Tag your content with Picard

Funkwhale relies on ID3 tags to sort audio content. ID3 tags tell Funkwhale information about your files. Funkwhale uses this information to display your content in your pod.

We recommend using MusicBrainz Picard to tag your content. MusicBrainz Picard is free and open source software that connects to MusicBrainz. Funkwhale uses MusicBrainz as its primary data source.

This guide shows you how to tag your content with MusicBrainz Picard.

Supported tags

Name	Description	Example value
Title*	The track title.	Letting you
Artist*	The artist name.	Nine Inch Nails
Album	The album title. If none is provided, an [Unknown Album] entry is created.	The Slip
Album artist	The album artist name (can be different than the track artist).	Trent Reznor
Genre	A comma separated list of tags to associate with the track. Other supported separators: ; and /.	Industrial, Metal
Track number	The position of the track in the album/release.	4
Disc number	The disc number (in case of multi-disc albums).	1
Date	The release date of the track or album.	2019
License	The license associated with this work. The first URL found is checked against our list of supported licenses.	CC-BY 3.0: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/cc-by/3.0/
Copyright	The license associated with this work. The first URL found is checked against our list of supported licenses. Used if no license found in the License tag.	CC-BY 3.0: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/cc-by/3.0/
Pictures	The first embedded picture found is used as the album cover.
MusicBrainz Recording ID	The MusicBrainz ID for the recording.	99244237-850b-4a93-904d-57305bcadb4e
MusicBrainz Album ID	The MusicBrainz ID for the album.	bca982fd-ab73-3c9f-ad07-9104a4f53a32
MusicBrainz Artist ID	The MusicBrainz ID for the artist.	b7ffd2af-418f-4be2-bdd1-22f8b48613da
MusicBrainz Album Artist ID	The MusicBrainz ID for the album artist.	b7ffd2af-418f-4be2-bdd1-22f8b48613da

Tag content

To tag content using MusicBrainz Picard:

1. Select Add Files to add individual files or Add Folder to add a directory of files.

2. Select the files or directory you want to tag.

3. Picard shows the files in the left panel. Picard moves files to the right panel as it tags them. If Picard doesn’t tag a file automatically, select Scan.

4. Check a file’s tags by highlighting it and looking at the details in the bottom panel. If Picard has applied the wrong tags, look for alternative versions.

5. Select Save or hit ctrl+s (cmd+s on macOS) to save the tags to the files.

That’s it! You’ve added ID3 tags to your files. You can now add these to a library

Alternative versions

Picard will choose tags based on details included in your file. Sometimes it chooses a different version of a release than the one you want. You can choose an alternative version of your content to get the right tags.

Alternative albums

If Picard has selected a different version of the album you are tagging:

1. Right-click on the album and hover your mouse over Other versions. A dropdown list of alternative versions appears.

2. Select the correct release from the list.

3. Select Save or hit ctrl+s (cmd+s on macOS) to save the tags to the files.

Alternative tracks

If Picard can’t find a release for a track:

1. Right-click on the track and select Search for Similar Tracks…. A search screen appears.

2. Search for your track. Use MusicBrainz’s search syntax for the best results.

3. Select the correct track and click on Load into Picard.

4. Select Save or hit ctrl+s (cmd+s on macOS) to save the tags to the files.

Add items to MusicBrainz

If Picard can’t find your content, you can add it to MusicBrainz yourself. To get started, check out MusicBrainz’s guide.

Once you have added the content to MusicBrainz, Picard can tag your files.