# NAME

metaflac - program to list, add, remove, or edit metadata in one or more FLAC files.

# SYNOPSIS

metaflac [ options ] [ operations ] FLACfile …

# DESCRIPTION

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.

# GENERAL USAGE

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`

# OPTIONS

-o filename, --output-name=filename
  Output to a new file instead of changing or rewriting the input file.
--preserve-modtime
  Preserve the original modification time in spite of edits. This does nothing when -o or –output-name are specified.
--with-filename
  Prefix each output line with the FLAC file name (the default if more than one FLAC file is specified). This option has no effect for options exporting to a file, like --export-tags-to.
--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.

# SHORTHAND OPERATIONS

--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’.
--show-all-tags
  Show all tags. This is an alias for --export-tags-to=-.
--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.
--remove-all-tags-except=NAME1[=NAME2[=…]]
  Remove all tags, except the vendor string and the tag names specified. Tag names must be separated by an = character.
--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. Only mono and stereo files are allowed, and the sample rate must be 8, 11.025, 12, 16, 18.9, 22.05, 24, 28, 32, 36, 37.8, 44.1, 48, 56, 64, 72, 75.6, 88.2, 96, 112, 128, 144, 151.2, 176.4, 192, 224, 256, 288, 302.4, 352.8, 384, 448, 512, 576, or 604.8 kHz.
--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.

# MAJOR OPERATIONS

--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.
--data-format=binary|binary-headerless|text
  For use with --list. By default a human-readable text representation of the data is isplayed. You may specify --data-format=binary to dump the raw binary form of each metadata block. Specify --data-format=binary-headerless to omit output of metadata block headers, including the id of APPLICATION metadata blocks.
--append
  Insert a metadata block from a file. This must be a binary block as exported with --list --data-format=binary. The insertion point is defined with --block-number=#. The new block will be added after the given block number. This prevents the illegal insertion of a block before the first STREAMINFO block. You may not --append another STREAMINFO block. It is possible to copy a metadata block from one file to another with this option. For example use `metaflac --list --data-format=binary --block-number=6 file.flac > block` to export the block, and then import it with `metaflac --append anotherfile.flac < block`
--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.

# SEE ALSO

flac(1)

Copyright (c) 2000-2009 Josh Coalson, 2011-2025 Xiph.Org Foundation