Configuration > Actions

Mp3tag provides a variety of actions, which can be applied to filenames and tags. The actions are grouped together into named sets, which can be applied independently via the function Converter > Actions.

Case conversion
Convert codepage
Export cover to file
Format value
Guess value
Import cover from file
Merge duplicate fields
Remove duplicate fields
Remove fields
Remove fields except
Replace
Replace with regular expression
Shorten filenames to 64 characters

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Case conversion

Case conversion is applied on the selected fields.

Examples:

UPPER case

AIR - MOON SAFARI - 03 - ALL I NEED.MP3

lower case

air - moon safari - 03 - all i need.mp3

Mixed Case

Air - Moon Safari - 03 - All I Need.mp3

Sentence

Air - moon safari - 03 - all i need.mp3

The field Words begin after any of specifies some characters which are marking the beginning of a new word.

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Convert codepage

If you have problems displaying tags with characters from other charsets (like cyrillic) in Mp3tag, the tags are probably stored in a system codepage instead of Unicode or ISO-8859-1. To convert these tags from a specific codepage to Unicode, simply create a new action Convert codepage, select the appropriate tag field(s) and choose the codepage from the drop-down list.

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Export cover to file

Exports the cover art from the tag of the file to the relative or absolute filename specified by the format string. You can use placeholders like %artist% and %album% in the format string.

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Format value

Formats tag fields by other fields content.
You can use placeholder(s) for any tag field as format string to format the content of the field specified.
Example: to copy the content of the comment field to the encodedby field, set the field to ENCODEDBY and the format string to %comment%.

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Guess values

Imports tag fields from a specified source format string.
This action type is useful if you want to split the content of one tag field to multiple other fields (e.g. the title "Artist / Title" to the appropriate fields using %title% as source format and %artist% / %title% as guessing pattern.

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Import cover from file

Imports the cover art specified by the absolute or relative filename into the tag of the file. You can use placeholders like %artist% or %album%.

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Merge duplicate fields

This action type merges duplicate tag fields (e.g. three artist fields) to one field.
The contents of the duplicate fields in the new field are seperated by the specified seperator string.

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Remove duplicate fields

This action type removes duplicate tag fields (e.g. three artist fields) and leaves the last field from the tag.

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Remove fields

This action type removes the fields entered in the edit field (e.g. COMMENT;PICTURE).

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Remove fields except

This action type keeps the fields entered in the edit field and removes all other tag fields from the tag (e.g. ALBUM;ARTIST;COMMENT;GENRE;TRACK;YEAR).

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Replace

The replacement occurs at the selected fields (e.g. album or filename) from Original to Replace with.
If the only as whole word is enabled, Mp3tag only replaces Original when it is a whole word and not a part of a word.

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Replace with regular expression

Syntax:

Literals

All characters except ".", "|", "*", "?", "+", "(", ")", "{", "}", "[", "]", "^", "$".
These characters are literals when preceded by a "\".

Wildcard

The dot character "." matches any single character.

Repeats

"*" repeated any number of times including zero
"+" repeated any number of times, but at least once
"?" repeated zero or one times only
"a{2}" is the letter "a" repeated exactly twice
"a{2,4}" represents the letter "a" repeated between 2 and 4 times
"a{2,}" represents the letter "a" repeated at least twice with no upper limit

Non-greedy repeats

Non-greedy repeats are possible by appending a '?' after the repeat; a non-greedy repeat is one which will match the shortest possible string.

Parenthesis

Parentheses serve two purposes, to group items together into a sub-expression, and to mark what generated the match. $N Expands to the text that matched sub-expression N in Replace matches with.

Alternatives

Alternatives occur when the expression can match either one sub-expression or another, each alternative is separated by a "|".

Sets

"[abc]" will match either of "a", "b", or "c".
"[^abc]" will match any character other than "a", "b", or "c".
"[a-z]" will match any character in the range "a" to "z".
"[^A-Z]" will match any character other than those in the range "A" to "Z".
"\w" Any word character - all alphanumeric characters plus the underscore.
"\s" Any whitespace character.
"\d" Any digit 0-9
"\l" Any lower case character a-z.
"\u" Any upper case character A-Z.

Line anchors

An anchor is something that matches the start or end of a line: "^" matches the start of a line, "$" matches the end of a line.

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Shorten filenames to 64 characters

This action is very handy, if you want to backup your audio files on a CD-ROM/DVD-ROM, because there is a 64 character limit for filenames with the ISO9660 standard.

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