Can I FORCE iTunes to store album art in the mp3 file?

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Level 1

5 points

Can I FORCE iTunes to store album art in the mp3 file?

I know the answer is no - I guess the question is 'why'? With as many times as I have had to rebuild my library, I am absolutely tired of waiting for album art to keep being downloaded over and over to populate the album art database. I should have the option to store album art in the file itself, and I will accept any performance issues in CoverFlow (which I assume is why this was done).

Has anyone noticed that iTunes seems to keep historical tag information about files somehow? If you move files from one directory to another - which requires you to delete them from the iTunes libarary and then add the new folder (this is all ok) - it sometimes readds the files with incorrect tag info. For instance, I know some files I have had the wrong album in them *originally when I added it to my iTunes library*, but I have since fixed them. When I move the files to a new directory and import it again, iTunes shows the wrong album in the tag again.

Posted on Mar 3, 2007 1:32 PM

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Answer 1

Jeff Bryan

Level 9

61,797 points

Mar 4, 2007 3:51 AM in response to yo mama

As far as I can tell, artwork you have added directly to the files by some other method other than iTunes (copy/pasting an image from Amazon into the artwork box for instance) is embedded within the music file itself.

It's only artwork obtained from the iTunes store that is stored in a separate album artwork folder.

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Answer 2

Mar 4, 2007 6:37 AM in response to yo mama

Yes, you can... using an Applescript from
http://www.dougscripts.com/itunes/index.php

I believe it's called "Embed Artwork" (instructions are included) but in brief, basically once it's in your iTunes Scripts folder, you only need to select desired song(s) then choose the the script from your Scripts menu.

I use this, (and bunch of other Applescripts for all sorts of specialized needs) runs like a charm. You'll find tons of Artwork scripts available including saving Artwork as seperate files. - just make sure they're written for iTunes 7 or later. - since the way Album art is stored has changed.

PS I believe it's only neccessary for music downloaded since iTunes 7x (when Apple began storing Artwork seperately)

HTH-xandra

PMacs G5Quad & Quicksilver, PBook G4 Titanium, iMacDV SE Mac OS X (10.4.8) 10.38 ->10.48

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Answer 3

Jeff Bryan

Level 9

61,797 points

Mar 4, 2007 8:57 AM in response to Alexandra Cohn

Shouldn't we be assuming the OP runs Windows since this is the iTunes for Windows forum?

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Answer 4

Mar 4, 2007 9:04 AM in response to yo mama

I wrote a program for Windows to embed the downloaded artwork into the file. Please note, embedding the artwork takes up more disk space; Apple's method of NOT embeddeding it means they only have one copy of the artwork. Embedding the artwork takes up X times as much space, where X is the number of tracks for that album. (e.g. if the album artwork is 500 KB, and you have 10 tracks, the disk space consumed is 10*500KB or 5000 KB (~5MB))

http://home.comcast.net/~teridon73/itunesscripts/itunesinsertartwork.zip

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Answer 5

yo mama Author

Level 1

5 points

Mar 4, 2007 11:42 AM in response to Robert Jacobson1

I wrote a program for Windows to embed the downloaded
artwork into the file. Please note, embedding the
artwork takes up more disk space; Apple's method of
NOT embeddeding it means they only have one copy of
the artwork. Embedding the artwork takes up X times
as much space, where X is the number of tracks for
that album. (e.g. if the album artwork is 500 KB,
and you have 10 tracks, the disk space consumed is
10*500KB or 5000 KB (~5MB))

http://home.comcast.net/~teridon73/itunesscripts/itune
s insertartwork.zip

That sounds exactly like something I am looking for. Yes, I realize that I am sacrificing disk space to do this - but I have a lot of space to spare on my iPod and I am really tired of redownloading artwork when I change the way I organize my files (or God forbid I have to do a full restore at some point).

I am running your tool now and it looks to me like it works great! Thanks for posting it, I truly appreciate it. Do you know of any sites where people develop these kinds of tools for iTunes (I suspect you participate in one or more of these).

One question - from the looks of it, you do handle the case where I have already embedded my own artwork in files (for those that are not in the Apple iTunes library). Does iTunes actually put that image in its database (the one I embedded) or did you have to allow for that in your utility? Just curious.

Thanks a LOT for that utility!

