When it comes to my MP3 files I like having the album art included with it and directly embedded in the file. In Windows XP I was using a specific program to do this but it wouldn’t work in Windows 7, so I had to find something else that would do the job.
There is EasyTAG, a multi-platform program that works great in Linux or Windows, but the interface is definitely better suited for Linux as it doesn’t take advantage of any Windows-specific menu features.
After some searching I came across Mp3tag – and it’s awesome because it makes adding in album art very easy.
Before continuing, some MP3 tagging programs embed the album art in the MP3 file while others do not. I wanted one that specifically did embed. The ones that don’t simply save the image files separately alongside the MP3s (like WinAMP does.) This can cause big clutter in short order, and you definitely don’t want that.
The great thing about Mp3tag is that it works in XP, Vista or 7, is very light on its feet and easy to use.
Here’s an example of how it works:
First, have your album art ready for whatever MP3 you want to embed it to, be it a GIF or JPEG file.
When you first load Mp3tag, click File then Change Directory or press CTRL+D to go to the directory to where your MP3 files are.
Highlight the MP3 you want to add art to, right-click the cover area at bottom left, then choose Add Cover, like this:
After that, navigate to where your cover art is, open it, and it will show in the area:
After that, click File then Save tag or just press CTRL+S.
This is to date the easiest way I’ve seen to manually add in cover art for MP3 files, and believe me I’ve tried a bunch of different programs for this task. Mp3tag definitely has them all beat.
.unless anyone can find one better that’s free?
I've been stuck to add album art on mp3 files.
I've already researched and googled this issue but haven't found a solution yet. The
ffmpeg
documentation recommends this script to add image (album art) to mp3 :Source from: http://www.ffmpeg.org/ffmpeg-all.html#mp3
But it doesn't work. My console output is:
I looked for another solution and got this: http://trac.ffmpeg.org/ticket/2221:
This returns the same output:
Anybody can help me, please?
nb: I use ubuntu 12.04 and ffmpeg version 0.8.6-4:0.8.6-0.
Thanks.
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Adi Ricky kAdi Ricky k
3 Answers
With Recent version,
Use
Use
The
-map
to associate input stream to the outputUse
-c copy
to directly demux/remuxThe
-id3v2_version 3
is what is missing in your command line. Note that that wil write an IDV2.3 but you can ask for a 2.4 (-id3v2_version 4
) with the
-id3v2_version 3
option the -metadata
option will be well interpretedNote: the metadata comment is case-sensitive.
alexbuissonalexbuisson4,98822 gold badges2121 silver badges3636 bronze badges
There is an important thing to notice here, that made me loose an hour of work:
The
f
in comment='Cover (front)'
must be lowercase. If not, the picture type in the ID3 header will not be set !Another hint that might help somebody: To avoid that a JPEG cover image is converted to png, you have to set
Lorenz MeyerLorenz Meyer-codec copy
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the problem is that you are not defining what codec you want to copy. In case of the audio should be
-c:a copy
the cover is recognized as video (go figure!!), so -c:v copy
MauricioMauricio
Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged ffmpegalbumart or ask your own question.
An MP3's metadata stores extra, non-audio information about the file. Metadata can contain the artist and album names, the year of release, the genre of music and a picture of the album's cover art. Once you add the cover art to an MP3's metadata, the artwork appears on your computer's screen whenever you play the MP3 in a media program. Use Windows Media Player to add cover art in the JPEG, GIF, BMP, PNG or TIFF formats to the MP3s in your collection.
Open the Start menu and click 'Computer.' Navigate to the folder containing the cover art file that you want to embed in the MP3's metadata. Right-click the cover art file and select 'Copy.'
Launch Windows Media Player. Click 'Library,' then click 'Music.'
Click 'Artist' or 'Album.' Scroll to the album to which you want to add the cover art.
Right-click the album's cover icon. Click 'Paste album art' to embed the cover art into the MP3.
Tips
If Windows Media Player doesn't let you add the cover art to an MP3, ensure that the file's permissions are not set to 'Read-Only.'
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Album art is useful for identifying albums as you browse your digital music library. When you sync music files, album artwork usually appears on your portable device, too. Cover art is typically embedded with music files — but not always.
When you don't have album art for all the albums in your music collection, you can download artwork from free websites, but if you need to update a lot of music in your library, this method can be tedious. Software media players like iTunes and Windows Media Player help somewhat in locating album cover art without having to visit websites and download it manually, but even these can be slow and inaccurate.
One way to speed up this task is to use a dedicated album art downloader. These tools search several album-art sources all over the internet so there's a greater chance of finding the correct artwork that goes with rarer albums.
of 06
Album Art Downloader
What We Like
- Supports custom scripts for expanded functionality.
- Automatic mode saves you the hassle of searching for images.
What We Don't Like
- No support for tags or renaming files.
- Takes some time to configure to your preferences.
Album Art Downloader is a free open-source tool that is regularly updated and regarded by many as the go-to utility for downloading cover art.
It uses an impressive array of sources to find album art and might make the difference when trying to find the correct cover art — particularly for rare albums.
Platform: Windows 10, 8, 7, Vista, XP (last updated April 2018)
of 06
Bliss
What We Like
- Automatically embeds downloaded album art.
- Convenient web-based interface.
What We Don't Like
- No support for multiple library locations.
- Limited advanced search options.
The Bliss album art downloader runs in the background as you add music to keep your album art up-to-date. It comes with 500 free album art fixes, after which you are asked to purchase additional fixes. Bliss is iTunes compatible, but it doesn't support multiple library locations. You'll have to direct it to a single library at a time.
