a tool that I can use to search the art in my files to find ones that are bigger than 600x600. I have no problem going back and updating them, but the only way I've found right now is going album by album looking for "missing" art in the car, which is quite painful.
 
Dr99 said:
I'm going to check out some of the recent suggestions, but curious if anyone knows of a particular feature twist that might help me...

I used to embed the highest resolution possible in all my files to be future proof, but there are some players that cant' handle large album art sizes, like my car for example.

I'm looking for a tool that I can use to search the art in my files to find ones that are bigger than 600x600. I have no problem going back and updating them, but the only way I've found right now is going album by album looking for "missing" art in the car, which is quite painful.
Click to expand...

Something like this?
http://dougscripts.com/itunes/scripts/ss.php?sp=reapplydownsized
 
That would do it! Thanks. I had taken a look a those scripts a while back but either forgot or missed that one.

Over the last day or so, I actually checked out Metadatics and it is fantastic. In fact, I started a revamp of all my MP3 files with fresh tags and album art. Here's a few of the reasons it works well for me:

  • Really easy to nuke old tags, many of which I didn't see in files from other apps
  • You can copy and paste album art rather than having to save a file and "upload" it. I like finding mine on Album Art Exchange and then copying and pasting the right size.
  • File rename from meta tags works great
  • The "clear files" button works great for how I processed my files. Clear them out and drag over a new folder.

There's only so much a tag editor can do, but it seems like this one does it all well for the way I process files.
 
Thanks guys, I was just thinking I needed a good tag editor. I'll check out the alternatives mentioned. I've been using Windows via Parallels to do it thus far… :/
 
I use MusicBrainz Picard and MP3Tag (via CrossOver). There's no tagging app that even comes close to MP3Tag on OS X.
 
Kubaton said:
I use MusicBrainz Picard and MP3Tag (via CrossOver). There's no tagging app that even comes close to MP3Tag on OS X.
Click to expand...

I used to think so too, but yes there is - Metadatics certainly resembles MP3Tag a whole lot, and is actually laid out in a more intuitive way (the developer denies knowing of MP3Tag's existence during the app's development process though :) )

Try it if you haven't, it's very good. Most of the features it lacks are not showstoppers, I've found.
 
pickaxe said:
I used to think so too, but yes there is - Metadatics certainly resembles MP3Tag a whole lot, and is actually laid out in a more intuitive way (the developer denies knowing of MP3Tag's existence during the app's development process though :) )

Try it if you haven't, it's very good. Most of the features it lacks are not showstoppers, I've found.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the recommendation. I appreciate it!

I've tried Metadatics but I had to find a way to use MP3Tag under OS X. The main drawback for me with Metadatics is the tag to filename feature in MP3Tag. I have my music neatly organized and I spent countless hours configuring my naming scripts in MP3Tag. With a couple of keystrokes, my music is moved to the proper folder. For instance, I use the CONTENTGROUP tag for certain genres, such as Soundtracks, Comedy, Holiday, Children, etc. I have MP3Tag configured so that if I have added a CONTENTGROUP tag, the files will be placed in the proper place so that all of my comedy albums are organized under a comedy folder, soundtracks are under a soundtrack folder, etc. Here's just one example:

Code: 
[Normal Album]Y:\Music\Music Library\$upper(%_extension%)\[%contentgroup%\]$if($isdigit($left(%albumartist%,1)),#,$if($eql($left(%albumartist%,4),'The '),$mid(%albumartist%,5,1),$left(%albumartist%,1)))\$replace(%albumartist%,:, -,/,-,?,",*,)\'['%year%']' - $replace(%albumartist%,:, -,/,-,?,",*,) - $replace(%album%,:, -,/,-,?,",*,)\$ifgreater(%totaldiscs%,1,Disc $num(%discnumber%,2),)\$num(%track%,2) - $replace(%title%,:, -,/,-,?,",*,)

My normal albums are sorted into subfolders beginning with the first character of the album artist's name (or in a # folder if the album artist begins with a digit), then by album artist name, then [year] - album artist - album.

For my soundtracks, the albums are sorted by the first character in the movie title.

As soon as Metadatics is capable of advanced naming such as above, I'll consider purchasing it. :)

Edit: I see Metadatics 1.4 has been released. I may give it a try but I'm a bit of a creature of habit and I've been using MP3Tag for ages on Windows, not to mention I recently purchased CrossOver for Mac.
 
Last edited:
Well, I'll give you that. If you use scripts, particularly custom scripts, MP3Tag is irreplaceable.

I stopped using these when I stopped bothering to organize my music collection's layout. This happened when I switched to using iTunes and had it set to keep the media folder organized.. At first I was very reluctant to let iTunes (or any other algorithm) touch my collection. Actually, I preferred not using iTunes at all since I was used to far superior music players like MusicBee and Foobar.

But iTunes is so well-integrated into OS X, and 3rd party music players are so low on features, that I just decided to give up and stick with iTunes. It's working pretty well surprisingly.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back