Managing metadata

A music collection that has grown over the years is rarely tagged cleanly. That's why Tunetorch comes with a complete editor plus an assistant that finds the typical problems by itself.

For everything in this chapter you need the Metadata permission (admins have it anyway); see Users & permissions.

The metadata editor

The pencil icons in the library open the editor. It works album by album: the album's fields at the top, a table with all its tracks below.

This is what you can edit:

On phones and tablets the table turns into a list of labelled cards so that it can be operated.

Editing a whole artist

On the artist profile page, the Edit metadata entry in the options menu (⋮) opens the editor with all of the artist's albums one below the other. That's how you rename the artist or correct a field across several albums. Each album is saved separately.

Two bands, one name

“Skid Row” is a US band and an Irish one, and there are two bands called “Nirvana” as well. When reading music in, Tunetorch recognises an artist by its name. Bands like that therefore inevitably end up in one entry, with both bands' albums mixed up.

With Split off album in the options menu (⋮) of the artist profile page you separate them. You choose the album that belongs to the other band. Tunetorch creates a separate artist with the same name for it and moves the album, tracks, cover art and contributors over. That never happens automatically and doesn't need MusicBrainz. You decide for yourself while you're looking after your library.

So that you can tell the two apart in lists and in search, you can enter a short disambiguation for each (“USA”, “Ireland”). It appears wherever you select and curate, and in the folder name when exporting. It does not appear in the player or in the files' tags. You can fill in both disambiguations while splitting off the album, or leave them empty.

The new artist starts out empty, with its own image, its own biography and its own band members. It is a different band, after all. Favourites and shares stay with the existing entry, and nothing changes in the music files themselves.

Transfer into the Tunetorch database first

Splitting off only works for albums that are managed by Tunetorch. For files that were only read in and live outside, the file is the source: the library scan takes the artist from the file's tag again with every change. A split would be lost without anyone noticing.

The dialog points this out and offers two ways:

1. Transfer album now: a button in the dialog takes the album into Tunetorch's management (like Taking tracks into Tunetorch's management, see below). After that it can be split off.
2. Tag it in the file system: if the files should stay outside, change the artist tag of the second band outside Tunetorch, for example to “Skid Row (Irish)”. The next library scan then creates it as a separate artist by itself.

Renaming now asks first

Because artists with the same name can now be intentional, renaming to a name that's already taken no longer simply merges the two but asks first. Merging still works; you just have to confirm it. Otherwise every correction to one band's name would undo the split again. The dialog shows the track count of both entries before and of the remaining one after.

If you type a name that already exists in a different spelling (“Simon and Garfunkel” where “Simon & Garfunkel” is present), the editor asks before saving whether you meant the existing one. Ticked, the existing spelling is used; unticked, a new artist is created on purpose. This applies to the artist and album artist of tracks, to new contributors and to renaming an artist. Uploading, the collection import, CD ripping and scanning don't ask: if the name exists in exactly one other spelling, that one is used quietly instead of creating a second artist.

Merging artists

Some duplicates no rule can detect: “Alexander” and “Alexander Klaws” are the same singer but don't look like another spelling. For these, the options menu (⋮) of the artist profile has Merge with …. You search for the target by name, see the track counts before and after, and confirm. Afterwards only the target is left and the view switches to it. This can't be undone.

When merging, everything attached to the dissolved entry moves along: contributor credits, the band line-up, the artist image (if the remaining entry doesn't have one yet), every account's favourites and the permissions of restricted accounts.

Taking tracks into Tunetorch's management

Tracks from a scanned folder remain external files. An admin can take them into Tunetorch's management in the editor, converted to FLAC or Opus straight away if you like. The file is copied, and the original path is left out of the next scan.

Metadata assistant

Belongs to Tunetorch Pro. Without Pro, the menu entry is marked and can't be used. But every correction it suggests can also be made one by one in the metadata editor. The assistant saves you the searching, not the work.

You'll find it in the user menu. It searches the entire library for entries that could do with a correction.

First the area, then the findings

When you open it, you don't see a list yet but a choice of areas: five tiles with the number of findings and a short explanation. Only a click opens the findings of that area. The arrow at the top left takes you back to the choice. Below them are two tools that don't come from findings: Find & replace and the change history.

The findings are suggestions. They come from patterns in your collection and can be wrong, especially for names with an idiosyncratic spelling and for additions that say more than the kind of recording. Look at each finding before you apply it. You can undo it in the change history as long as the field hasn't been changed again since. The same note appears above the choice of areas.

