Author Topic: Remove embedded (or linked) cover artwork from files  (Read 9269 times)

marp68

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Hi

I've recently started to use musicbee. Really nice.

How can I remove embedded covers (or linked)? Either for several (all songs within an album) or individually per songs that doesn't belong to any album.  I can't find any feature for that. When embedded them, I just choosed "Search internet for image".


I read that since all songs on an album have the same image, I may be better to link a separate image file to save space. Instead of inbedd it to all files on the same album.

Any opinion weather to choose embedd or link?

Thanks
Martin

frankz

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I'm in the process of moving to using folder art instead of embedded in situations where I have the full album or most of it in my library.

There may be an easier way, but this is what I do.

Select all the files from the album
Right Click - Edit to open the editor (or Shift+Enter)
Right click the artwork and select "Save Picture To..."
Save the picture
Right click the artwork again
Select "Choose Picture"
Choose the picture you just saved
uncheck embedded and check "link the picture to this music track" and "or link to the original picture file"
Save

marp68

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Thanks.

I actually found the feature for it. When you Edit the file/s, choose Album Cover in the menu. There you have the option Remove. Don't know why I haven't seen it earlier.  :-[

But the other question remains. Regarding complete album songs, is it waste of spece to embedd the cover to all songs when it can be linked to them all instead?

frankz

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But the other question remains. Regarding complete album songs, is it waste of spece to embedd the cover to all songs when it can be linked to them all instead?
Of course it is.  It's the difference between using the space for the picture once outside the file vs 13-14 times, inside each file.

marp68

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Okej, thanks. Haven'tdone any math myself. 

I compared it now. An album with 13 songs where each song is about 4 Mb became 4 Mb bigger in total. 62,3 vs 66,3. Interesting. With albums it becomes many Mb.

BillH

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I have a related question.  I have also decided that embedding the artwork was not the way to go for me.  On an individual album basis I followed what frankz suggested and it worked great.  However, I have over a thousand albums and doing them one at a time will be a very long process.  Is there a way to un-embed the artwork for all tracks on all albums at one time?  That would be a great time saver for me.  I don't even care if I save the cover to link to afterwards.  I would be happy just doing the auto-tag for missing artwork afterwards.

Thanks,
Bill

Freddy Barker

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I have a related question.  I have also decided that embedding the artwork was not the way to go for me.  On an individual album basis I followed what frankz suggested and it worked great.  However, I have over a thousand albums and doing them one at a time will be a very long process.  Is there a way to un-embed the artwork for all tracks on all albums at one time?  That would be a great time saver for me.  I don't even care if I save the cover to link to afterwards.  I would be happy just doing the auto-tag for missing artwork afterwards.

Thanks,
Bill

From memory only, you could probably highlight several (hundred) tracks at a time and remove/delete any embedded album art..
Try just a few before you do too many....

BillH

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Thanks for the reply. 

I can see how to select all songs for an album and then remove the artwork using the method frankz described. 

I can't seem to do this if I select tracks from different albums.  The option to save album artwork is grayed out... probably because the artwork is different from album to album. 

If there is an option to remove the embedded artwork, I can't seem to locate it.  Where do I look?

sveakul

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If you just want to select a whole batch of files and remove the embedded artwork, Mp3tag will do that.

1.  Open the directory of files in Mp3tag

2.  Edit/Select All Files

3.  Actions/Actions(Quick)

4.  Select Action Type-->Remove Fields

5.  Fields to Remove:  type in PICTURE (caps, recommended in Help), and hit OK

I tested this on a small batch of files of mixed formats--m4a, mp3, flac.  The artwork was indeed removed.  All of the files showed a size reduction after the removal except for flac, due to padding used in FLAC tags normally left to prevent from having to re-write the whole file just because of a tag change.  The app TagScanner has the option to remove such padding after artwork removal from flacs but I was too lazy to test that one ;)
Last Edit: August 13, 2019, 10:22:03 PM by sveakul

sveakul

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Man, curiousity killed the cat/cured the laziness didn't it?  Tested with TagScanner (https://www.xdlab.ru/en/) on a batch of files, artwork removed on all, size was reduced on all, incl. the FLAC files if that option was selected.  Steps:

1.  Hit "Program Options" button in upper right corner, then Tags, "reduce padding inside FLAC files after cover removals.."

2.  Hit the "Arrow" button in the upper left corner to leave options screen

3.  Put the batch of files into TagScanner

4.  Hit the graphic "select all" square button

5.  On the right pane under "Embedded Covers", hit the red "Delete" button

6.  Hit the big "Save" button in the lower right corner.  Let the "progress bar" completely DISAPPEAR--will take a while if there are lots of flac's.

Remember that any tagging work done externally will require that the affected files be re-scanned within MusicBee to reflect the changes.
Last Edit: August 13, 2019, 10:51:58 PM by sveakul

captain_paranoia

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I use the AlbumArtTagger plug-in in MediaMonkey for managing artwork in files. It has a lot of options.

Different tools have different capabilities, so it's useful to have a few at your disposal. I started with MM, but now use MB for playing and getting automated metadata and artwork, but still use MM for basic metadata entry and volume analysis (force of habit, and consistency, mostly, but I also prefer MM's physical library handling).

BillH

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Thanks for the replies.  I ended up using MP3TAG and it worked great.

Thanks!
Bill

sveakul

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Glad to hear it!  Just as a "P.S." to the FLAC padding thing, in addition to TagScanner I found that Kid3 (https://kid3.sourceforge.io/) will also remove the padding and therefore reduce the file size when removing artwork from a flac, if the OggFlacMetadata plugin is given priority in its settings.

SkyZippr

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EDIT: Never mind, I should use MP3tag to extract the artworks, remove embedded artworks, then rescan artworks.
Note to self: use google. Always.


Maybe this belongs to a new thread, but is there any way to move the embedded artwork to folder.jpg for multiple albums?
For single album, I can select all the tracks > edit > artwork > save > save to folder.jpg.
But if I select multiple albums at once, the "save" button disappears.

The situation is, my whole library has artwork embedded to each individual track, which somehow I used to think was a good idea years ago.
Is there an easy way to move them all to folder.jpg for each album at once, instead of going into each of them?
Last Edit: September 20, 2019, 04:42:22 PM by SkyZippr

Freddy Barker

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The situation is, my whole library has artwork embedded to each individual track, which somehow I used to think was a good idea years ago.
Is there an easy way to move them all to folder.jpg for each album at once, instead of going into each of them?

Probably just me, but:-
I still use embedded, then the Album Art can go anywhere the music file goes, and unlike years ago, taking up disk space is no longer an issue.

Or have a look in at the options in Preferences > Tags(1) > Artwork Storage...
Freddy  ;)