Just want to double check i'm doing this right

[IvanDobsky]

I hope you made backups before you started? In case it all goes a bit weird…

Good to see you are working in small batches so you can check them as you go along.

@cmdywrtr27

some files i see are already labeled kinda funky giving credit to a random dj instead of the artist and a lot of files are left behind and plenty of popular songs put together in the ‘various artist’ folder. is there a way i can tell it to label the id3 tag the same as the file name then it can add some other stuff like artwork and album title based off what the file name is?

Picard WILL make mistakes and it is you the human who needs to correct the errors. Using that “lookup in Browser” and the < tagger > button to select the relevant releases. Then drag the track onto the correct matches.

The mistakes will happen more if you don’t have anything in the tags. AcoustID “Scan” does well, but often matches to the wrong compilation album

If you have a batch of tracks where your file names are good, but the tags are bad, then MP3TAG can often help there. It is pretty good at converting patterns of filenames into tags. This can then be used to better initialise your files with basic tags, and the pass to Picard for full tagging.

Have a look at this thread where I helped someone do exactly that with MP3 Tag.

How to re-scan entire library?

Conside loading everything up in MP3TAG in large batches. (www.mp3tag.de) Use this to delete the rogue MBID fields. Do a MULTIPLE select of ALL files in the list. Hit the ENHANCED TAGS button and now you can DELETE ALL MBID tags in one go. [image] MP3TAG is great to use alongside Picard. Picard for identification, MP3TAG for bulk operations on lots of files.

And yes, this is hard work untangling a mass of odd tagging on 5000 files, but with patience it will be worth it in the end.