That's how you work anyway: you first decide what you want to sit down to today, and then you get only that. The areas are sorted by importance. A combined artist mixes up the library; different capitalisation is only cosmetic.

You can apply every finding individually. In the areas Tags from the title and Normalisation there is also Apply all: first a confirmation shows what will change (the first cases as “before → after”), afterwards a report above the list says how many findings were applied, how many failed and how many were held back. A finding is held back when another one has already changed the same track; after Reload it shows up again on the new text. Changes are written in batches that arrive completely or not at all. If one finding fails, only that one is left.

The other three areas deliberately have no Apply all: there a finding merges artists, creates a new one or needs a decision. That shouldn't happen a hundred times on one click.

Admins also find a Create backup now button in the confirmation before Apply all: a bulk change can only be undone by restoring a database backup (see Security, Backup from the interface).

Combined artists are only found, not corrected automatically. Which of the two names becomes the actual artist is your decision. A button on each row takes you to the editor for that. If a name involves more than two people (“Pitbull Feat. Ne-Yo, Afrojack & Nayer”), the row tells you to add the contributors by hand: splitting up knows exactly two parts and would otherwise create “Ne-Yo, Afrojack & Nayer” as one artist.

The assistant never applies Oddities itself. An “l” can be a name, and an artist called “X” really exists. Where a correction is obvious, it appears as a suggestion in the row; you change it in the editor, and you mark what is right with Correct as is.

Guests in the title from the same area, on the other hand, can be applied directly: “feat.” already says who the guest is, and the track's artist stays as it is. Recognised are “feat.”, “ft.” and “featuring”, in brackets or at the end of the title. The names found are listed individually in the row. If there are several, they're split at commas, “&” and “and”. A name that doesn't exist as an artist yet is created by the assistant; the row marks it as new. If the guest is already listed, the assistant only takes the addition out of the title. Afterwards the guest appears linked after the artist: “Pink feat. Nate Ruess”.

Spelling duplicates: what counts as “the same spelling”

When comparing, Tunetorch leaves out everything in which two spellings of the same name may differ: upper and lower case, accents, apostrophes, punctuation and spaces between words. So pairs like these are caught too:

“&”, “+”, “and” and “und” count the same, but only between two names: “And One” stays a name of its own. Below each row it says which of these cases applies. With punctuation and word boundaries a second look at the target name is worthwhile; with upper and lower case, less so.

Normally the spelling with the most tracks is suggested. Not with accents and apostrophes: there the spelling with the characters wins, even if it's rarer. Such characters get lost on their way through file systems and tagging programs, but they never appear by themselves. So “Kissin Dynamite” with 140 tracks becomes “Kissin’ Dynamite” with one.

Next to both names it says how many tracks belong to them. That matters, because with accents and apostrophes it's precisely the larger group that gets renamed.

The direction can be reversed. The button with the two arrows at the top right of the box merges onto the other spelling instead. You need that when the rule is wrong: “voXXclub” really is spelt that way, and in individual cases the accent can be the mistake. The swap only applies to this one finding and isn't saved. If they are really two different artists, Correct as is is the right button (see below).

Two groups are left out: artists with exactly the same name (you separated them on purpose; see Two bands, one name) and those for which you've entered a disambiguation.

Tags from the title

“Bohemian Rhapsody (Live)” carries as text in its name what a tag would make filterable. The assistant finds such additions, sets the matching standard tag and removes the addition, including the space, from the name. It recognises Live, Acoustic (also “Unplugged”, “Akustisch”), Instrumental, Remaster, Cover, Remix, Demo, Orchestral and A Cappella.

An addition only counts if it's set apart: in round or square brackets, or at the end after a dash. So “Live And Let Die” stays as it is.

The assistant gets two things right by itself:

• If there's more than the keyword in the brackets, the title stays unchanged. “(Live At Pompeii 2016)” names a place and a year, and those appear nowhere else. Here only the tag is set. The title is only cleaned up when the addition says nothing new (“(Live)”, “(Acoustic Version)”, “(Remastered 2020)”).
• If all tracks of an album have the same addition, the album gets the tag. A live album then yields one finding instead of thirty, and the addition disappears from all tracks in one step. If “(Live)” is also in the album name, it's dropped there too. Exception: there would then be two albums with the same name by the same artist. In that case the name stays, and only the tag is set.

