MP3tag - MP3 Tagging Software

MP3tag is a MP3 tagging program. If you're not familiar with MP3 tagging, you should be, especially if you listen to a lot of music on a MP3 players such as the iPod or the Zune. MP3 tagging is also useful if you have a lot of songs on your computer. If you properly tag your MP3 files your MP3 player will group/sort your files in a more logical manner which will allow you to find the music you are looking for faster. This also holds true on your computer whether you are using iTunes or Windows Media player. Many people will tag their music within iTunes or Windows Media player; the problem with this is, if you were to clear out your library within those programs you lose all your track information, because the programs do not directly edit the MP3, but just store the tagging information in a separate database file. If you use a tagging program like MP3tag, you won't have to worry about this anymore.

I recently ripped my entire CD collection as WAV files (for backup) and then I ripped it all again as MP3 files. I did this because I plan to buy an MP3 player in the near future to basically put all the music I own on (which in MP3 format, appears to be 35gb). Fortunately when I ripped the music as MP3's I ensured that my files were tagged. What I discovered was, while my ripped music was properly tagged, my other MP3 files on my computer were not. There was one saving grace for me, which was that I had named almost all of my MP3 files in a similar structure i.e. ARTIST - TITLE.MP3.

MP3tag fortunately has a parsing feature that can loop through my MP3 file's naming convention and automatically tag my files. I first ensured that all my files were named according to my naming convention and I then had MP3tag do the rest. It was really easy, and I managed to tag 2,000 MP3 files in a short amount of time.

Another cool feature of MP3tag is it can actually take your tag information and rename your MP3's file name. This was especially helpful when I had all the tagging information correct but had an inconsistent file name.

MP3tag was also useful because I could 'mass tag' files by selecting them all at once, then in the left column apply a value to all of the files. MP3tag also comes with an auto-numbering track number feature where I can automatically assign track numbers to a list of MP3 files. I found that many of my tags within the track number column were inconsistent such as 1/13, 1, 01 etc.

MP3tag also makes editing one-off file tags much easier than using the Windows interface which requires you to right-click on a file, go to details, and then edit the file there. With MP3tag I can just down-click on a file and the tag automatically turns into a textbox. The program probably saved me 20 hours of time that it would have taken me to do, in the Windows interface.

There are a few cons when using MP3tag. It comes with a 'tag sources' feature which will try to identify your songs and auto tag them. It uses a few different sources to achieve this. I tried using the tool but it appears to be very unreliable and difficult to use. For instance I can search for an album name by supplying the program with an artist and a title. The problem is, the results it returns only lists album names, and not the artist and track name. Without those two columns I am unable to determine whether the album actually contains the track or not.

Another complaint I have is the program doesn't appear to be able to edit iTune/Apple's .M4A files. While I don't have many files in this format It's annoying that I can't edit them.

Overall, MP3tag is a really great program and I recommend it for anybody remotely interested in organizing their music. I give it a 9/10.