The ability to batch edit files is what makes MP3 tag awesome. The program can write tags to multiple files at once and save you loads of time. It also does a great job of downloading cover art for albums, which is a must for me.
Remember the days when everyone used to have a giant music collection of illegally downloaded MP3 files along with Winamp to manage it all? Nowadays, most people stream their music directly to their device rather than downloading and maintaining large libraries of music.
However, there’s still a lot of music that isn’t available on streaming services, especially if you listen to a lot of foreign music. Tagging these non-mainstream music files can be challenging and in some cases requires manually editing the metadata.
Depending on the size and complexity of your music collection, there are a whole host of free and paid programs that will make tagging your MP3 files a lot easier. In this article, I’m going to mention the five best paid and the five best freeware programs that get the job done.
The paid programs obviously have more features and bigger databases, so it’ll be easier to tag your music, even if it’s something less mainstream. For smaller music collections and fewer tricky songs, the free programs will work just fine for most people.
Paid MP3 Tagging Programs
Let’s start off with the paid programs first as they have more features and can handle bigger music collections. I will list out the programs in order of best to worst and if you think I’m missing a program that should have made it on the list, feel free to post it in the comments.
Tag & Rename
Tag & Rename is $29.95 and totally worth the money if you have a really huge collection of music. I have found this program to be extremely fast and easy to use. Some of the other programs can be a bit confusing, but Tag & Rename has a certain finesse to it that I haven’t seen in any other program.
In addition to the normal fields, the program supports a bunch of other fields like lyrics, composer/conductor (for classical), disc #, part of a compilation, rating, mood, etc.
You can batch edit tag files and it can automatically fix or complete tags using freedb. In addition to loading album titles and cover art, it can get tag information from the file name and the directory structure. It can also rename files based on the tag information.
MediaMonkey
Basic video editor for mac. MediaMonkey is a powerful music organizer that you can use if you hate iTunes. It’s $25 for the Gold version and $50 for the current version with free upgrades forever. The free version of the program can actually do quite a bit actually, but if you need to automatically tag a bunch of files, you’ll have to purchase the Gold version.
MediaMonkey is an audio and video organizer, player and encoder. It can do pretty much everything that any other program can do in terms of tagging audio, but it also can rip CDs, encode audio files, automatically monitor folders for new files, find duplicates, automatically lookup lyrics, share media to DLNA devices and lots more.
If you’re looking for a program that can do it all, this is the one. It’s been around for a long time and is actively developed. It even supports multi-core processors to perform conversions, etc.
TuneUp
If you like using iTunes or Windows Media Player, then TuneUp is a good program to use alongside it. I used to use iTunes to manage my music library, but found that there were other tools that were much better at tagging, renaming and organizing the files.
If I had known about TuneUp, I might have ended up sticking with iTunes. Basically, it will scan all your music files and add all the appropriate tag info and cover art automatically. It’s not as good as some of the free tagging programs, but it works well with iTunes and if you don’t have a massive collection. I don’t recommend this program if you have tens of thousands of songs as it probably won’t work well in that scenario.
Overall, it does a very good job and is perfect for anyone who manages their music libraries using iTunes. The one big downside is that it’s a whopping $40 for a single license! That’s far too expensive in my opinion.
Magic MP3 Tagger
I haven’t used Magic MP3 Tagger myself as of yet, but I’ve heard some good things about it and that’s why I’m including it. The program costs $19, which is a bit cheaper than the rest. It has the basic features like automatically fixing tags, organizing into folders, searching, etc.
This program only focuses on fixing tags, not downloading cover art. This is true of several free programs, but most of the paid programs have this feature built in. Since it’s $20 and doesn’t include this feature, it’s hard to recommend this program over the other paid options or even some of the free ones.
Stamp ID3 Tag Editor
Stamp ID 3 Tag Editor is the only other paid tag editor I’m going to list, though it’s still hard to make a case for it considering the first couple of paid options, which are much better. The one thing going for this program is that it’s a bit cheaper than the others: $15.
It’s got a very simple interface and not a lot of features. The main problem with this program is that you have to manually update the tags on files, which is not possible if you have a large music collection.
Free MP3 Tagging Programs
Now for the free programs! If you’re wary of spending money to tag your music, you should first go ahead and download some of the free programs and see if they work for you. I’ve been using MP3Tag for years and it’s been perfect for my small music collection.
MP3Tag
MP3Tag is the one I use and probably my favorite free tagging program. It supports a whole range of tag formats including ID3v1, ID3v2.3, ID3v2.4, WMA, iTunes MP4 and more. It also supports a bunch of different audio formats including ones I had never even heard of like True Audio (tta), Musepack (mpc), and OptimFROG (ofr).