If only the album name names the kind of recording and not a single track does (“Coming Home (Live)”), the album gets the tag as well. If the addition is in the album name and only on some of the tracks, for example on a deluxe edition with a live CD, there are individual findings for exactly those tracks.

The assistant is meant for several passes. Whatever's left over in one round (such as an additional “(Acoustic)” on a live album) is found by the next.

How many findings at once

In a library that has grown over the years, thousands of findings quickly add up. The list therefore only shows part of them, 25 out of the box. You can change that at the top right (10, 25, 50, 100, 250 or 500). The number applies to the selected area.

Reload next to it fetches more: the findings you've dealt with disappear, and the freed-up places are filled by a new random selection from the rest. So you don't have to work through a list to the end. If you correct five of 25 findings and don't want to touch the other twenty right now, you won't be shown them again straight after reloading.

The chosen number applies until you close the assistant. The next time you open it, it's back to 25.

Searching

Above the list there is a search field. It searches all findings of the area, not just the ones currently shown: the text before and after, the reason, and the track, album and artist concerned. As long as it contains something, the list is sorted alphabetically instead of shuffled, and Apply all only touches the matches. When you switch areas, the field is empty again.

“Correct as is”: findings that are right

Some findings aren't mistakes but exceptions: “Simon & Garfunkel” isn't a joint album of two solo artists, “(Live)” sometimes really is part of the title, and a band name may ignore the capitalisation rule. You mark such findings with Correct as is. The assistant then won't suggest them again, not after reloading and not the next time you open it either.

• The mark applies to the whole server, so to every account with the metadata permission. Whoever helps look after the library won't be shown the same finding again.
• It's tied to the names involved. If you rename one of them later, it lapses, and the finding comes back if it still applies.
• Clicking the button a second time takes the mark back straight away.

The Correct as is button at the top right shows how many findings are marked and opens the list: sorted by area, with the account that marked it and the date. Suggest again removes a mark. If one says “no longer applies”, no current finding matches it any more, usually because the name has changed. It does no harm, but you can clear it away.

Find & replace

For corrections that affect many entries at once: a wrong apostrophe ´, double spaces, the same typo over and over. You enter the search text and the replacement and choose where to search: in tracks, albums, artists and genres (tracks and albums out of the box). Two switches refine the search:

• Whole words only: “l” then matches the single “l” in “l Will Survive”, not the one in “Hello”. Accented letters count as letters.
• Match case (on out of the box).

Search text and replacement are plain text. Special characters such as (, # or $ mean exactly themselves. There are deliberately no regular expressions: a mistyped expression would silently hit the wrong thing.

The matches appear straight away as a preview with before → after, each with a tick box. Untick whatever doesn't fit and click Apply changes. Before writing, a confirmation asks once more, and admins are offered a backup there. Some things never happen silently:

• If another artist already has the new name, the match can't be selected. Merging is a decision of its own: on the artist's page via Merge with ….
• If an album by the same artist or a genre with the new name already exists, the two would be merged. The match can be selected but isn't preselected, because a merge can't be undone.
• If a name would be empty afterwards, the match can't be selected.

One run writes at most 200 changes. If there are more, it says so above the list, and you find the rest after the run with the same search. After the run, the Undo this run button is ready. It takes back all changes of the run, except those someone has changed again in the meantime and except merges.

Change history and undo

Tunetorch records every change to tracks, albums, artists, genres, tags and contributors: who, when, what, before and after, and where it came from (editing, assistant, find & replace, undo). That applies to the metadata editor just as much as to the assistant. Entries are kept for 180 days, at most the latest 200,000 rows.

The change history in the assistant shows them, newest first. Each operation sits in its own box. An operation is, for example, a save in the editor, an Apply all or a find & replace run. The same change to several targets is shown as one row, such as “Artist: A & B → A · 12 tracks”; clicking the count shows the individual tracks. You can filter by origin and by person, and the search finds text in the target, before and after.

