Can Mathematica be used to edit MP3 tags?

Question

Can Mathematica edit mp3 tags?

I have a set of files and I'd like to batch process artist, album title, etc. I know other tools exist; I wonder if Mathematica can do it.

Answer 1

Yes. The documentation mentions here that it can import ID3v1, ID3v2 and APE tags. The metadata is returned in a nested association. Now to try it on whatever mp3's I have lying around:

mymp3 = Import["Mick Maguire.mp3", "MetaInformation"]
Keys[mymp3]
(* result: {"ID3v2", "ID3v1"} *)

This file happens to have both v1 and v2 tags. Let's check some properties in the ID3v2 tags:

mymp3["ID3v2"][#] & /@ {"Title", "Album"}
(* result: {"Mick Maguire", "The Irish Rovers 50 Years - Vol. 1"} *)

You will want to check that KeyExistsQ for the ID3v2 association exists, try to fall back to ID3v1 if it doesn't, or failing that just skip over it - it's your call how to handle robustness and that the relevant attributes (Title / Album etc.) are present.

Exporting metadata is also straightforward. See here http://wolfram.com/xid/0ck8ulfp-0rbd29 . You must import the audio first however, and here the audio object is in myaudio:

Export["myaudio.mp3", myaudio, 
 MetaInformation -> <|"ID3v2" -> <|"Title" -> "Some Song", 
     "Album" -> "My Album"|>|>]

(* re-import it to check the new metadata is present *)
Import["myaudio.mp3", "MetaInformation"]