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I've got about 8,000 songs to organize, and I'd like to use an mp3 tag editor to export their id3 tags as a csv file, make changes in Excel, and then import the modified csv file back into the tag editor to mass-update the mp3 files.

Can anyone recommend a good program for this? (Preferably something free, but I'll consider paid options as well)

I am NOT looking for a command-line solution, or anything that requires me to do coding (like Python or Perl). Additionally, I need a program that can import the csv file; just exporting it isn't enough.

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    Please mention the operating system that you want it for?
    – Mohit Garg
    Commented Oct 13, 2015 at 10:53
  • It's for WIndows 8.1
    – user219048
    Commented Oct 14, 2015 at 1:33

3 Answers 3

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I would recommend you to use MP3TAG. I have been using this software for year. You can edit id3,APE,Vorbis comments jus everything in this software. Even multiple tags at once just like in excel you don't need to create an additional CSV file for that. Another additional feature is you can export all that information to an CSV,html,RTF,SFV file if you want to. Import tags from online databases too like Amazon, Discogs etc. Its interface is pretty simple and neat too. And the best thing is its totally FREE. Here's a screenshot
enter image description here

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  • Okay, so I've downloaded it, and figured out how to export a csv file. But before I can choose this as the complete answer I need to know: how can I import the csv file back into MP3TAG?
    – user219048
    Commented Oct 14, 2015 at 1:35
  • @user219048 This tool does not allow you to edit your data in an external editor and then import it.
    – Paul Taylor
    Commented Nov 25, 2015 at 16:30
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I believe I found a working solution using software called Mp3tag. It should meet all of your requirements. Here is a list of instructions that I used and that you may be interested in:

  1. Download and install Mp3tag.
  2. Open your Mp3s in the software, sort them so they match the order of whatever list you have.
  3. Select all tracks or the ones you want, right click them and click "Export"
  4. Select txt_taglist in the list, select a location and filename if you want and click OK.
  5. Open the .txt file with a program that can do "find and replace", I used Notepad++.
  6. Select the - (That's supposed to be four spaces with a dash between them) that divides the tags with something else like Press Ctrl+H and find and replace all with ; (unless your tags contain that character) so it changes from Artist - Album - Title - Track - year - Genre - to Artist;Album;Title;Track;year;Genre; on each row.
  7. Save that file as a .csv file
  8. Now you got a .csv that you can edit in your preferred spreadsheet software, make the changes you need and save the .csv file.
  9. In Mp3tag, select all tracks and make sure they are sorted like before and in the menu bar click "Convert > Text file" - Tag or press "Alt+4".
  10. Browse for the .csv file and use the text import as described here. I used %artist%;%album%;%title%;%track%;%year%;%genre% as the format string for the .csv file.
  11. Use the preview button on the left to make sure that it works and if it looks good hit OK and you are done.
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  • Welcome to Software Recommendations – and thanks for sharing! As there's room for improvement (it's your first answer, so it can't be perfect ;) may I suggest you take a look at our answer guideline, and then edit in some improvements? E.g. you speak about import only; does it handle export as well? Did you manage to get results, or was it always crashing (in which case it wouldn't be a good recommendation, would it?)
    – Izzy
    Commented Mar 26, 2016 at 16:14
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    PS: Also worth noting the last release was from 2004, and support looks stalled. The bug tracker shows bugs dating back from 2010 to 2003, none of them worked on.
    – Izzy
    Commented Mar 26, 2016 at 16:19
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    Awesome! Works like a charm!
    – jeffslofish
    Commented Dec 7, 2017 at 23:32
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Jaikoz Music Tagger displays a spreadsheet like editing view, but more importantly for you it already has a workflow specifically for what you want to do.

  1. Load your songs into Jaikoz
  2. Use Advanced:Export to export the metadata from the loaded songs as .csv or .xls file
  3. The generated file contains the filename in the first columns and a column for type of the metadata supported by Jaikoz, you can now edit this data in Excel or a tool of your choice
  4. Then use Advanced:Import to update your songs metadata with the changes you made to your xls or csv file

Jaikoz is available for Windows (and OSX and Linux) - its not free but there is a free trial, disclaimer I am the Jaikoz developer.

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