• Undo (arrow back) on a row restores the old value, the same way an edit would. The row then stays in place, greyed out, noting who undid it and when.
• Restore (arrow forward) on a greyed-out row puts the change back into effect. This works for everything undone since this feature exists.
• Undo all and Restore all in the header of the box apply to the whole operation. Large operations run in batches of 200 rows so the server stays responsive in between. If a batch fails, the ones before it stay done; a second click carries on.
• The undo itself is recorded as well, but doesn't appear as a row of its own. To see it, pick Undo as the origin.
• If someone has changed the field again since, nothing is overwritten. The row then reports today's value, and in an operation it's skipped.
• With artists of the same name, the entry counts, not the name: a track goes back to exactly the artist it was with before. If that can no longer be told for certain (the earlier artist was deleted and another one has the name by now), Tunetorch doesn't guess. The row says so, and you assign the track by hand.
• Can't be undone automatically are merges (what belonged where?), splitting off an album, contributors and album values that differed between the tracks before. They're still in the history, with a lock instead of the arrow.

The log doesn't replace a backup. If you only notice a mistake after half a year, restore a backup.

Switching split-up suggestions off entirely

If you deliberately keep your artist names the way they appear on the cover, you can switch the check off for the whole server: Server settings → Normalise metadata → Contributors → Offer split-up suggestions (on out of the box). After that, neither the metadata editor nor the upload editor suggests a split, and the area is missing from the assistant altogether. The other areas stay as they are.

Contributors: collaboration albums and guest appearances

An album like “Beth Hart & Joe Bonamassa” belongs to both. If you create a third, combined artist for it, the record shows up on neither of the two real profiles. Tunetorch does it differently: besides its main artist, a track can have further contributors.

On the artist profile, the albums are therefore shown in three sections: Albums, Collaboration albums (with a “with …” line) and Guest appearances.

Whether an album is a collaboration album depends on the whole album, not on a single track row. It only counts as a collaboration album if all tracks have the same credit with several names. That's exactly when this credit also appears at the top of the album header. You can only enter it via Maintain for the whole album…, because only that way writes to every track.

A second name on individual tracks, on the other hand, is a guest, even if you put it in the artist line. The album stays with the main artist under Albums, and the guest finds it on their profile under Guest appearances.

The separator

How the combined name looks is up to you for each album, because every cover writes it differently (&, /, with). If the selection is set to “automatic”, it reads “A & B” or “A, B & C”. Which value that would currently be is shown in brackets after “automatic”. That way you can tell later whether someone deliberately chose something.

Guest appearances have a separator too. The default is “feat.”, but the field in front of the first guest also allows a comma or “with”. On a record with one guest musician per track, “Ian Gillan, Joe Satriani” often reads better. With several guests, each field in between decides how it continues to the next name (default: comma).

Curating in the editor

The contributors are listed as a chain: one box each for Artist 1, Artist 2 and so on, and between two boxes the separator that joins them. The chain sits behind the Contributors button, because it's rarely needed and would otherwise always be in the way. If an album already has contributors, it's open by itself. When collapsed, the button shows a number.

There are two scopes, and the smaller one is the normal case. The button shows two things: the Contr. column in the track table (applies to one track) and, only if the album already has album-wide contributors, the box above it (applies to all tracks). If it has none, the Maintain for the whole album… button appears there instead. That's intentional: mostly it's about a guest on a single track, and the album-wide way overwrites the contributors of every track on the record. So it shouldn't be front and centre.

• A guest on one track: the person icon in the Contr. column of the track row → + contributor → enter the name. The Artist line switch there is already off (the name appears as an addition). You don't need to enter anything on the album itself.
• A collaboration album: Maintain for the whole album… → + contributor. Here the switch is on, so both names are in the artist line.
• A preview shows you the finished credit while you type.
• In the track table, the finished credit appears in small print below the artist field as soon as it says more than the field itself. The field only contains the one name the track is filed under. After a split, it therefore says “Hugh Grant” while the library shows “Hugh Grant & Haley Bennett”.
• The name field makes suggestions as you type: from your library and from the names you've already entered in this session (even if they aren't saved yet).
• If a single track differs (the typical guest appearance with “feat. …”), its person icon shows that, and its list opens by itself. It starts out with the album's state and can be aligned with it again at any time.
• Two different people with the same name: if you type a name that already exists, Create as a new artist with the same name appears below it. Ticked, Tunetorch creates a second artist when saving instead of using the existing one, for example “Vanessa” of Dune next to “Vanessa” of DJ Tomekk. In the field below you enter a distinguishing detail (“from Dune”) so you can tell the two apart in lists.

In the artist line or as an addition?

The Artist line switch decides where a name appears:

The addition is the classic guest appearance. It isn't in the artist line but after it, the way record labels otherwise write it into the track title (“Sinner’s Prayer (feat. Beth Hart)”). If it's still in your track title, the metadata assistant takes it out there in the area Split up contributors — otherwise the same name would appear twice.

