Clean Up Your Media Files with Winamp

Clean Up Your Media Files with Winamp

Category: Tutorials Posted by Tarik, Aug 3rd 2009 9:00AM

It can be really confusing when you have a lot of untitled songs or albums floating around in your media library. Especially if you have a large collection of MP3s or other media files. Having them cleaned up makes managing your music a lot easier... not to mention having clean data makes the Orgler a lot more useful when Charting your listening history.

Use the Winamp Auto-Tag feature to clean up your library:

1) In your media library or playlist select the files you want to update ("Auto-Tag") by either Shift+clicking to select all files in a certain range, or Ctrl+clicking to select multiple individual files.

NOTE: Since the Auto-Tag process is resource intensive you should not select all you files at once. Not to mention, it would be wise to not blindly Auto-Tag all of your files... in particular, those files that already have metadata. By doing it in stages you can ensure that you don't overwrite information that you already have in place.

2) Once you have all the files selected, then right-click on one of the files and select: Send to -> Auto-Tag

Winamp Media Library before Auto-Tag

3) The "Winamp Auto Tagger" dialog box opens and starts to analyze your selection by accessing the Gracenote Media Database (this can take several seconds to several minutes depending upon the number of selected files).

4) Once completed you can scroll through each individual track to verify the data before applying the changes. There are check boxes next to each track listing allowing you to only apply changes to those selected items (note: all tracks are selected by default).

5) Once you've made your selections, click "Apply Changes".

Winamp Auto Tagger Dialog Box

6. Although the updates have taken place, you may not see it immediately. What you'll have to do is deselect the media library (or playlist) and select it again in order to refresh the screen. As you'll see below, the metadata has been updated (artist name, album name, track #, track title, genre, etc.)

Winamp Media Library after Auto-Tag

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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)

1. It would be nice if the Send to Auto-tag feature would rename the original files. I find to get better file naming I use Auto-tag on a mixed CD before I rip it to the disk. This takes a lot of clicks for there is one dialog for each track.

Could the Auto-tag be enhanced to scan a whole CD before ripping with minimal dialog boxes?

Posted at 8:32AM on Aug 10th 2009 by Garvey

2. @Garvey - Good ideas. The product team have some enhancements planned to streamline the Auto-Tag process a bit more.

Posted at 9:03AM on Aug 10th 2009 by The Winamp Team

3. first, ive been wating for this feature for a long time, thanx

any news about it looking for the album art as well.....

i was goin to post about it changing the file name also, but he beat me to it :)

--jeff

Posted at 3:56PM on Aug 19th 2009 by jeff

4. @Jeff. You're welcome.

For getting album art, try right-clicking on the album with the missing art and select "Get Album Art".

Posted at 4:11PM on Aug 19th 2009 by The Winamp Team

5. Anyone have a skin that is friendly to auto tagging mass files?

Posted at 4:39PM on Aug 26th 2009 by Bobby

6. @Bobby
I find the cPro MP12 by Alvin Chong is quite stable

Posted at 2:22AM on Aug 29th 2009 by Gervann

7. Just tried to tag Bob Dylan, Acoustic Alchemy, Benny Goodman, Diana Krall no matches. No help at all. I could not find any albums that these tracks came from. Pity Are well I gave it a go. Out of 14,000 Tracks 140 are orphaned. I suppose that is not bad Ay !

Posted at 5:10AM on Sep 1st 2009 by Alan Hill

8. I just did this and I am so happy that Winamp has a feature like this. The only problem, that isn't already stated, is it doesn't change the Track #.

Posted at 10:43PM on Sep 11th 2009 by Cameron

9. Please excuse my incompetence. I looked closely and the feature wasn't changing the Track # because it wasn't changing anything else either. I've been having trouble connecting to the internet through Winamp and I expect this having something to do with it.

Posted at 11:08PM on Sep 11th 2009 by Cameron

10. I would like an option for auto-tag in which you could keep the original modified date of the files.

Posted at 9:59PM on Sep 28th 2009 by Reidar

11. Gracias por compartir esta información. Muy Bueno Bisnis Internet | Mengembalikan Jati Diri Bangsa | Bisnis Tiket Pesawat | Kenali dan Kunjungi Objek Wisata di Pandeglang

Posted at 11:43PM on Oct 4th 2009 by risma2006

12. great, this is what i've been looking for....

Roberty Burlow
Double Bed Dimensions

Posted at 10:13AM on Oct 5th 2009 by ROberty BUrlow

13. @risma2006
linknya kok ga nongol ris? hehehehe

Posted at 10:20AM on Oct 5th 2009 by Roberty Burlow

14. a great program i thank the people who created it .
i would like to see a status bar and some indicatoin on estimated time of compleation other then then that another great addition to an already awsome program

Posted at 10:50AM on Oct 13th 2009 by muncher

15. What an awesome feature. I have been using a program off and on for many years now called PsychicMP3. It is no longer in development but I think it is a very useful program. Very simple to use for what otherwise would be a very tedious process. Maybe winamp can look into this program, maybe even reverse engineer it and work out the few bugs it has. hint hint nudg nudge but seriously thanks for building auto tag in.

Posted at 3:58PM on Nov 21st 2009 by raphen

16. THIS IS GREAT!!

Posted at 6:48PM on Jan 14th 2010 by dj pinto

17. Whats this skin?

Posted at 6:55PM on Jan 28th 2010 by Saru

18. I think I used either the default Bento skin or the "Big Bento".

Posted at 10:07AM on Jan 29th 2010 by Tarik

19. have to say, the feature works ! ,,, little crazy to use it but, best part is it goes to grace note . The best data base...

Posted at 9:16AM on Feb 2nd 2010 by mp3robot

20. Hey, Thanks for this info. I work in a Music Production Company, so its really useful for me.

Posted at 4:17AM on Feb 2nd 2010 by Sharma

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