#78 Copy tag contents between files

[Bengt Nilsson]

It would be very helpul to have a tool that transfers id3 tag contents from one file to another.
Various audio manipulation tools often does not transfer id3 tag data in the process from input to output file, and this is annoying, and creates a lot of extra work. The "id3cp" tool could have been a candidate, but it only does MP3, not AIFF or FLAC.

Kid3 does all file formats, so it seems to be a better platform for it.

[Urs Fleisch]

There are already functions available to do such things.

• For single files, you select the file, then click the "Copy" button of the "Tag 2" section to copy all ID3v2 tags (or a subset if you modify the checkboxes of the tags). You can then go to another file and click "Paste" to put the copied tag contents into that file.
• For multiple files, you can use "Export CSV" from the file list context menu, which will create a CSV file containing all tags of all files (both Tag 1 and Tag 2). You can then open another directory and import the tags from the CSV data using "Import CSV" from the file list context menu. The file paths are also stored in the CSV file and only matching files will be imported. Starting with Kid3 3.4.4, if no matching files are found, the import is done unconditionally, so you can transfer the tags to another directory without modifying the CSV file if you use the latest version of Kid3. Note that pictures are not stored in the CSV files, so if you want to transfer them too, you may use the "Album Art/Extract Album Art" and "Album Art/Embed Album Art" context menu items. All the mentioned context menu functions are QML scripts, if you know some JavaScript you can modifiy them to fit your needs.

[Bengt Nilsson]

Sorry, I remember now.

My untagged file was created using Audacity, and such a file is very strange when handling tags. It does not respond properly in Kid3, tags cannot be edited or saved.
if I run it thru ”sox infile_fromAudacity.aiff -t aiff outfile.aiff” and apply the suggested tag Copy/Paste to outfile.aiff it works.

I was intending to file a bug report to Audacity, but I don’t know how to express myself. This bug(?) has been there for a LONG time.

Please have a look at it if you are interested.
Import some audio to Audacity and export it as AIFF.
You will see that it behaves strangely in Kid3.
Your ability to analyze waht is going in is surely better than mine.

[Bengt Nilsson]

I have tried this, and it does not work.

I press ”Copy” for the file I want to copy from, all checkboxes set, and then I select the tagless aiff file.
No tag content is visible, I press the ”+” sign next to Tag 2, and an empty set of tag fields open up.
I Press ”Paste”, and the empty tag field disappears. If I open it again, it is still empty.

I use Kid3 on MacOSX Sierra.

[Bengt Nilsson]

There is no context menu that contains Export/Import on my Mac. Lots of other stuff, but not that.

However, there is an ”Export” and an ”Import” in the File menu.
In the dialog that opens upp there are many, many options, very few of them are intuitive to me.
I got it to work, but it requires some practice to get it right.

Ok, my problem is solved for now, thanks.

[Urs Fleisch]

I have created some AIFF files using Audacity 2.1.2, but I did not have any problems editing the tags from Kid3. I did not have any problems pasting a tag into an AIFF file which did not have such a tag either.

What concerns the missing "Import CSV" and "Export CSV" context menus: These come from settings in the "User Actions" preferences, with Output checked and (Name, Command) being (Export CSV, @qml %{qmlpath}/script/ExportCsv.qml) and (Import CSV, @qml %{qmlpath}/script/ImportCsv.qml). These settings should automatically be added when upgrading Kid3 from an older version. Are you using the latest version 3.4.4 of Kid3? If you have the latest version and the commands are still missing you could add them manually in the "User Actions" or click "Restore Defaults" in the preferences (but this will reset ALL settings to their defaults). I do not recommend using Import and Export from the file menu for your purpose because these functions will only export and import a restricted set of tags whereas the script-base context menu actions will export and import all tags except complex ones such as pictures.

[Bengt Nilsson]

Yes, I have also been exporting AIFF successfully from Audacity. But I have also been unsuccessful in the way I mentioned.
If I can reproduce this issue reliably, I will get back to you.

I will look into the context menu and your suggestions.

[Urs Fleisch]

Please reopen if more information is available.