Article: Editing File Tags The Easy Way With Mp3tag for Mac

[ted_b]

I wish I had a say in some of those labels' practices.  I HATE tracktotal values.  MP3tag solves them, btw.  :)

[ted_b]

Danadam,

I am having us look into this (tracktotal) and see if any of it is our doing.  If it is I will stop it.  Thx

Ted

 

Sorry for the hijack.

[HumanMedia]

I was underwhelmed by MP3Tag on Windows years ago, moved to Yate on macOS which I found far better, now years later MP3Tag is on macOS, but Yate still appears to be the better application.

[The Computer Audiophile]

2 minutes ago, HumanMedia said:

I was underwhelmed by MP3Tag on Windows years ago, moved to Yate on macOS which I found far better, now years later MP3Tag is on macOS, but Yate still appears to be the better application.

It certainly isn’t for everyone, but for my tagging needs it perfect. Incredibly simple. 
 

What is it about Yate that makes you prefer that app?

[HumanMedia]

IMO the user interface on both apps is poor, but Yate has so many power user features and allows access to so many details, plus it’s batch processing is extremely powerful. It’s great to be able to point it at 300,000 files and create reports of which of them are missing album artist tags, or have control characters in the tag text, or what file names do not conform to Mac or windows filenaming conventions, or which files have embedded art, or which dont. You can basically get it to look for ANY conditions and create a report, if you want to dive into its scripting you can get it to batch correct things automatically as well, but I prefer it to report and I will manually go and edit them. It also detects invalid tag parameters, corruptions, garbage inter-tag data and other structural problems. The app is bristling which so much power user stuff it does over complicate the presented user interface, but despite all of the visual noise, I still find its directness of doing simple editing tasks more intuitive than MP3Tag. I think it was one of the first apps to support editing of multiple instances of the same tag, which most players now support. I’m guessing that most other editors now support this?

 

From the same company you can can a free drag and drop Audio File Health checker app and a DFF to DSF converter.

 

I have zero affiliation and I am usually harshly critical of the visual design of user interfaces, but in Yates case, it’s power and utility get my recommendation, despite the lack of polish and over-featured clutter of its interface.

 

Yate (macOS only)

https://2manyrobots.com/yate/

 

the other free utilities I mentioned (macOS only)

https://2manyrobots.com/plaster/
 

 

 

 

[The Computer Audiophile]

13 minutes ago, HumanMedia said:

IMO the user interface on both apps is poor, but Yate has so many power user features and allows access to so many details, plus it’s batch processing is extremely powerful. It’s great to be able to point it at 300,000 files and create reports of which of them are missing album artist tags, or have control characters in the tag text, or what file names do not conform to Mac or windows filenaming conventions, or which files have embedded art, or which dont. You can basically get it to look for ANY conditions and create a report, if you want to dive into its scripting you can get it to batch correct things automatically as well, but I prefer it to report and I will manually go and edit them. It also detects invalid tag parameters, corruptions, garbage inter-tag data and other structural problems. The app is bristling which so much power user stuff it does over complicate the presented user interface, but despite all of the visual noise, I still find its directness of doing simple editing tasks more intuitive than MP3Tag. I think it was one of the first apps to support editing of multiple instances of the same tag, which most players now support. I’m guessing that most other editors now support this?

 

From the same company you can can a free drag and drop Audio File Health checker app and a DFF to DSF converter.

 

I have zero affiliation and I am usually harshly critical of the visual design of user interfaces, but in Yates case, it’s power and utility get my recommendation, despite the lack of polish and over-featured clutter of its interface.

 

Yate (macOS only)

https://2manyrobots.com/yate/

 

the other free utilities I mentioned (macOS only)

https://2manyrobots.com/plaster/
 

 

 

 

Thanks for the info. That’s helpful for people considering the apps. 

[bmoregnr]

I’ve used Yate on mac for years and the key features for me are

• Renumbering tracks (say after combining 2 disc sets or deleting some tracks that are duplicate or bad sources)
• Changing Case say in Album names or track names, so bulk Title, Capitalized, lower case with one click.
• Inserting or deleting, mostly used in track names so say delete everything after a ( that appears in every track name say using (live) at the end
• Naming files as track numbers + names and folders as album names and vice versa.
• Trimming excess spaces at ends of tags
• It can search for tag info say from musicbrainz etc. but I don't use it much.

[David W]

I use MP3Tag for MacOS, but also Yate and dBPoweramp. Yate has a lot loaded into it, and for Roon users, Yate has a dedicated tab that ports directly to Roon. The developer is also super responsive. I've written to the developer a few times to ramp up understanding of Yate, and the developer responded promptly to resolution. I'm off to a good start with Yate, but still lots to learn.