How to add album art and update album information


Some of our readers wanted to know how to update the album information for the tracks in their music library and how to add album covers, so that they show up in Windows Media Player. In this tutorial we will try to cover both topics as good as possible.


How to update album information

First, start Windows Media Player and navigate to the albums that don't have all the necessary information.

Windows Media Player
Open the album for which you want to add the missing information.

Windows Media Player

Now, select all tracks and from the right-click menu select 'Find Album Info'.

Windows Media Player
Windows Media Player will start a wizard that will help you find and update the missing album information. If all the selected tracks are from the same album, select the appropriate option and click on Next.

Windows Media Player

The wizard will start searching for the album in its database. If the search will return no results, you will have to update the existing information and include what you know about it.

Windows Media Player

In this example, both the album and the artist are unknown. Type the name of the artist and the album and then click on Done.

Windows Media Player
The wizard searches again and, if it is found in the database, you will be asked to confirm that the album information is correct.

Windows Media Player

If that is the case, click on Finish and Windows Media Player will update all the tracks from the album to include all the available information. This can include details such as music genre, publisher, year of publishing, album art, etc.


How to add album art

For each album in your music library, Windows Media Player shows the available album art. If this is not available, the album will be displayed as a blank CD case. To manually add the album art, do the following:

First, find the album covers using any search engine you like and then save it on your PC. Then, open Windows Media Player, navigate through your music library and find that specific album.

To add the album art, just drag and drop the covers on top of the album. As you can see in the screenshot below, a '+' sign will appear.

Windows Media Player

When you move the covers on top of the album, release the left mouse button. Another method is to select the image containing the covers, right click on it and select Copy.

Then, open the album in Windows Media Player, right click on it and select 'Paste Album Art'.

Windows Media Player

Either way, the next time you open that album in Windows Media Player, you will be able to see the covers.

Windows Media Player


Related articles:
Windows Media Player 11
Windows Media Player 11 Keyboard shortcuts
How to rip music from audio CD's
How to burn an Audio CD
How to play audio CD’s in Windows Vista

Recommended articles:
Find large format album artwork at AlbumArt.og



Comments

A better editing tool

If you're editing a LOT of information in music files, a VERY useful utility program to have handy is Tag&Rename. See http://www.softpointer.com/tr.htm for the program. One of the nice features TR is that if you use the Multi-File Tag Editor tab, and click the Edit All Supported Tag Fields, you can embed the album image into the file. I've used this on obscure recordings that don't always show up in the various online databases, for podcasts, and for private or self-published recordings. (Our church choir director and his son did some piano-cello duets and burned them to CD, so naturally =that= wouldn't be in the online databases, for example.) Anyway, TR is a great tool, very useful for those of us who have extensive music collections to manage. --Steve

Very swish!

Thanks a lot. This should really make my WMP more snazzy now!

Adam @ TalkPHP.com PHP Community

CD Ripping

Hi,
I've been ripping my CDs over the last week with no problems,but recently,when I've been putting them in,no info has downloaded,the first song rips to library then stops.When I restart it,it downloads the rest of the CD but it won't allow me to find or update the album info.And when I go into library to do it manually,the album is not in there.my internet connection is fine,so I really don't know what is happening.
I've tried going into Now Playing,more options & ticking Connect to the Internet,it's not that either.
Any help on this would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
Stephen.

I am having a similar

I am having a similar problem--I right click to find album info and the pane won't open right, adn help is no help. All my correct boxes are ticked.

Album Art

Hello,
Thanks to your page i finally can get the album art i really want instead of what the WMP wants us to use. this site http://albumart.org/ has a wonderful collection of it. thanks again!

~Bob~

I've been able to copy and

I've been able to copy and paste album art without a problem BUT it doesn't always "stick"--what's going on? I've been working here for hours to get the correct album art just to find that the image I've pasted onto one album has also pasted onto many others. Is there something I'm not doing right? If so, let me know because I'm getting REALLY frustrated!

It takes time.

Sometimes it takes time for the album art to appear. Just wait or browse out of the folder and come back and the album art will show up.
If you pasted the wrong album art then paste again the right one and it will be replaced.

Thanks!

Really helpful! Much more so than media player help

Restored Albums - No Art

I had to restore my albums from a backup. The album art only appeared for those albums where I had manually entered an image.
If I use the "Find Album Info" function, it finds the album info including the image, but if I accept the information, it is not filling in the image.
There are 1000+ albums so I would rather not have to load the images one at a time.
Ideas?

I was able to fix this

I was able to fix this myself. Delete all of the files, not folders in the following folder:

User/AppData/Local/Microsoft/MediaPlayer

This deletes a corrupted database and allows the regeneration of the database, and also the ability for WMP to apply the album info to the album either automatically or when you "FIND ALBUM INFO".

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