Tags Commands

The tags branch provides commands for displaying and analyzing media file tags (ID3, Vorbis Comments, etc.).

Overview

mcli tags [COMMAND] [OPTIONS]

Available Commands:

Command Description
show Display all tags from a media file

tags show

Displays all known tags from a media file including ID3v1, ID3v2, Vorbis Comments, APE tags, and other metadata.

Usage

mcli tags show <FILENAME> [OPTIONS]

Arguments

Argument Required Description
FILENAME Yes Path to the media file to analyze

Options

Option Alias Default Description
--verbose   true Output verbose debug and timing results

Supported Formats

Format Tag Types
MP3 ID3v1, ID3v2.3, ID3v2.4, APE
FLAC Vorbis Comments, ID3v2
OGG Vorbis Comments
M4A/AAC iTunes/MP4 tags
WAV INFO chunks, ID3v2
WMA ASF metadata

Examples

# Show tags from MP3 file
./mcli tags show "/path/to/song.mp3"

# Show tags from FLAC file
./mcli tags show "/path/to/song.flac"

Output

╭─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────╮
│ File: /path/to/song.mp3                                                     │
│ Format: MPEG Audio (MP3)                                                    │
│ Tag Types: ID3v2.4, ID3v1                                                   │
╰─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────╯

                          ID3v2.4 Tags                          
╭─────────────────────────┬───────────────────────────────────────────────────╮
│ Tag                     │ Value                                             │
├─────────────────────────┼───────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ TIT2 (Title)            │ Come Together                                     │
│ TPE1 (Artist)           │ The Beatles                                       │
│ TALB (Album)            │ Abbey Road                                        │
│ TRCK (Track)            │ 1/17                                              │
│ TYER (Year)             │ 1969                                              │
│ TCON (Genre)            │ Rock                                              │
│ TPOS (Disc)             │ 1/1                                               │
│ TPE2 (Album Artist)     │ The Beatles                                       │
│ TCMP (Compilation)      │ 0                                                 │
│ APIC (Picture)          │ Front Cover (image/jpeg, 45.2 KB)                 │
│ TXXX:MusicBrainz Album Id│ 12345678-1234-1234-1234-123456789012              │
╰─────────────────────────┴───────────────────────────────────────────────────╯

                          ID3v1 Tags                          
╭─────────────────────────┬───────────────────────────────────────────────────╮
│ Tag                     │ Value                                             │
├─────────────────────────┼───────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ Title                   │ Come Together                                     │
│ Artist                  │ The Beatles                                       │
│ Album                   │ Abbey Road                                        │
│ Year                    │ 1969                                              │
│ Genre                   │ Rock (17)                                         │
│ Track                   │ 1                                                 │
╰─────────────────────────┴───────────────────────────────────────────────────╯

Common Tags

Standard Tags:

ID3v2 Frame Vorbis Comment Description
TIT2 TITLE Song title
TPE1 ARTIST Performing artist
TALB ALBUM Album name
TRCK TRACKNUMBER Track number
TYER/TDRC DATE Year/date
TCON GENRE Genre
TPE2 ALBUMARTIST Album artist
TPOS DISCNUMBER Disc number
APIC (embedded) Album artwork

Extended Tags:

ID3v2 Frame Vorbis Comment Description
TXXX:MusicBrainz Album Id MUSICBRAINZ_ALBUMID MusicBrainz release ID
TXXX:MusicBrainz Artist Id MUSICBRAINZ_ARTISTID MusicBrainz artist ID
TXXX:MusicBrainz Track Id MUSICBRAINZ_TRACKID MusicBrainz recording ID
TXXX:ISRC ISRC International Standard Recording Code

FLAC Output Example

╭─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────╮
│ File: /path/to/song.flac                                                    │
│ Format: FLAC Audio                                                          │
│ Tag Types: Vorbis Comments                                                  │
╰─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────╯

                       Vorbis Comments                       
╭─────────────────────────┬───────────────────────────────────────────────────╮
│ Tag                     │ Value                                             │
├─────────────────────────┼───────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ TITLE                   │ Come Together                                     │
│ ARTIST                  │ The Beatles                                       │
│ ALBUM                   │ Abbey Road                                        │
│ TRACKNUMBER             │ 1                                                 │
│ TRACKTOTAL              │ 17                                                │
│ DATE                    │ 1969                                              │
│ GENRE                   │ Rock                                              │
│ ALBUMARTIST             │ The Beatles                                       │
│ DISCNUMBER              │ 1                                                 │
│ DISCTOTAL               │ 1                                                 │
╰─────────────────────────┴───────────────────────────────────────────────────╯

                    Embedded Pictures                    
╭───────┬────────────┬────────────┬──────────╮
│ Index │ Type       │ Format     │ Size     │
├───────┼────────────┼────────────┼──────────┤
│ 0     │ Front      │ image/jpeg │ 245.3 KB │
│ 1     │ Back       │ image/jpeg │ 198.7 KB │
╰───────┴────────────┴────────────┴──────────╯

Use Cases

Debugging Tag Issues:

# Why isn't the artist showing correctly?
./mcli tags show "/path/to/song.mp3" | grep -i artist

Verifying Metadata:

# Check if MusicBrainz IDs are present
./mcli tags show "/path/to/song.flac" | grep -i musicbrainz

Comparing Tag Versions:

# Compare ID3v1 vs ID3v2 tags
./mcli tags show "/path/to/song.mp3"

Scripting Examples

Check for Missing Tags:

#!/bin/bash
# Find files missing album artwork

for file in *.mp3; do
    if ! ./mcli tags show "$file" | grep -q "APIC\|Picture"; then
        echo "Missing artwork: $file"
    fi
done

Export Tag Summary:

#!/bin/bash
# Create a tag inventory

echo "File,Title,Artist,Album" > tags.csv
for file in *.mp3; do
    title=$(./mcli tags show "$file" | grep "TIT2" | cut -d'│' -f3 | xargs)
    artist=$(./mcli tags show "$file" | grep "TPE1" | cut -d'│' -f3 | xargs)
    album=$(./mcli tags show "$file" | grep "TALB" | cut -d'│' -f3 | xargs)
    echo "\"$file\",\"$title\",\"$artist\",\"$album\"" >> tags.csv
done

See Also