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Apply a tracklist from a text file

Uses: Text File → Tag · Works on: selected writable audio files · Time: about 5 minutes for one album · Undo: recorded tag writes in the current desktop session; keep originals

The problem

Your audio files have anonymous names, but a booklet or text listing has the track numbers, artist, album and titles. Import those records instead of typing the same album information into every file.

Selected file, in this order Imported track Imported title
01.flac 1 Paper Boats
02.flac 2 Lanterns on the Water

This recipe starts with two records and a controlled file order. The filename-key variation below is preferable when the records and files are in different orders. Neither method identifies the audio by listening to it.

The solution

  1. Work on copies of two ordinary whole-track audio files. Save pending edits, select only 01.flac and 02.flac, and check that they appear in that order in the file list.

  2. Choose Convert → Text File → Tag…. Set Text source to Pasted text and put this into Records to import:

    81. Juniper Vale - [Harbour Lights #1] Paper Boats
82. Juniper Vale - [Harbour Lights #2] Lanterns on the Water

  3. Put this into Import mask:

    %dummy%. %artist% - [%album% #%track%] %title%

  4. Choose Preview. Inspect the destination file, source line and captured fields for both rows. The first file should receive title Paper Boats, artist Juniper Vale, album Harbour Lights and track 1. The second should receive Lanterns on the Water and track 2.

  5. Choose Save tags to 2 files only after those associations are correct. This writes the tags immediately; it does not wait for a later Save tags.
  6. Check both files in Extended tags…, including a field you intended to retain. Fields named in the mask are replaced; fields outside it remain. Read any per-file errors before treating the whole batch as complete.

If a result is wrong, stop before importing more albums. Edit → Undo can restore recorded tag changes in this desktop session. Keep the original copies for recovery beyond that session and for comparing player behavior.

How it works

The mask reads the whole record, from left to right. It is an extraction pattern, not a scripting expression that calculates a new string.

Mask part What it reads from the first record
%dummy% 81, which is discarded rather than stored as a field
. A literal period and space
%artist% - Artist up to the literal - separator
[%album% #%track%] Album and track inside literal brackets, separated by #
%title% The remaining title

The brackets here are literal record punctuation. They are not the optional sections used in an output format string. Literal spaces and separators must match the actual records. Captured whitespace is preserved, so inspect padding rather than assuming it will be trimmed.

Without a key, record 1 goes to selected file 1, record 2 to selected file 2, and so on. The number 81 does not choose the file; %dummy% discards it. A positional import requires exactly as many records as selected files.

Variations

Read one album's saved tracklist

Set Text source to Text file, choose the listing, or use this in Source file:

%_folderpath%tracks.txt

The expression uses the first selected audio file. It reads one listing for the entire selection, even when that selection spans several folders. Process one album folder at a time if each has its own tracks.txt. Use UTF-8 for a new listing; check accents in the preview when decoding older text with Legacy encoding fallback (optional).

Match by filename instead of position

For selected files 01.flac and 02.flac, these records deliberately put track 2 first:

02.flac;Lanterns on the Water;2
01.flac;Paper Boats;1
03.flac;North Pier;3

Use this mask:

%_filename_ext%;%title%;%track%

Now 02.flac receives the first record, and 01.flac the second. The record for unselected 03.flac is skipped. This mask does not set artist or album. If you also selected 04.flac, it would have No match, not changed and keep its tags. Review unmatched files as carefully as matched ones.

Filename keys include the extension. Two selected folders containing the same filename are ambiguous; use an absolute %_path% key instead. Match filename and path keys case-sensitively controls key comparison, not the case of the imported title. Leave it on unless the intended keys really differ only in capitalization.

Start from a simple delimited listing

For plain records such as 1;Juniper Vale;Paper Boats, use %track%;%artist%;%title%. Choose a separator absent from those values. A spreadsheet CSV with escaped quotes, embedded separators or multiline cells requires deliberate conversion first: this converter is not a CSV decoder. In particular, doubled CSV quotes are not automatically unescaped. Keep filenames or paths when preparing a file-keyed import.

When preview refuses the listing

Problem Check before trying again
Wrong number of records Remove a header before positional import; compare the record count with the selection
Extra blank record Remove unintended empty lines; a final line ending is allowed, but an additional blank record is still a record
Record does not match the mask Compare punctuation and spacing; use %dummy% for an unwanted prefix
One file matched twice Correct duplicate keys rather than expecting later records to override earlier ones
No selected files match Check extensions, absolute paths, key case and the current selection
Preview became stale Run Preview again after changing input, selection or source

Do not use this record importer for multiline lyrics. Import the complete sidecar into one field with the lyrics recipe.