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.
flac(1)