Batch clear genre tag and preserve timestamp

[zordaz]

I am looking for a way to clear the genre tag of all my music files (approx. 20.000 files).
I have done my share of Googling etc., but somehow cannot find the right way to do it.

Relevant info:
- Formats: mostly mp3, ogg, flac
- Platform: Linux (Debian/Xubuntu)
- I am looking for a batch / scripted solution
- I would like to preserve the timestamp of the files
- The genre can remain empty after cleaning

I use Kid3-qt and Easytag for regular tagging and Kid3 has CLI support, but I cannot get it working for this purpose.

Any suggestions and/or example scripts?

[DJanGo]

I am looking for a way to clear the genre tag of all my music files (approx. 20.000 files).
I have done my share of Googling etc., but somehow cannot find the right way to do it.

Relevant info:
- Formats: mostly mp3, ogg, flac
- Platform: Linux (Debian/Xubuntu)
- I am looking for a batch / scripted solution
- I would like to preserve the timestamp of the files
- The genre can remain empty after cleaning

I use Kid3-qt and Easytag for regular tagging and Kid3 has CLI support, but I cannot get it working for this purpose.

Any suggestions and/or example scripts?

Hi,

i am using eyeD3 for my things and its exactly my piece of Honey.

Since i have a script that changes genres from x to y (but changes the timestamp just a little to support the rescan feature from lms) i think its no big deal. (scriptwise)
BUT you have a new "genre" called "No Genre" - do you really want to do that?

If [ $answer= yes ]
eyeD3 Download and check this line

find ./ -iname *.mp3 -exec  echo eyeD3 --preserve-file-times --genre "" {} \;

remember i am not in charge for your troubles ;-)
If you have a backup - feel free to remove the echo in front of eyeD3 --preserve-file-times --genre ""

[zordaz]

BUT you have a new "genre" called "No Genre" - do you really want to do that?

Thanks for your suggestion, I will test eyeD3. Does it also handle Flac and OGG/Vorbis tags?
A "No Genre" tag in LMS is no big deal for me: I don't use the genre tag at all because the genre choice often is arbitrary (pop vs rock, metal vs hardrock etc.) in my opinion.

[JJZolx]

For Windows, Mp3tag will easily do this, although it's not a batch/script, but is an interactive program. You can easily load your whole library (assuming it's in one folder tree) and run it on tens of thousands of files with only a few clicks. It will take a while to run through 20,000 files, but you won't need to do them individually.

There's an option to preserve file mod times. Be sure you have it enabled.

Tools > Options > Tags > Preserve file modification time when saving tags

I would _highly_ suggest running this on a few copies of files before running it on your entire library. You can use Mp3tag's actions, or use the tag panel (on the left) or use the extended tag dialog (View > Extended Tags) to remove the GENRE field.

[Mnyb]

PuddleTag on Linux similar to mp3tag ?

[zordaz]

For Windows, Mp3tag will easily do this, although it's not a batch/script, but is an interactive program. You can easily load your whole library (assuming it's in one folder tree) and run it on tens of thousands of files with only a few clicks. It will take a while to run through 20,000 files, but you won't need to do them individually.

As mentioned I am looking for a batch/scripted solution for Linux, not Windows (although I am familiar with mp3tag) and Puddletag doesn's seem to have CLI functionality (already looked into that one as well).

[Julf]

For CLI on Linux, you might want to look at beets. Scriptable and extendable (in python).

[cornuto]

I use Kid3-qt and Easytag for regular tagging and Kid3 has CLI support, but I cannot get it working for this purpose.

This should work:

find -name '*.mp3' -exec kid3-cli -c "set genre '' 1" -c "set genre '' 2" {} \;

"Preserve file timestamp" can be marked in Settings/Files of kid3-qt, it will also be used in kid3-cli.

[zordaz]

This should work:

find -name '*.mp3' -exec kid3-cli -c "set genre '' 1" -c "set genre '' 2" {} \;

Thanks, with some small changes it also works for Vorbis tags, great!