iTunes Last.FM Tagger
This program searches for id3 tags for the currently selected track in iTunes using the Last.FM XML service. In more basic terms, it will update the information for the selected tracks in iTunes (searches artist, song title, genre, comments tag). It’ll tell you what it found, and lets you edit and either save or discard the changes. Just extract the .zip file to a location of your choice and run the standalone .exe file. Requires .NET Framework 2.0
Download: iTunes Tagger 2.0
Update: A newer (faster) version is available on the Beta Page.
USAGE:
- Basically, just select the songs in iTunes for which you wanna add tags, and press the “get tags” button.
- You can save either top Artist Tags or top Track Tags to the Genre or Comments of the track.
- There are 3 check boxes for additional options. If you’re looking mainly to update the selected tracks with genres and comment tags, the default settings should be alright. Playing around with the rest should be pretty intuitive.
- If you use automatic mode, try it first on a few randomly selected tracks to ensure it’s working properly.
- If you want to check every single id3 tag (based on the audio fingerprint), uncheck the box that says “only search for missing tags”. This will make it A LOT slower, and will overwrite existing track data.
IMPORTANT:
The program writes id3 tags through iTunes. THIS CANNOT BE UNDONE! If you plan on changing the information for a significant amount of your music collection, BACKUP YOUR MP3 COLLECTION.
v 2.0 Release Notes:
- Added error catching, and brief error logging (if you’ll need it :S)
- Saves your options on exit
- Minimizes to tray
- Maintains an xml file of all tagged tracks
- Includes a playlist page, where you can select a tag to listen to (to be expanded in the future)
Note: You’ll have to re-tag your tagged files with this version so they will register as tagged in the xml files. Also make sure to keep the xml files in the same folder as the program .exe
Let me know if you have any suggestions for improvement in these comments or email me.
Also, this is open source: http://code.google.com/p/itunes-lastfm-tagger/
May 15th, 2008 at 9:26 pm
admin said:
For the future, I am looking into:
1) Putting the generated playlists in a separate folder within itunes
2) Allowing additional user options in playlist generation
3) And some additional suggestions from various people.
May 18th, 2008 at 3:58 pm
Martin said:
This release is simply great.
One remark, if it does not found anything on Last.fm, it apends the same content to the existing comment.
It needs just skip the track if the existing comment is the same as the found comment.
I like the cloud, feature to ignore certain strings would be nice (e.g. Moody tags)
May 19th, 2008 at 11:32 am
admin said:
Ah, yes. Sorry about that, Martin. I usually like to overwrite the itunes comments, so I forgot to test the option to append the comments on this release. I just uploaded a revised file that should fix the issue.
Sorry if it ruined some of your moody tags!
May 19th, 2008 at 2:29 pm
Martin said:
Works OK.
Nothing happened with the previous version.
I have just tested it on some tunes.
Thanks
June 5th, 2008 at 5:55 pm
Dave N said:
Great app, but how about opensourcing this bad-boy so the community can help? You’re not making any money from it now, I guess, so what have you got to lose?
p.s. thank god you dropped that horrible VB6-esque skin
June 5th, 2008 at 7:02 pm
admin said:
Alright, Alright. I’ve heard enough times, I just haven’t got around to it yet. If anyone’s interested in helping out let me know.
http://code.google.com/p/itunes-lastfm-tagger/
June 17th, 2008 at 3:30 am
Daniel said:
Hey - i´m so happy finally i found a program that does what i (at least i think it is so *g*) needed so bad. How safe is it to let it run? Will it put it´s hands on other tags than the genre? I can´t make a complete backup of my collection since it´s way too huge… Anyhow, i´m really glad i found your program - do you also think about to let it do the same as for the genre, but optionally with the (release)year? That would be even more great
June 17th, 2008 at 10:18 pm
admin said:
Daniel,
The program should only change other tags (title and artist) if those tags are missing. Just make sure you’ve checked the box “only search for missing data” so it won’t re-write all of the title and artist tags. As with anything, I’d recommend trying it on a collection of songs in your library before letting it tag the entire thing. If it goes well with the first set, then you can give it a try on the rest.
As far as album and years are concerned, that’s another story (it’s hard to find a reliable and simple service to retrieve this info for free) but it might happen in the future.
June 23rd, 2008 at 4:55 pm
Daniel said:
Hey, thanks for your answer!
Your Program worked exactly like it had to be - Great!!!
No more Words needed…. Reliable, did it´s job complete and safe. Thank you!
