General
Installing Puddletag
sudo apt install puddletag
Making changes
- Changes made in the main track listing pane are automatically saved
 - Or select one or more tracks, make changes in the Tag Panel pane, click Save
 - You can also select a tag for multiple tracks using shift-click and paste the same value into all selected tracks
 
Renaming files
- Put this in the text box on the left side of the top toolbar:
    
- For Track number - Title:
        
$num(%track%,2) - %title% - For Artist - Title:
        
%artist% - %title% 
 - For Track number - Title:
        
 - Select all tracks to rename
 - Click the F button to the right of the text box
 
Adding album artist column:
- Right-click column names > Select Columns…
 - Click plus sign
 - Title: Album Artist
 - Field: albumartist
 - In the left, check Album Artist
 - OK
 
Auto numbering for tracks
- Select all the tracks to autonumber
 - Tools > Autonumbering Wizard > OK
 
Replacing text
- Select the tracks you want to update
 - Actions > Functions > Replace
 - Under Fields choose the field you want to update or __all for all fields
 - Fill in the Replace and with fields > OK
 
String formatting
- Select the tracks you want to update
 - Actions > Functions > Format value
 - Under Fields choose the field you want to update or __all for all fields
 - Under Format string, you can rename a tag based on the contents of that tag or another tag, for example
    
- Lesson %title%
 
 
Tags
List all tags and versions
Windows > make sure Stored Tags is checked
Helpful tags
- Filename without extension: 
__filename_no_ext- This can be used, for example, to append a tag to the existing filename, e.g. 
%__filename_no_ext% - %title% 
 - This can be used, for example, to append a tag to the existing filename, e.g. 
 
For more tags, see https://docs.puddletag.net/source/tags.html
Look up tags using online sources
See also: Using Tag Sources
- Windows > Tag Sources
 - (Optional) If other windows are open (e.g. Artwork), close them to have more space to work
 - Source
    
- Try AcoustID first, which will search by audio fingerprint
 - If that doesn’t work, try MusicBrainz or another source
 
 - (Skip this step for AcoustID) In the search box you can type artist; album, e.g: pimsleur; french plus
 - Click Search
 - Select all of the tracks you want to update
 - Select an album to preview the changes
 - If you want to apply the updates, click the Write button inside the Tag Sources pane
 - Close the Tag Sources window if desired
 
If MusicBrainz is giving 404 errors:
- Go to https://musicbrainz.org and find the album using search (or use a web browser) 👉 Make sure to select the appropriate search field as it defaults to Artist
 - Copy the UUID from the URL (e.g. cf81efdc-4b9d-4f84-a742-9a8f42da8014) 👉 Confusingly, this is the MBID, which is different from the album ID that will show in Puddletag
 - In Puddletag, search with this syntax:
    
:b UUIDe.g.
:b cf81efdc-4b9d-4f84-a742-9a8f42da8014 
Album art
See if a track has album art
- Open the folder containing the tracks you want to update
 - If you don’t see the Artwork pane on the right, go to Windows and check Artwork
 - Look at the Artwork pane on the right to see if the album art is there
 
Add album art
- If you don’t see the Artwork pane on the right, go to Windows and check Artwork
 - Select all the tracks you wish to update
 - In the Artwork pane on the right, right-click the image preview > Add cover
 - Browse to the cover you wish to add
 - Click the Save button near the top left
 
Remove album art
- If you don’t see the Artwork pane on the right, go to Windows and check Artwork
 - Select all the tracks you wish to update
 - In the Artwork pane on the right, click the arrows until you see _
_  - Click the Save button near the top left
 
Change album art
ⓘ There’s a Change cover option in the Artwork window but I couldn’t get it to work to apply changes to all tracks. But this works:
- Follow the steps above to remove album art
 - Follow the steps above to add album art