The switch only decides the display, not how the track is filed. If the “feat.” isn't already in your track title, feel free to set it to on. The second name then appears wherever the credit shows up: on the lock screen, on the Bluetooth display, in Android Auto and in the ARTIST tag of an export. That doesn't turn the record into a collaboration album. That depends solely on whether all tracks have the same credit (see above). You can set the separator in front of it to “feat.”.

You can change this at any time, even long after saving. From three rows on, there are also the All as additions and All in the artist line buttons for the list in question. With only one name they'd just be a second way to the same click.

The switch reorders. Names in the artist line are at the top, additions below, just as they appear in the credit. If you flip the switch, the box moves to its new place. At the boundary is the separator for the transition, labelled From here on as an addition behind the artist line.

The first box (Artist 1) has neither a switch nor a bin. The track's artist always stays in its own artist line and can't be removed. The preview shows the complete line as it will appear later: “Pink – Just Give Me A Reason feat. Nate Ruess”. A guest appearance is set apart in colour after the title, because this part doesn't go into the artist field. In the contributors section for the whole album, the album name takes the place of the title. If you've changed the name in the editor, Artist was above the preview shows the saved name struck through. That way, after a split, you can still see what used to be there.

Split-up suggestion

If an album artist looks like a combined name and both parts already exist as separate artists, the editor suggests splitting it up, even during upload. The album is moved to the chosen artist in the process. That way the combined artist really disappears and doesn't stay behind as an empty third card. Under “File track under” you choose which of the two will be the artist from now on. The other becomes a contributor.

Upper and lower case don't matter here. If the album says “DJ Bobo & Sandra” and the artist in your library is called “DJ BoBo”, the editor suggests “DJ BoBo” and keeps exactly that spelling. No second version of the same name is created.

If the tracks of an album have different artists, say a duo album with a solo bonus track, the suggestion isn't shown on the album but on the individual tracks that carry the combined name. Otherwise the solo track would get the duo's contributors too.

Nothing is ever split automatically. Precisely the condition that both parts must already exist protects names like “Simon & Garfunkel”, “AC/DC” or “Earth, Wind & Fire”. You can switch the suggestion off entirely in the server settings.

If only one of the two already exists, the suggestion appears anyway, but set apart. It says which artist will be newly created, and the button is called “Create & split up”. Example: “Hugh Grant & Drew Barrymore”, if Hugh Grant already exists but Drew Barrymore doesn't yet. The collapsed bar counts these cases separately (“… · 1 more if an artist is created”).

If neither of the two parts exists, there's no suggestion. That's the typical band name (“Frank Carter & The Rattlesnakes”). The same goes for additions such as “& The …” or “With His …”: that's the backing band, not a second person.

The suggestion does not split up more than two people (“Pitbull Feat. Ne-Yo, Afrojack & Nayer”). The row then tells you to add the names by hand under Contributors.

Check on MusicBrainz (Pro): who the actual artist of “A & B” is can be read from the official credit. The button in the suggestion asks MusicBrainz for it, shows up to three matches and preselects the first-named artist under “File track under”, if it matches one of the parts and the matches agree. Nothing is split up until you click. The request is only made on that button; it sends the artist and the track or album to MusicBrainz (see Privacy).

The same text everywhere

The combined name doesn't only appear in the app, but also on the lock screen, on the Bluetooth display, in Android Auto and on a DLNA speaker.

When reading music in, Tunetorch evaluates an ARTISTS tag with several values and creates the people involved from it. A normal ARTIST tag, on the other hand, is never split.

Whether someone was a guest is stored in a tag of its own, TT_GAESTE, which the export writes. A Tunetorch export therefore comes back with the right roles. A file from elsewhere lacks this information, and everyone involved ends up in the artist line. That's the more cautious choice: you notice one name too many straight away, whereas a wrongly assigned guest would disappear from the line unnoticed.

Tags

Tags highlight particularities of the recording. Every Tunetorch server comes with ten: Live · Acoustic · Remaster · Instrumental · Cover · Remix · AI · Orchestral · Demo · A Cappella. You can add as many of your own as you like. They're managed under Server administration → Tags. For the ten standard tags only the colour can be changed; for your own, everything.

• Tags can be assigned per track and per album.
• Album tags automatically apply to all tracks of the album. In the track editor they appear as inherited and can't be changed there.
• In the library filter, track and album tags count together. If you select several tags, an entry has to have all of them.

