Renaming Files

Quite often multimedia files, downloaded from the Internet, have strange names. For example, song "House of the Rising Sun" performed by "Animals" is called anim17.mp3. However, tags may contain proper name of the song. Of course, you want your home collection to look pretty. What to do? Rename manually? What if you have hundreds of files?

mp3Tag can do it for you! Just tell mp3Tag what you want these files to look like and it will be done. However, there is one essential condition: tags must include information about the song , otherwise you will have to input it manually.

In the version 3.6 we considerably expanded the number of options of renaming files, using different elements of tags.

In the main window, select the group of files you want to rename, keeping in mind the subfolders. Press "Rename files"-button and set a desired format.

You can use following fields of music tags for generation of a new filename:

• # of track (%#, %0).
• Song title ( %T, %1).
• Artist (%A, %2).
• Album name ( %L, %3).
• Year (%Y, %4).
• Name of the folder where the file is stored (%5).
• Genre (%G).
• Comment (%C, %6).
• Composer (%M).
• BPM (%P).
• Bitrate (%B, %7).
• Freq (%F, %8).
• Duration of the song (%D, %9).
• Size (%S).
• Old Filename (%O).

In this list, symbols of the renaming mode are shown in brackets. For example, if you choose %T, all selected files will be renamed using song's titles. Besides those symbols you can add any text information. So the final result of renaming mode may look like "Song '%T' performed by '%A' in %Y", which will generate the name for the above mentioned file "Song 'The House of Rising Sun' performed by 'Animals' in 1978"

Sample name for renaming can be either inputted manually, or constructed from elements of tags dragged from the list on the right

There is a number of predefined renaming samples in the program. You can delete them and add your own one.

First of all you should choose what tag fields and music information from files you want to use. Chosen values will be displayed in the columns, which order can be changed. Values in fields can be sorted by clicking the heading of a column. After this new names will be created for selected files. These names originated from the fields of tags that are defined by the renaming mode. If you find some name does not look properly, you can manually change it in the "After" column. New filenames will be generated according to the values in this column.

Note: values in the table can be exported into MS Excel, textfiles or can be used for generation of playlists.

To start renaming files you need to press "Rename files"-button. Checked files will be renamed and removed from the renaming list. For the remaining files you can choose another format for renaming.

For checking or un-checking of the current file press a corresponding button under the window of renaming format.

Note: you can easily view complete tag info of the current file when you right-click the file in the list:

We recommend to keep the following scheme of renaming files, using tags values:

1. Choose files required renaming.
2. Choose or construct an appropriate format of a new name.
3. Sort values by the columns which are used for renaming.
4. Select files which do not contain the information required for the renaming.
5. Un-check these files.
6. Press "Rename files" button .
7. After completion of the renaming process return to the step 2 and rename remaining files using another format. 

If tags are changed by mp3Tag or another program while you are in Rename-window, you should press "Rescan"-button.

Double-clicking the grid of a file displays all information about this song in the Music Info-window.

Note: you can check, un-check or inverse group of selected files by pressing buttons in top left corner. For selection of all files, please, press in this side of the window the button on the left.

In the same window you can remove selected files by press pressing "Remove" button.

Sometimes it happens that tag fields contain certain symbols which cannot be used for generation of a new filename. These symbols include forward- and backslash, question mark, asterisk, colon, quotes, and symbols '|', '<', '>'. During renaming process, these symbols will be replaced by spaces. If you want to delete these symbols, check "Delete bad letters"-box. You can also choose to replace spaces (" ") by an underscore ("_") and vice versa, to delete spaces. You can set the capitalization rules for renaming files.

Watch demo video about renaming files: .

You can also use advanced renaming options for better organization of your music collection!

Besides, you can easily rename a single file. Right-click the file and select "Rename". You will be suggested a new name which by default combined from artist and title fields).

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