Bliss does more than locate album art. You can use it to define rules by which your library is organized, fill missing information, and correct inaccurate data.
Just go to the Bliss website and download the version of the software for your operating system. The website offers a quick start tutorial to teach the basics of the program.
Platforms: Windows, macOS, Linux, Synology, Docker, Vortexbox, QNAP
of 06
TidyMyMusic
What We Like
- Painless installation and set up process.
- Import lyrics for many tracks.
What We Don't Like
- Automatically replaces cover art you already have.
- Trouble identifying songs not in the Gracenote Database.
Album Art Grabber
TidyMyMusic from Wondershare uses Gracenote, the world's largest music database, to find and fix missing album cover art. You can use it with iTunes and non-iTunes libraries, including music from CDs, the radio, and YouTube.
Additional features include identifying duplicate music on your computer. It can also add the correct title and artist information to your tracks.
Platform: Windows 10, 8, 7, Vista and XP, Mac OS X 10.6-10.11
of 06
Creevity's MP3 Cover Downloader
What We Like
- Presents you with six options per album.
- Intuitive interface for manually editing track information.
What We Don't Like
- No support for other media formats.
- Can't change the cover for MP3 files in the same folder at once.
If you're dealing with MP3 files exclusively then Creevity Software's free MP3 Cover Art Downloader is worth a look. It's not as feature-rich some of the music downloader tools but is excellent at embedding artwork into your MP3 collection.
The covers display in Windows, Mac, iTunes, Windows Media Player and other music players.
The interface is easy to use. It comes with a built-in player and basic tag editor, and it includes an option to import album art that might already be downloaded to your computer.
It's the link under the pre-install notes at the top of the description.The inject dll, that maybe the enb and sweetfx, if you don't have the dx9 final release installed that maybe caused by that. Check the description notes above. You need the pre-install for the winlive to winmarketplace update. Fallout 3 ordinal 42. Hi,The xlive.dll, that's the winlive error.
Overall, this tool does a good job of adding cover art to your music library.
of 06
Cover Retriever
What We Like
- Quick and lightweight.
- Free and open-source.
What We Don't Like
- Hasn't been updated in a while.
- Fewer features than other programs.
Cover Retriever is freeware that locates album art for MP3s. It uses data from the tags of the music files to search for the art using Google's search engine. Download the application and select the folder where you keep your MP3s. The app seeks missing album covers and saves them on a disk or in an audio file. If it finds several options, the tool asks you to choose the best solution from the album art found.
- In the folder with the audio files with the name 'cover'
- In a selected audio file as 'frame'
Platform: Windows — requires Microsoft .NET Framework 4 (last updated April 2012)
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The Crab
What We Like
- Automatically organizes your albums.
- Thorough tutorials and documentation available.
What We Don't Like
- Won't organize your entire music library as a whole.
- Extra plugins required for tags and other features.
The Crab is open-source software that finds and downloads cover art for albums. It uses Amazon and Discogs to search for the correct artwork.
Add album art to songs using locally stored images. The program also offers a music tag editor so you can edit specific song metadata information.
Is there any way to embed cover art to
m4a
files?This one works well for
YaroslavYaroslavmp3
but doesn't work for m4a
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3 Answers
FFmpeg has an open issue on this functionality. In the meantime, coverscan be added with the TagEditor project. To add:
To remove:
Steven PennySteven Penny
mp4art
from mp4v2
can also do this: I tried mp4art, after adding the cover, the information from FFmpeg is like this:
[mov,mp4,m4a,3gp,3g2,mj2 @ 0x7fce82011400] stream 0, timescale not setInput #0, mov,mp4,m4a,3gp,3g2,mj2, from '01 - Welcome To New York.m4a': Metadata: major_brand : M4A minor_version : 512 compatible_brands: isomiso2 title : Welcome To New York artist : Taylor Swift album : 1989 (Deluxe) date : 2014 encoder : Lavf55.48.100 genre : Country & Folk track : 1 disc : 1 Duration: 00:03:32.65, start: 0.046444, bitrate: 250 kb/s Stream #0:0(und): Audio: aac (mp4a / 0x6134706D), 44100 Hz, stereo, fltp, 238 kb/s (default) Metadata: handler_name : SoundHandler Stream #0:1: Video: mjpeg, yuvj444p(pc, bt470bg), 1400x1400 [SAR 72:72 DAR 1:1], 90k tbr, 90k tbn, 90k tbcInput #1, image2, from 'Album Cover.jpg': Duration: 00:00:00.04, start: 0.000000, bitrate: N/A Stream #1:0: Video: mjpeg, yuvj444p(pc, bt470bg), 1400x1400 [SAR 72:72 DAR 1:1], 25 tbr, 25 tbn, 25 tbc
It seems that 1 file has 2 input formats (1 m4a, 1 image2), I think ffmpeg should be able to do the same thing by itself instead of using a separate tool to add cover image, but I haven't figure out how.
MeowMeow2,64311 gold badge1212 silver badges1515 bronze badges
Batch Embed Album Art Into Mp3 Video
A little bit extended version for embedding album art with
atomicparsley
. Tested on Mac OS X. It assumes there is folder.jpg
file in the current directory. AtomicParsley creates temp files with embedded media in the same folder. There is a flag --overWrite
which is supposed to change this behavior, but for some reason this doesn't work for me. So we will need to remove the original files afterwards. Note, that the script will remove all the files which do not coontain temp
in their filename. So be cautious (or modify the script). Finally, the script renames newly created files to remove -temp-
part from their filenames.Batch Embed Album Art Into Mp3 Download
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