Better File Rename Better File Rename

Renaming Using MP3 & AAC Tags

We are all familiar with AAC/MP3 music files, but did you know that these files contain additional information about the song, such as the name of the artist, the album, the song, etc?

This information is stored in so-called "MP3 Tags".

Better File Rename starting with version 5.28 supports mp3 tags in the following file formats:

  • mp3
  • mp4
  • m4p
  • m4a

Better File Rename can read the most common tags, including:

  1. the song's title
  2. the name of the album
  3. the name of the artist
  4. the track number on the album
  5. the total number of tracks on the album
  6. the number of CDs in a set
  7. the number of the current CD in the set

You can use this information to rename your music files in a uniform manner.

The "Preferred Pattern:" input box contains the pattern to which the mp3 files will be renamed.

The pattern "<Artist> - <Album> - <Song> (<TrackNum>/<NumTracks>)", for instance would result in the new name "Garbage - Bleed like me - Run Baby Run (2/11)".

The <Artist> text has been replaced with the actual name of the artist, in this case "Garbage" and the same applies for the <Album>, <Song>, <TrackNum> and <NumTracks> texts.

The "Presets" popup menu contains some frequently used patterns, but you can of course create your own, e.g. "<Song> from <Artist>'s new album <Album>", etc.

Here is a complete list of all recognized pattern tags (as of release 7.7.5):

<Artist> The artist's name
<artist> The artist's name is lowercase characters
<ARTIST> The artist's name is UPPERCASE characters
<Artist_sentence_case> The artist's name in sentence case (first letter in uppercase, the rest in lowercase), e.g. "Massive attack"
<Artist_Capitalized> The artist's name in title case, e.g. "Massive Attack"
<Album> The name of the album
<album> The name of the album in lowercase characters
<ALBUM> The name of the album in UPPERCASE characters
<Album_sentence_case> The name of the album in sentence case (first letter in uppercase, the rest in lowercase), e.g. "Beautiful garbage"
<Album_Capitalized> The name of the album in title case, e.g. "Beautiful Garbage"
<NumTracks> The number of tracks on the album
<0NumTracks> The number of tracks on the album in double digits (e.g. 05, 20)
<Song> The name of the song
<song> The name of the song in lowercase characters
<SONG> The name of the song in UPPERCASE characters
<Song_sentence_case> The name of the song in sentence case (first letter in uppercase, the rest in lowercase), e.g. "Nobody loves you"
<Song_Capitalized> The name of the song in title case, e.g. "Nobody Loves You"
<TrackNum> The number of the track on the album
<0TrackNum> The number of the track on the album in double digits, (e.g. 01, 02, 03, .., 09, 10, 11, ..)
<CDNum> The number of the current CD in a set of CDs (such as audio books, compilations, etc.)
<0CDNum> The number of the current CD in a set of CDs in double digits (e.g. 01, 02, 03, .., 09, 10, 11, ..)
<NumCDs> The number of CDs in the current set of CDs
<0NumCDs> The number of CDs in the current set of CDs in double digits (e.g. 01, 02, 03, .., 09, 10, 11, ..)

Dealing with missing, incomplete or inconsistent MP3 tags

One problem that you may encounter when renaming files from mp3 tags is that it is not unusual for hand-ripped music files to have incorrect, inconsistent or simply missing mp3 tags.

Music files that are sold online by a reputable source, such as the iTunes music store, usually do not have this problem because some care has been taken to ensure that the mp3 tag information is correct.

You can avoid this problem by editing the mp3 tags in iTunes before renaming the files in Better File Rename.

Better File Rename itself also provides a mechanisms for dealing with missing tags.

In addition to the "Preferred Pattern", you can also provide "Fallback Pattern 1", "Fallback Pattern 2", etc.

This mechanism deals with missing tags by applying the first pattern for which all information is available.

When the preferred pattern contains information which is not available for a particular music file, the program "falls back" to the first fallback pattern. If the first fallback pattern requires information which is not available, the program falls back to the second fallback pattern, etc.

Let us illustrate this with a small example:

Say "Metal Heart" is missing the track number and the number of tracks. The preferred pattern will not be applied as it requires both the track number and the number of tracks. The program will fall back to the 1st fallback pattern, e.g. "<Artist> - <Album> - <Song>", which does not require the track number and the new name will thus become "Garbage - Bleed like me - Metal Heart".