The ability to batch edit files is what makes MP3 tag awesome. The program can write tags to multiple files at once and save you loads of time. It also does a great job of downloading cover art for albums, which is a must for me. I hate when I browse my music library and find an album with blank cover art!
The program imports tags from several different databases including Amazon, discogs, MusicBrainz, freedb and others. I have found that MP3Tag does a great job of automatically tagging files, even a lot of my Hindi music that I listen to.
However, one of the best features that I like is the ability to rename files based on the information in the tags. For whatever reason, when I had ripped a bunch of old music CDs, the files were all given generic names. MP3Tag was able to rename the files after downloading the correct tag info.
TagScanner
TagScanner is a program I had never used till recently and it’s slowly replacing MP3tag as my favorite. It has all the features that a tagging program should have and it’s really easy to use. You basically have a couple of tabs across the top of the UI to perform various tags.
There is a bit of a learning curve to using TagScanner, which is why I still call MP3Tag my favorite, but once you learn to use it, it’s hard to switch. It supports many audio formats and tag formats. It can pulls tags and cover art from online databases and rename files according to folder structure, file names or tag info.
What makes this program a bit better is that it also has a built-in player for many of the common audio formats. In addition, it supports embedded lyrics, which is great for someone like me who doesn’t know the lyrics to 90% of the songs in my library.
Html Editor For MacMusicBrainz Picard
MusicBrainz Picard is a great program for tagging and renaming files. I would normally use this program in conjunction with another program that can handle album art.
It has a feature called AcoustID that lets it identify a song by the actual music itself (audio fingerprinting). I have found this program to be great at identifying songs that have absolutely no metadata and no file or folder information that could be used to tag it.
It also has a bunch of plugins that can be installed to customize the behavior of the program. Lastly, it is open-source and stored on GitHub, meaning it is actively developed. It is definitely worth using for tagging and renaming of music files.
foobar2000
foobar2000 is another tool that you can use for tagging your music collection. It’s billed as an audio player, but it has an advanced tagger that, if configured properly, can out-tag any other program out there.
You will have to do a bit of research to see which components to add to foobar2000, but once you have those installed, you can access a variety of online databases and tag tons of music. Again, like Picard, its strong point is tagging, not album and cover art.
Kid3
Kid3 is another great free audio tagging program that supports everything I have already mentioned above. It’s really easy to use and the interface is clean and nice looking. I found that it did an excellent job of tagging some really hard songs that other programs could not tag.
It pulls data from multiple online databases and supports all the features you would expect from an audio tagger. You will have to use this program with another one in order to download all album and cover art. However, it terms of tagging, the results are impressive.
So those are five of the best free tag programs, but there are also quite a few others that work well. I’m going to just list out a couple in case you are interested in checking them out. I think the 5 mentioned above, however, will work just fine for most people.
MetatOGGer – This program has all the features of most of the other top free programs mentioned above: auto-tagging, downloading cover art, downloading lyrics, etc.
TigTago – If you like Excel spreadsheets, you’ll love TigTago. It’s a spreadsheet based tag editor that is perfect for mass tagging or mass renaming operations. It can import tags from online databases and then let you preview/edit them before saving to the file.
MPTagThat – This program will fix tags, download covers, download lyrics, rip CDs, burn CDs, convert audio and more.
Hopefully, the above paid and free tools will be enough for any size music collection out there! If you have any questions, feel free to post a comment. Enjoy!
If you are a music lover and have numerous music tracks stored in your music folder, it becomes necessary to add important metadata to the files in order to make them identifiable while they are being played by a music player application, or any other physical music system.
Such metadata that is added to the music files is called ID3 tags. The ID3 tags make the files identifiable, which also becomes useful while clustering the files, i.e. when arranging the tracks on the basis of a particular criteria such as album, artist name, etc.
Nowadays ID3 v2.4 is mostly used because of its advanced features and increased number of supported file formats, and the applications that help you manage the ID3 tags of the music files are called ID3 tag editors or id3 taggers for short.
A few ID3 tag editors that you can use on Mac OS X El Capitan are listed below:
01 – MusicBrainz Picard
(Download URL:https://picard.musicbrainz.org/downloads/)
MusicBrainz Picard is a free id3 tag editor that can be downloaded from its official website. In addition to allowing the end-users to add ID3 tags to the music files, the program also allows them to organize and manage the file clustering.
Pros
• Performs online search for correct ID3 tags for the files and adds them accordingly using the acoustic fingerprinting technology.
• Allows manual ID3 tag addition/editing to the files.
• Enables file clustering.
• The program is free.