And if you´d plan to implement the year (what about amazon as source?) - even more great
Anyhow, you did a good job - thanks again!
Cheers!
July 2nd, 2008 at 9:50 pm
admin said:
Just a note about amazon as a source: I’m not sure it’d be adherent to their ToS for web services…I could be wrong, though.
July 11th, 2008 at 12:45 pm
Daniel said:
There are some Programs out there that use Amazon - e.g. Mp3Tag (www.mp3tag.de/en) use their Informations; since that program is quiet popular (and uses that feature for a long time) i don´t think it would be adherent to their rules…
Hmm…Maybe you should just impement such a feature and wait if something happens
Just kiddin of course, it should be clear if its legal
July 11th, 2008 at 3:07 pm
admin said:
The good news is that a couple weeks ago last.fm came out with a new api, which has album information amongst many other things. The bad news is that I’ll have to do a (slight) bit of re-coding to make my program use this api.
July 21st, 2008 at 4:52 am
JonSnow said:
I was doing it wrong… my bad. I realise now that I needed to have iTunes running and a song selected. It also appends to whatever tags I have already given. Neat!
Is there a way for the program to add tags to all songs in an entire playlist/album rather then one song at a time?
Thanks again!
July 21st, 2008 at 4:58 am
JonSnow said:
I feel stupid… I probably am. My wife says so many times anyway. Feel free to berate me for my stupidity and for spamming your blog with needless comments before actually trying anything.
Yes, I’m rambling on about the tag all songs feature I was asking about. Select more than 1 song Jon and press the helpful Get Tags button. aaargh…
Thanks for this cool program. Its fantastic.
August 9th, 2008 at 12:04 pm
Dusk said:
I really love it how you can tag with this, but the playlists function does’nt seen to work? very weird tried everything. Someone knows what i’m doing wrong?
August 9th, 2008 at 12:28 pm
admin said:
Dusk,
If you go into the folder that has the itunes_tagger 2.0.exe file, check if there is an “error.log” file. If so you can email the contents to skycapitansite [ a t ] gmail [dot] com.
It would also be helpful to know where the playlist function fails and if there’s an error message. Once again, feel free to email me some more details to the address above.
August 23rd, 2008 at 6:38 pm
ryan said:
Wow! This is exactly what I have been spending SO much time looking for. Really, I wasted a whole day trying to organize itunes. On problem, I have a mac. If anyone has any advice at all it would really be appreciated. Auto Last.fm tags are the goal.
August 24th, 2008 at 1:11 pm
admin said:
@ryan: I would give this one a try: last.fm cocoa tagger
September 21st, 2008 at 1:24 am
DailyDaydreamer (Nick) said:
Thanks so much for showing me this program! I’m running it now, and have a lot of faith in it.
I didn’t backup my itunes collection, but basically I have nothing to lose lol. I’d say about half of my music is mislabeled, and the other half is just going to get fine tuning if anything.
Oh wow, I just realized–I have a LOT of duplicate songs. This is going to absolutely solve that problem for me! If I have two tracks that are identical audio-wise, they’ll get the exact same tags–which means I’ll be able to quickly and efficiently delete that problem away.
You are AMAZING, thank you!
Now to see if this lives up to these extreme expectations haha
September 22nd, 2008 at 1:42 am
Paul Marsh said:
Any work on whether this works with Itunes 8.0? This is the most important plugin I have ever used with Itunes and I don’t want to break it.
September 29th, 2008 at 6:07 am
admin said:
Just an update - there may be some issues with the fingerprinting function of the program. I’ve been told last.fm’s database is being modified in this area at the moment, so there will be downtime. The name and artist tagging is not working for me right now. The comments and genre tags are working fine, however.
September 29th, 2008 at 6:08 am
admin said:
@Paul Marsh: I’m using the program with itunes 8 without any problems (other than those described above). If you do have any issues with the update, just let me know.
October 5th, 2008 at 5:50 pm
Alecia said:
i unzipped it (twice) only to get the error from the itunes_tagger 2.0.exe application saying “the application failed to initialize properly (0×0000135). Any tips?
October 5th, 2008 at 6:16 pm
admin said:
@Alecia: I’d first make sure that you have Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0 or newer, and that your itunes is updated to version 7.1 or newer.
After that, if it still will not start up, look for an “error.log” file located in the folder. If there is an error log, you can email it to me here.
If there is no error file and your versions are up to date, just email me at the address above, and we can try to sort it out.