EasyTag is a graphical utility to edit the descriptive ID3 tags for your music files. One will think primarily of MP3 files, but it also does other formats, such as Ogg and FLAC.
For Ubuntu and Debian, EasyTag is part of the
universe repository so an install is just a quick apt-get install easytag away.Once you start up EasyTag, it will search your home directory for any and all music format files. This behavior is either helpful or annoying; it it's the latter, you can simply stop the search and go to the directory of your choice. It will resume the search from there.
EasyTag's screen real estate is divided into three windows. The left window shows you the directories of your file system. The middle window shows you the music files in your currently selected directory. The right window is further subdivided into top and bottom information boxes: the top shows you the technical information about the file (bit rate, frequency, mode, size, and time), and the bottom shows you the actual ID3 fields.
The ID3 fields are pretty complete as they let you fill in all the relevant info you could want to put in, e.g., title, artist, album, year, genre, personal comments. You can also attach a photo to the file.
There's three ways to tag music files with EasyTag: manually, automatically with the "Fill Tag" scanner, or automatically via CDDB. CDDB is a database for software applications to look up audio CD (compact disc) information over the Internet.
Manual tagging is pretty much self-explanatory (and tedious.)
Automatic Fill Tag relies on the filenames of your music files to automatically fill in the ID3 entries. EasyTag has a couple dozen formats that cover almost every imaginable case.
Automatic CDDB tagging only works if files are sorted per album and if the actual CDDB entry exists. You don't actually have to have the CD on hand: you can search for the album ID through EasyTag. Once found, it will label the files for you.
All in all, a great way to manage and maintain information on your music files.
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