Checks: General Fields¶

Field checks not related to numbering, pictures or the per-album fields on the Album Fields page. Sort order field checks are documented on the Sort Order Fields page.

extra-whitespace¶

None of the basic fields like album, artist, title, track number, etc. should have extra spaces or other whitespace characters at the beginning or end.

Automatic fix: Remove whitespace from the beginning and end of all values for all supported basic text fields.

legacy-fields¶

Some files may contain legacy fields that map to the standard fields. For example, album artist is a legacy name for the standard albumartist. And label or publisher are legacy names for organization, while totaldiscs is a legacy name for disctotal.

Some tools may still create these legacy fields. This check reports when any tracks in an album have legacy fields present so they can be converted to the standard equivalents.

Automatic fix: Remove each legacy field and set the corresponding standard field. If multiple tracks have values for the same field (from both legacy and standard sources), the values are merged with duplicates removed.

album¶

Tracks should have album fields. The fix attempts to guess album name from fields on other tracks in the folder, and the name of the folder. Choose from options.

Automatic fix: If there is exactly one option for the album name, use it.

album-artist¶

The "album artist" field (e.g. albumartist, TPE2) allows many media players to group tracks in the same album when the "artist" is not the same on all the tracks.

Rules:

• If any tracks have different artists, all tracks should have the same album artist.
• If any track has album artist, all tracks should have the same album artist.

The fix offers candidates found in the fields plus the option "Various Artists". It can also apply a policy from options below.

Automatic fix: If there is exactly one non-blank album artist value, set it on all tracks. If there are multiple artists but no album artist, use "Various Artists". If the album artist is or would be redundant, and one of the optional policies below is enabled, apply the policy.

artist¶

An "artist" should be present on all tracks. If it is missing from any tracks, candidates to fix include the values for artist and album artist taken from all tracks in the album.

If the name of the parent folder containing the album folder is not in the ignore list, the parent folder name is also a candidate. Ignored names can be configured with an option.

Automatic fix: If there is exactly one candidate for artist name, apply it to all tracks that do not have an artist field.

single-value-fields¶

If present, the specified fields should not have multiple values in the same track. Many multiple-value fields are valid, but they might be unintended, and might cause unpredictable results with various media players. The fix for this check provides options to concatenate multiple values into a single value, after removing duplicates.

Other specific checks may enforce a single value for certain fields such as track number.

To configure how albums will combine multiple values, use the concatenators option. Pay attention to whether or not the separator includes extra spaces - the first option gives "Alice / Bob" and the second gives "Alice/Bob".

By default, whichever concatenator is first will be used when automatic fix is requested. To disable this, change the automatic_concatenate option.

Automatic fix: If a track has duplicate values for the field, the automatic fix will remove them. And if automatic_concatenate is enabled (default), unique values will be combined into a single value.

track-title¶

Each track should have at least one title field. This check doesn't care if a track has more than one title. If the track doesn't have a title, it can be guessed from the filename. A number at the start of the filename is assumed to be the track number (or a disc number and track number if there are two numbers separated by a dash), and the title is what follows it, as in these examples:

• 01 the title.flac
• 01. the title.mp3
• 01 - the title.mp3
• 01-the title.mp3
• 01_the_title.mp3
• 1-03 - the title.flac
• the title.flac (if nothing else matches)

Only 1-3 digit numbers are treated as track or disc numbers, and a date at the start of the filename is ignored entirely. A date is a four-digit year, with an optional month and day, separated by dashes, dots or underscores (e.g. 2024-01-05, 2024-01 or 20240105), so for example 2024-01-05 Live show.mp3 gives the title Live show.

An underscore between two letters is assumed to be a space that was converted when a title was turned into a filename, so the title proposed for 01_Song_Title.mp3 is Song Title (an underscore after the track number is also a separator). Underscores next to other characters, such as digits, are kept.

If the filename looks like a track number only, no title guess will be made. However, if the filename doesn't match any recognized pattern, the guess will be the whole filename except for the extension.

Automatic fix: If every file that has a missing title also has a filename from which a title can be guessed, fill in all empty titles.

genre-present¶

This check applies a user-defined policy for genre fields. By default, if genre is present on any track, the same genre must be present on all tracks in the album. The presence policy options are:

• "consistent": either all tracks have genre, or none do
• "always": all tracks should have genre
• "never": genre should be removed

Automatic fix: If the policy is "never", always remove the genre. If the policy is "always", and a consistent genre is set on some tracks, set the same genre on the others.

musicbrainz-fields¶

Whether or not you use MusicBrainz, inconsistencies in MusicBrainz fields within an album can cause problems for some players. When the MusicBrainz Album Id or MusicBrainz Album Artist Id or MusicBrainz Album Release Country is not the same on all tracks in an album (or not set on every track), some music players interpret this as two separate albums even if all the other (non-MusicBrainz) fields are the same. This check reports when those fields are not set consistently across the album.

Other behaviors of this check are controlled by the options. If you don't use MusicBrainz, you might want to remove all MusicBrainz fields to avoid conflicts between them and the standard fields. If you do use MusicBrainz, you may want to remove deprecated MusicBrainz fields (MusicBrainz TRM Id).

Automatic fix: If MusicBrainz Album Id or MusicBrainz Album Artist Id is not the same on all tracks (or not set on every track), remove that field from every track.

Automatic fix: If remove_all is enabled, remove all MusicBrainz fields.

Automatic fix: If remove_deprecated is enabled, remove deprecated MusicBrainz fields.

compilation¶

Whether an album is a compilation is determined from the album's location and artist values. An album is a compilation when any of the following is true:

• the name of the parent folder containing the album folder matches one of the compilation_parent_folders values (case-insensitive). The default list is the same as the ignore_parent_folders option of the artist check, or
• the album artist is "Various Artists", or
• the album artist is not set, and the artist is "Various Artists" or two or more distinct artists appear on the tracks, or
• the album artist values are inconsistent across tracks.

An album with one consistent album artist that is not "Various Artists" is not a compilation, even if some tracks have a different or additional artist, as in an artist album with a guest appearance. The album artist is what media players use to group the album, and the compilation flag only has a purpose when the album has no single artist of its own. An album whose album artist is not "Various Artists" can still be treated as a compilation by placing the album folder in a matching parent folder, or by setting its album artist to "Various Artists".

The compilation flag must be set to the canonical "set" value (for that file type) on every track, or removed from every track. Any other state is flagged, e.g. flag present on some tracks, or having any other value like 0 or false.

Automatic fix: Set the flag to the canonical "set" value on every track if the album is a compilation, otherwise remove it from every track.