Embedding Artwork in purchased files (Within the actual file).

[DJSimonmurray]

Hi Folks,

One thing I find annoying with purchased music from the Apple Music/iTunes Store is that the artwork is not embedded in the actual music file and is store by Apple in a seperate folder etc.

This means when moving files around, converting to a different file type etc artwork can easily get lost.

Is there an easy way to embed artwork in multiple purchase files without selecting each individual track> get info > artwork > drag image into file…..

I have used some of Doug’s Apple scripts in the past but not sure of there is one here for what i need?

There may be another way, but basically i would like all artwork embedded in the music file itself and not elsewhere.

Appreciate your inout folks

Thank You all for your help

Simon.

 

[cjmnews]

You can select multiple tracks like all the songs in an album, then follow the same process to embed the artwork into the files directly.

One art per album isn’t bad.

If you want other suggestions let me know. Scripts generally don’t help as you still need the art downloaded and set up for the script.

 

[DJSimonmurray]

You can select multiple tracks like all the songs in an album, then follow the same process to embed the artwork into the files directly.

One art per album isn’t bad.

If you want other suggestions let me know. Scripts generally don’t help as you still need the art downloaded and set up for the script.

Hi,

Thanks for the response. I totally agree with you and i would use the functionality a fair bit.

The difficulty in this particular case is that i have circa 800-1000 files which are all individual tracks and none of them from the same album. Hence why trying to find a solution to avoid the painful process of altering every single one in turn :-(

Thats the dilemma but not sure if there is a solution?

Best

Simon.

 

[cjmnews]

I don't recall if you are a Windows or Mac user.

If you have a Mac, you should be able to use the script from Doug's Apple scripts. This takes the (in my opinion low quality) album art from the iTunes database and embeds it into the song. This script assumes that you send Apple your music database information and your tracks matches the iTunes records (Artist, Album, Genre, Track) to automatically download the album art.

The difficult part is finding the artwork you want and having it available to embed. It is not like there is an automated system to find the album art on, let's say 10 websites, download the size you want, and put it in a folder where a script could locate it and embed it.

This is kind of like when I was originally ripping all of my CDs. Do a few at a time and eventually it will get done.

My own script for extracting the album art doesn't seem to see the iTunes built in artwork. I don't see any methods that are available for me to get it. Though I am using their 2007 documentation since they never updated it.

 

[DJSimonmurray]

I don't recall if you are a Windows or Mac user.

If you have a Mac, you should be able to use the script from Doug's Apple scripts. This takes the (in my opinion low quality) album art from the iTunes database and embeds it into the song. This script assumes that you send Apple your music database information and your tracks matches the iTunes records (Artist, Album, Genre, Track) to automatically download the album art.

The difficult part is finding the artwork you want and having it available to embed. It is not like there is an automated system to find the album art on, let's say 10 websites, download the size you want, and put it in a folder where a script could locate it and embed it.

This is kind of like when I was originally ripping all of my CDs. Do a few at a time and eventually it will get done.

My own script for extracting the album art doesn't seem to see the iTunes built in artwork. I don't see any methods that are available for me to get it. Though I am using their 2007 documentation since they never updated it.

Really appreciate your help, thank you!

I have found this specific script from Doug which may or may not work. It really depends if the script can source the original artwork file, export and re-embed it.

https://dougscripts.com/itunes/scripts/ss.php?sp=mxreembedartwork

Failing that Doug also has a useful script that can search google for the image and you simply click and collect the right size. It would at least take some of the pain away:

https://dougscripts.com/itunes/scripts/ss.php?sp=mxfindalbumartwork

At least there are some options, if not a perfect solution.

As with Apple, nothing is ever easy!

Thanks again

Simon.

 

[cjmnews]

You must be a Mac user to use these scripts.

The Reembedartwork script may or may not work for you as it exports the existing art (which may be the iTunes automatic downloaded art, I am not sure) and imports it again. If the script can get the iTunes automatically downloaded art, and you have matched to iTunes, then this should work fine.

Anything without automatically downloaded artwork will need a search to find it. The next script will do that.

The find album artwork will use your browser and Google to find the art. It does not embed the art for you. Just allows you to save the picture to your local system and then manually add the artwork.

If you are on Windows, and saved the art as <track name>.<format> (e.g. Thriller.jpg) I could produce a script to add these into the same track. Spelling, spacing and capitalization would need to match between art and track to work though.

This is not an easy problem to fix. There are programs out there that claim to do this automatically. I haven't used any of them to see if they work or not. A search can find several and some free ones too, though it looks like the free ones only download the art, not embed.

 

[DJSimonmurray]

You must be a Mac user to use these scripts.

The Reembedartwork script may or may not work for you as it exports the existing art (which may be the iTunes automatic downloaded art, I am not sure) and imports it again. If the script can get the iTunes automatically downloaded art, and you have matched to iTunes, then this should work fine.

Anything without automatically downloaded artwork will need a search to find it. The next script will do that.

The find album artwork will use your browser and Google to find the art. It does not embed the art for you. Just allows you to save the picture to your local system and then manually add the artwork.

If you are on Windows, and saved the art as <track name>.<format> (e.g. Thriller.jpg) I could produce a script to add these into the same track. Spelling, spacing and capitalization would need to match between art and track to work though.

This is not an easy problem to fix. There are programs out there that claim to do this automatically. I haven't used any of them to see if they work or not. A search can find several and some free ones too, though it looks like the free ones only download the art, not embed.

Using Mac.

All of these files have been purchased from the Apple/Music store and downloaded to my mac, (i.e they are present within the media folder in AAC format).

If you go to "Get Info" you can see the artwork image which is the same as the store artwork, however as you will know this image is not embedded and is not stored in the files Core Metadata and for some reason Apple stores links to it etc in a separate folder, (presumably to cut down on storage etc).

The re-embed script may or may not work but its probably the closest one to what i'm looking for?

Thanks again for all your help

Simon.

 

[cjmnews]

The ReEmbedArtwork may be the right one.