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Answer 6

Mar 4, 2007 2:22 PM in response to yo mama

Do you know of any sites where people develop these kinds of tools for iTunes.
Well, for Macintosh, the site already linked above ( http://www.dougscripts.com/itunes/)

Apple provides documentation for their Windows COM interface:
http://developer.apple.com/sdk/itunescomsdk.html

For Windows, I have not found a site that devotes itself to scripts like the "Doug's" site. There are closely related sites, like that for Yahoo Widgets (used to be known as Konfabulator):
http://widgets.yahoo.com/workshop/
http://www2.konfabulator.com/forums/

The Yahoo Widgets API is not a direct interface to iTunes, but it still works.

from the looks of it, you do handle the case where I have already embedded my own artwork in files
Yes, iTunes has a flag for tracks that have downloaded artwork vs. embedded artwork. I simply use that flag.

Does iTunes actually put that image in its database
iTunes does actually extract the artwork you have embedded in your tracks. Look in <pre>My Documents\My Music\iTunes\Album Artwork</pre> and you'll see two folders, "Download" and "Local". The "Local" folder is iTunes' copy of your embedded artwork (in a proprietary "itc" format).

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Answer 7

Mar 4, 2007 2:59 PM in response to yo mama

It seems like if you just keep that Album Artwork folder with all your downloaded artwork in the iTunes folder, you just have to select all the tracks in your library then choose "Get Album Artwork" from the Advanced menu. That'll then go to your folder first for any artwork that might be in there, then it'll go to the store for the others it couldn't find artwork for. Seems pretty smart.

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Answer 8

yo mama Author

Level 1

5 points

Mar 4, 2007 3:56 PM in response to computer man

From my experience, iTunes does not look in the local folder - it just tries to download the album art all over again. If I had to guess, I would say iTunes uses the locally-stored artwork if you re-add a folder that was in its database, but if you add a new folder (even with the same mp3's) it will attempt to download the artwork all over again.

That is definitely what happens with me, judging by the time spent downloading album art. If it was retrieving it locally, it would be MUCH faster. Actually that may be the root of the problem - it appears iTunes does not load artwork from its local database if you add the same mp3 files already in there to a different directory. Seems to me the local database is hardwired to the physical directory the mp3 file exists in.

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Answer 9

JAWONE48

Level 1

9 points

Mar 4, 2007 7:56 PM in response to Robert Jacobson1

Robert -- I have downloaded your tool but am unsure as to how you go about utilizing it. Could you kindly list the steps needed to use your program from the point that you open the winzip file?

Thank you --- jawone48

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Answer 10

yo mama Author

Level 1

5 points

Mar 5, 2007 3:38 AM in response to JAWONE48

All you do is select whether or not you want to save the artwork in a separate file (I chose no), and then enter one or more playlists you want to embed the artwork in. You can choose Playlist 1 - Library to do all your files.

Remember, you enter the playlist NUMBERS separated by commas, not the playlist NAMES.

Nice thing about the tool is it also tells you which files have more than one artwork image stored in them (generates error messages).

To verify the tool worked correctly you will need to use a tag editing program that can at least display artwork. I have used TagScanner for years, great program. After synching you should also see more disk space is taken up on your iPod.

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Answer 11

Mar 5, 2007 4:42 AM in response to yo mama

Thanks, mama, that saves me from typing 🙂

All you have to do is open the ZIP file and run the EXE. Then just answer the questions it answers.

If you choose to save the artwork in a separate file, the artwork will be saved to the same directory as the song file itself. The name of the file will be based on the song name.

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Answer 12

Mar 5, 2007 8:06 AM in response to yo mama

Whoops - so sorry hadn't even realized I was in the Windows forum (my remaining brain cell going seems to have atropheed -sp?)

Glad someone wrote an alternative for PC.

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Answer 13

Chris CA

Level 10

82,513 points

Mar 5, 2007 8:42 AM in response to yo mama

I am really tired of redownloading artwork when I change the way I organize my files
How/why are you changing the way you "organize" your files?

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Answer 14

JAWONE48

Level 1

9 points

Mar 5, 2007 3:47 PM in response to Robert Jacobson1

Robert --- Thanks for your timely response. I ran a playlist of 95 songs and watched as each one was embedded in the file. One last question: at the start it asks "Keep extracted image files?" I pressed ENTER, which I assume is a NO answer. In that case, where do the files actually end up? Thanks again to both you and mama! jawone48

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Answer 15

JAWONE48

Level 1

9 points

Mar 5, 2007 8:21 PM in response to yo mama

YoMama --- I downloaded/installed the tagscanner program. I ran a scan of my main library, which contains only mp3 files. Appx 175 of these files were downloaded from itunes store in aac form and then converted to mp3. These files do not show any album artwork in tagscanner and display "format unknown". The artwork does show up in itunes. It will allow me to copy the artwork from my folder (mainly copied from amazon) and SAVE, but changes the the id tag type. Can you explain why this happens? Does this indicate that the artwork is not embedded in these song files? I ran all of them through Robert's program. Thanks for your advice...jawone48

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