Cons
• Understanding the interface of the application might be challenging for the new users, and they may have to refer to its user manual for assistance.
02 – iSkysoft Audio Recorder for Mac
(Download URL:http://www.iskysoft.com/audio-recorder-mac/)
Mainly an audio recorder and editor, iSkysoft Audio Recorder for Mac allows you to add and edit id3 tags of the audio files as well. Simply put, with iSkysoft Audio Recorder, you can record audio, get the audio recorded from the Internet, and can also manage the ID3 tags for the files.
Pros
• An efficient multipurpose application for audio recording and ID3 tag editing on Mac OS X El Capitan.
• Can record audio from various online streaming sites such as iTunes Radio, Yahoo Music, etc.
• Capable of recording audio from online streaming video websites such as YouTube, etc.
• Available for both Mac and Windows platforms.
Cons
• iSkysoft Audio Recorder for Mac comes with a pricetag.
• Many advanced ID3 tagging features are not present in iSkysoft Audio Recorder as id3 tagger is its built-in tool.
03 – id3 editor
(Download URL:http://www.pa-software.com/release/download.php?nm&prod=BC3B2E3A )
Developed by Pa-software, id3 editor is available for both Mac and Windows platform. With the ability to support MP3 and AIFF file types, id3 editor allows you to manage ID3 tags in these types of files from a single-windowed interface.
Pros
• Offers Command Line Interface (CLI) that can be used to write scripts for batch editing.
• Allows you to mark the music files as copyrighted.
• You can add lyrics to your favorite tracks.
• Allows group editing that saves time when the information is to be added or edited to multiple files.
Cons
• Both Mac and Windows versions of id3 editor come with a pricetag.
04 – Kid3 for Mac
(Download URL:http://kid3.sourceforge.net/#download)
Yet another efficient open source audio file tag editor, Kid3 – audio tagger supports several file formats including FLAC, MP3, OGG, AAC, MP4, MP2, etc. and allows you to add, edit, and convert from version 1 to v2, v2.3, and v2.4 ID3 tags with ease.
Pros
• Kid3 is an open source program for Mac, Windows, and Linux and is free to use.
• Allows bulk tagging.
• Automatically manages the upper and lower cases of the tags whenever and wherever needed.
• Can generate filenames from tags and vice-versa.
Cons
• With too many options and fields to work on, the interface sometimes looks messy.
05 – MetaBliss
(Download URL:http://metabliss.com/)
MetaBliss, like many of its competitors, is a full-fledged id3 tag editor but with a few advancements such as better UI and easy-to-understand interface. With the ability to manage ID3 tags of the files comparatively easily, MetaBliss can help you save your decent amount of time.
Pros
• Has row-like alignment of the added files to manage their ID3 tags.
• Easy adding and removing the tag fields by checking or unchecking the corresponding checkboxes.
• Has integrated find and replace feature for bulk editing.
• Has straightforward user interface.
Cons
• The MetaBliss is a shareware and must be purchased to use all its features at full.
06 – Wondershare TunesGo for Mac
(Download URL:https://www.wondershare.com/tunesgo/)
Mp3 Tag Editor Free DownloadWondershare TunesGo
An efficient product by Wondershare and probably the best among its competitors, TunesGo is a full-fledged id3 tagger that also allows you to transfer your music files from one device to another without losing any data or quality.
4,088,454 people have downloaded it
Pros
• Wondershare TunesGo can work in compliance with iTunes.
• Allows you to import files from your iTunes library.
• Identifies and removes duplicate tracks from your music library.
• Allows you to fix incorrect ID3 tags and populate the tag fields with the correct values.
Cons
• Wondershare TunesGo comes with a price tag.
07 – Audacity for Mac
(Download URL:http://audacityteam.org/download/mac)
Even though Audacity is mainly used as an efficient voice recorder, it has an integrated id3 tag editor that helps you add, edit, and manage ID3 tags for the audio files. Because the application itself supports several audio file formats, its built-in id3 tag editor can manage the tags of all the supported file types as well.
Pros
• Audacity is a freeware.
• Available for both Mac and Windows platforms.
• Supports various file formats.
• Allows you to add the ID3 tags to the recorded files as well.
Cons
• The program has a complicated interface that may be hard to understand, especially for the new users.
• Since the id3 tag editor is an integrated feature of the application, it doesn’t have some advanced ID3 tagging features that other, full-fledged id3 taggers do.
ConclusionFree Mp3 Tag Editor For Mac
ID3 tags are an important aspect of the music files, and managing them correctly becomes equally important when it comes to organizing your music library and synchronizing the music files with other devices.
Comments are closed.
|
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |