metaflac - program to list, add, remove, or edit metadata in one
or more FLAC files.
metaflac [ options ] [ operations ]
FLACfile ...
Use metaflac to list, add, remove, or edit metadata in one
or more FLAC files. You may perform one major operation, or many shorthand
operations at a time.
metaflac is the command-line .flac file metadata editor. You can
use it to list the contents of metadata blocks, edit, delete or insert
blocks, and manage padding.
metaflac takes a set of “options” (though some are
not optional) and a set of FLAC files to operate on. There are three kinds
of “options”:
- •
- Major operations, which specify a mode of operation like listing blocks,
removing blocks, etc. These will have sub-operations describing exactly
what is to be done.
- •
- Shorthand operations, which are convenient synonyms for major operations.
For example, there is a shorthand operation –show-sample-rate that
shows just the sample rate field from the STREAMINFO metadata block.
- •
- Global options, which affect all the operations.
All of these are described in the tables below. At least one
shorthand or major operation must be supplied. You can use multiple
shorthand operations to do more than one thing to a file or set of files.
Most of the common things to do to metadata have shorthand operations. As an
example, here is how to show the MD5 signatures for a set of three FLAC
files:
metaflac --show-md5sum file1.flac file2.flac file3.flac
Another example; this removes all DESCRIPTION and COMMENT tags in
a set of FLAC files, and uses the –preserve-modtime global option to
keep the FLAC file modification times the same (usually when files are
edited the modification time is set to the current time):
metaflac --preserve-modtime --remove-tag=DESCRIPTION
--remove-tag=COMMENT file1.flac file2.flac file3.flac
- --preserve-modtime
- Preserve the original modification time in spite of edits.
- --with-filename
- Prefix each output line with the FLAC file name (the default if more than
one FLAC file is specified).
- --no-filename
- Do not prefix each output line with the FLAC file name (the default if
only one FLAC file is specified).
- --no-utf8-convert
- Do not convert tags from UTF-8 to local charset, or vice versa. This is
useful for scripts, and setting tags in situations where the locale is
wrong.
- --dont-use-padding
- By default metaflac tries to use padding where possible to avoid rewriting
the entire file if the metadata size changes. Use this option to tell
metaflac to not take advantage of padding this way.
- --show-md5sum
- Show the MD5 signature from the STREAMINFO block.
- --show-min-blocksize
- Show the minimum block size from the STREAMINFO block.
- --show-max-blocksize
- Show the maximum block size from the STREAMINFO block.
- --show-min-framesize
- Show the minimum frame size from the STREAMINFO block.
- --show-max-framesize
- Show the maximum frame size from the STREAMINFO block.
- --show-sample-rate
- Show the sample rate from the STREAMINFO block.
- --show-channels
- Show the number of channels from the STREAMINFO block.
- --show-bps
- Show the # of bits per sample from the STREAMINFO block.
- --show-total-samples
- Show the total # of samples from the STREAMINFO block.
- --show-vendor-tag
- Show the vendor string from the VORBIS_COMMENT block.
- --show-tag=name
- Show all tags where the field name matches `name'.
- --remove-tag=name
- Remove all tags whose field name is `name'.
- --remove-first-tag=name
- Remove first tag whose field name is `name'.
- --remove-all-tags
- Remove all tags, leaving only the vendor string.
- --set-tag=field
- Add a tag. The field must comply with the Vorbis comment spec, of the form
“NAME=VALUE”. If there is currently no tag block, one will
be created.
- --set-tag-from-file=field
- Like --set-tag, except the VALUE is a filename whose contents will be read
verbatim to set the tag value. Unless --no-utf8-convert is specified, the
contents will be converted to UTF-8 from the local charset. This can be
used to store a cuesheet in a tag (e.g.
--set-tag-from-file=“CUESHEET=image.cue”). Do not try to
store binary data in tag fields! Use APPLICATION blocks for that.
- --import-tags-from=file
- Import tags from a file. Use `-' for stdin. Each line should be of the
form NAME=VALUE. Multi-line comments are currently not supported. Specify
--remove-all-tags and/or --no-utf8-convert before --import-tags-from if
necessary. If FILE is `-' (stdin), only one FLAC file may be
specified.
- --export-tags-to=file
- Export tags to a file. Use `-' for stdout. Each line will be of the form
NAME=VALUE. Specify --no-utf8-convert if necessary.
- --import-cuesheet-from=file
- Import a cuesheet from a file. Use `-' for stdin. Only one FLAC file may
be specified. A seekpoint will be added for each index point in the
cuesheet to the SEEKTABLE unless --no-cued-seekpoints is specified.
- --export-cuesheet-to=file
- Export CUESHEET block to a cuesheet file, suitable for use by CD authoring
software. Use `-' for stdout. Only one FLAC file may be specified on the
command line.
- --import-picture-from={FILENAME|SPECIFICATION}
- Import a picture and store it in a PICTURE metadata block. More than one
--import-picture-from command can be specified. Either a filename for the
picture file or a more complete specification form can be used. The
SPECIFICATION is a string whose parts are separated by | (pipe)
characters. Some parts may be left empty to invoke default values.
FILENAME is just shorthand for “||||FILENAME”. For details
on the specification, see the section Picture specification
in the flac(1) man page.
- --export-picture-to=file
- Export PICTURE block to a file. Use `-' for stdout. Only one FLAC file may
be specified on the command line. The first PICTURE block will be exported
unless --export-picture-to is preceded by a --block-number=# option to
specify the exact metadata block to extract. Note that the block number is
the one shown by --list.
- --add-replay-gain
- Calculates the title and album gains/peaks of the given FLAC files as if
all the files were part of one album, then stores them as FLAC tags. The
tags are the same as those used by vorbisgain. Existing ReplayGain tags
will be replaced. If only one FLAC file is given, the album and title
gains will be the same. Since this operation requires two passes, it is
always executed last, after all other operations have been completed and
written to disk. All FLAC files specified must have the same resolution,
sample rate, and number of channels. The sample rate must be one of 8,
11.025, 12, 16, 18.9, 22.05, 24, 28, 32, 37.8, 44.1, 48, 56, 64, 88.2, 96,
112, 128, 144, 176.4, or 192kHz.
- --scan-replay-gain
- Like --add-replay-gain, but only analyzes the files rather than writing
them to the tags.
- --remove-replay-gain
- Removes the ReplayGain tags.
- --add-seekpoint={#|X|#x|#s}
- Add seek points to a SEEKTABLE block. Using #, a seek point at that sample
number is added. Using X, a placeholder point is added at the end of a the
table. Using #x, # evenly spaced seek points will be added, the first
being at sample 0. Using #s, a seekpoint will be added every # seconds (#
does not have to be a whole number; it can be, for example, 9.5, meaning a
seekpoint every 9.5 seconds). If no SEEKTABLE block exists, one will be
created. If one already exists, points will be added to the existing
table, and any duplicates will be turned into placeholder points. You may
use many --add-seekpoint options; the resulting SEEKTABLE will be the
unique-ified union of all such values. Example: --add-seekpoint=100x
--add-seekpoint=3.5s will add 100 evenly spaced seekpoints and a seekpoint
every 3.5 seconds.
- --add-padding=length
- Add a padding block of the given length (in bytes). The overall length of
the new block will be 4 + length; the extra 4 bytes is for the metadata
block header.
- --list
- List the contents of one or more metadata blocks to stdout. By default,
all metadata blocks are listed in text format. Use the options
--block-number, --block-type or --except-block-type
to change this behavior.
- --remove
- Remove one or more metadata blocks from the metadata. Use the options
--block-number, --block-type or --except-block-type
to specify which blocks should be removed. Note that if both
--block-number and --[except-]block-type are specified, the result is the
logical AND of both arguments. Unless --dont-use-padding is specified, the
blocks will be replaced with padding. You may not remove the STREAMINFO
block.
- --block-number=#[,#[...]]
- An optional comma-separated list of block numbers to display. The first
block, the STREAMINFO block, is block 0.
--block-type=type[,type[...]]
- --except-block-type=type[,type[...]]
- An optional comma-separated list of block types to be included or ignored
with this option. Use only one of --block-type or --except-block-type. The
valid block types are: STREAMINFO, PADDING, APPLICATION, SEEKTABLE,
VORBIS_COMMENT, PICTURE. You may narrow down the types of APPLICATION
blocks selected by appending APPLICATION with a colon and the ID of the
APPLICATION block in either ASCII or hexadecimal representation. E.g.
APPLICATION:abcd for the APPLICATION block(s) whose textual representation
of the 4-byte ID is “abcd” or APPLICATION:0xXXXXXXXX for the
APPLICATION block(s) whose hexadecimal big- endian representation of the
4-byte ID is “0xXXXXXXXX”. For the example
“abcd” above the hexadecimal equivalalent is 0x61626364
- --application-data-format=hexdump|text
- If the application block you are displaying contains binary data but your
--data-format=text, you can display a hex dump of the application data
contents instead using --application-data-format=hexdump.
- --remove-all
- Remove all metadata blocks (except the STREAMINFO block) from the
metadata. Unless --dont-use-padding is specified, the blocks will be
replaced with padding.
- --merge-padding
- Merge adjacent PADDING blocks into single blocks.
- --sort-padding
- Move all PADDING blocks to the end of the metadata and merge them into a
single block.