How to copy iTunes album art onto the file's tag

iTunes cannot attach artwork to tracks in .wav format. If iTunes downloads art from the store then it maintains its own cache and doesn't embed the artwork. You can copy and paste in these images by hand, but I have two scripts that can help with this; CreateFolderArt and EmbedFolderArt.

The scripts have a slightly different purpose.

CreateFolderArt ensures that every album folder ends up with a Folder.jpg image which is the art that iTunes already knows about. Side effects are that if artwork has been updated in iTunes the folder art should be updated also, and if any track from the album doesn't have embedded artwork it gets embedded.

EmbedFolderArt was actually written for someone who already had various artwork images stored in the album folders and wanted them added to their tracks, but not if iTunes had already downloaded a better quality image. It creates new files of any store art with the name iTunesArt.jpg, then embeds the largest image by area in the album's folder, based on the premise that this is likely to be the best image.

tt2

Both scripts will work to embed artwork. The second one is more suitable if you have previously placed album covers in the album folders.

The other discrepancy you mentioned could be down to multiple tags.

Multiple tags (Mp3 files only)

The ID3 specification allow files to have multiple tags in different versions and languages, but iTunes only works properly with single tags. When multiple tags are present it can sometimes fail to apply updates to the tag that it reads back (presumably updating one of the others in the file) and it is also possible that iPod & iTunes may have different rules for which tag they give priority to. This could lead to situations in which everything is properly organised in iTunes but then inexplicably falls apart on an iPod, or tracks that display different information in Windows Explorer or another media player. There are 3rd party tag editors that can manipulate multiple tags but I don't have a recommendation offhand. A workaround in iTunes is to use right-click context menu Convert ID3 Tags... > None a few times to remove all existing tags and then Convert ID3 Tags... > v2.3 to build a fresh tag with the information still held in the iTunes database. I've read in the past that iTunes isn't fully compliant with the v2.4 spec. although this may no longer be the case, however support for v2.3 is widespread so I would suggest using v2.3 over v2.4. Any embedded artwork will be removed so this needs to be replaced if wanted. Running CreateFolderArt before and after the tag cleaning process should manage this.

tt2

You're welcome. 🙂

tt2

Another approach which does not require a script is as follows, this method will work on both Mac and Windows.

The presumption is that you are starting off with iTunes having auto-downloaded album artwork and it then stores this as a separate file hidden in the iTunes music folder, this artwork will be displayed in iTunes when the relevant track or album is selected.

1. Switch to album list view
2. Select a track, i.e. click once on it
3. Choose Get Info
4. In the Get Info window select the artwork by clicking on it and then copy it to the clipboard, i.e. right click and copy to clipboard
5. Select all the tracks for that album (if you have multiple tracks for that album)
6. Right click, and then select 'Clear Downloaded Artwork' from the drop down menu
7. Select Get Info
8. Click in the Album Artwork box
9. Now paste the artwork (it should ask to apply to multiple tracks if appropriate)

The above approach will also work for adding your own source of artwork including dragging artwork from a web-browser window in to the artwork box.