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I have the "write metadata to files" option checked, and it works great when I edit a song's metadata. However, I made tons of changes with this setting off (before I turned it on). Can I force a bulk metadata write out of my entire library?

Thanks!

2 Answers 2

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Using Banshee 2.4.0, There is a setting:

Screenshot

Additionally, you could:

  • Right click on All Artists then click Edit Track Information
  • Go to the second tab, Extra, and fill out as follows:

Screenshot

This will take a long time, depending on the size of your library, but will edit every single song (unless the id3 comment tag is already a space, in which case, you could put something else there if you thought it necessary).

If, after this is all said and done, you are still unhappy about the state of the metadata (id3 tags) of your music collection, you could download Musicbrainz Picard. This program queries the Musizbrainz server and fills in and attempts to fix the metadata. I have had mixed luck with it. Check youtube for tutorials.

sudo apt-get install picard
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    Sorry for necromancing this thread but relevant question: would putting a space in the comment field overwrite any existing comment entries with " ", OR would it append the space onto anything existing? If the former, assumedly this hack (making a meaningless change to a tag field to force a change event which leads to the metadata being written to the files) would work with any tag field change? Is it now possible in banshee to edit more advanced ID3v2.4 fields, and thus edit a completely untouched field, or even add a custom field? Thanks!
    – dez93_2000
    Sep 22, 2014 at 10:49
  • @dez93_2000 Putting a space in the comment field will overwrite any existing comment entries with " ". Not sure about ID3v2.4; I haven't used Banshee since I discovered Guayadeque (which has good ID3 editing capabilities). I highly recommend trying out Puddletag to edit tags. You can easily add/edit custom fields and process bulk changes.
    – Gruzzles
    Sep 23, 2014 at 17:52
  • In terms of simply editing tags I'm a big fan of kit3-qt, have a look if you haven't already, i'll check out Puddletag however. THe appeal of banshee for me is to import my rhythmbox library, including play counts & ratings which the RB dev team may never implement 'write/sync to file' for, force banshee to do it, then play in RB. Though I might just transition to banshee (depending on Guayadeque). Cheers
    – dez93_2000
    Sep 23, 2014 at 21:52
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Yes, you can; and it's easy.

Simply: adjust your 'preferences' settings, re-import the relevant files, select all (relevant) files for editing, open the editor, select the relevant options, and 'save'.

Please note that it may be necessary to restart Banshee for each folder you wish to update, especially if you have folders dedicated to different file formats. The point is that it is expedient to be very specific, when using Banshee, but you do have control of you files, if you're prepared to put in a little effort.

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