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LRCLIB lyrics

Use Tag Sources → Lyrics: LRCLIB… to find lyrics for selected files. No API key is needed. Lyrics are proposed in UNSYNCEDLYRICS for review before writing.

Look up the selected files

  1. Check the files' title, artist, album and duration. Correct misleading tags before searching.
  2. Open Lyrics: LRCLIB… and keep Each selected file (title, artist, album, length) selected.
  3. Select Search. The combined result opens the review for the files.
  4. Inspect the proposed lyrics and save the checked field. Files without lyrics are left unchanged.

The lookup first uses metadata and duration. If it returns no usable lyrics, OpenTag searches by title and artist. With a known, positive file duration, the fallback accepts only a result within 3 seconds. Without a usable duration, it takes the first result containing lyrics, so review that match especially carefully. Similar metadata can still identify the wrong version; check live, instrumental and edited recordings.

A lookup failure is reported without discarding the other files' results. The combined result keeps one track per file in file list order. Instrumental records supply no lyrics to write.

Search for one record

Choose Free text to browse lyrics records, or Lyrics record ID to open a numeric LRCLIB record directly. Check the file-to-track pairing before saving an individually selected record.

Plain or synchronized lyrics

The default is plain text. Enable Write synchronized lyrics (LRC time stamps) when available in Options → Tag Sources → Online services to keep LRC timestamps. Both choices write text to UNSYNCEDLYRICS; this option does not create an ID3 synchronized-lyrics frame. Player support varies.

When only synchronized lyrics are available and the option is off, OpenTag removes timestamps and LRC metadata lines. LRCLIB supplies no language; ID3 lyrics use the unknown-language code XXX. Literal text, including ||, is retained rather than interpreted as a language prefix.

Requests are spaced about 200 milliseconds apart; a busy-server response is retried once. Each selected file needs a lookup, and a fallback can add another.