Tags show up wherever a track or album appears: as coloured labels in lists and tables, in the top-left corner of album covers, in the player, in the phone's playback bar and in the queue. A track shows its own tags together with the ones it inherits from its album. Where colours aren't possible – in Android Auto, on the lock screen and on the car's display via Bluetooth – they're appended to the title in square brackets ("Wish You Were Here [Live]"). For free text there are notes.

Tags travel with the music: the export appends them in square brackets to folder and file names (… [Live]) and also writes them into the audio file's metadata – you can switch off either one when exporting. When uploading, Tunetorch recognises both again.

Notes

A note icon after a track or album opens a small window with two fields:

A track's shared note is also its comment tag: whatever was in the file's comment field when it was read in ends up here, and on export it goes out again in the same way.

Notes can have several lines and can't be filtered. The icon sits after every track and album, so you can add a private note anywhere. If there's already a note, it's highlighted in colour. Without the Metadata permission you can only read the shared note – and won't see it at all if it's empty. In offline mode the icon only appears where there's something to read.

On narrow phone displays (below 560 pixels), the icon isn't in the track row but appears as the “Open note” entry in the options menu (⋮). A small icon below the title shows that there's a note (see Interface).

Cover art and images

You can set cover art for tracks, albums and artists. Artists and people also get a large image for their profile page.

Cropping and rotating

Every image that comes through the image dialog can be cropped, rotated and zoomed before saving:

• Aspect ratios Free · 1:1 · 3:4 (person) · 4:3 · 16:9 (artist), preselected to fit (large artist image 16:9, people 3:4, album cover art always 1:1). The labels in brackets say which image the format is meant for
• The image is always shown in full, so you can reach the handles at all four corners
• Buttons to rotate by 90° and a slider to straighten a crooked image
• You can also re-crop an image that's already uploaded later via Edit in the biography editor

If you don't change anything, the image is saved unchanged. It's only re-encoded if you really cropped or rotated it.

Online image search

Belongs to Tunetorch Pro. Upload from this device stays free, and so do all images already stored.

The image dialog offers two ways: upload from this device or search online. The search queries these at the same time:

You don't need any API keys and there's nothing to set up. The results are sorted by resolution and show their source. Once you've picked one, the server downloads the image and stores it like any other. The admin sets how many previews load at first (default 15). “Load more images” fetches more.

Image credit

For every artist and person image you can store a short text, such as “ColosSaal 2026 Aschaffenburg”. It appears on the profile page as a subtle caption and as a tooltip when you move the mouse over it. You can change the text at any time without uploading the image again, and it travels with the artist when exporting.

Biographies and band members

The biography editor (options menu ⋮ of the artist profile page → Edit the biography) is made for filling in by hand. You enter details such as country, founding and break-up year, Wikipedia link, short description and description freely there. You can also create items of your own with a name of your choosing.

You can change the artist's name there too, on its own or together with an import from MusicBrainz. If another entry already has this name, saving stops with a message. Nothing is merged here. That's what the metadata editor is for, which explicitly asks (see Two bands, one name).

When you type in a member's name, the editor shows whether this person already exists in the library, along with their previous bands, and links them with one click. That way a person stays one person across several bands even without MusicBrainz and isn't created twice.

MusicBrainz enrichment

Belongs to Tunetorch Pro. Looking after the biography, details and band line-up by hand stays free. Whatever you've imported once is kept in full, even if the subscription expires later.

The Help: prefill from MusicBrainz button is the convenient shortcut. It searches for the artist on MusicBrainz. If you pick a match, a preview you can still change shows you:

• master data (type, country, founded/dissolved, Wikipedia, Wikidata)
• a short description and the first paragraph from Wikipedia as the description, with a source link (CC BY-SA)
• an image selection with the official Wikidata photo and more images from the artist's Wikimedia Commons category
• the band members with role and period

For artists that have already been enriched, the button is called Update from MusicBrainz. It fetches the current state from MusicBrainz and merges it into your details. You see the result in the list before saving and can still change it there.

What you've entered by hand isn't overwritten by an import. That applies to every single detail, not just to the record as a whole.

After you confirm, the members are created as people of their own and linked to the band. If the same person plays in several bands in your library, they automatically show up with each of them. Their detail page shows photo, master data, description, all bands and, if available, a link to their solo career as an artist.

On the profile page, the members then appear with photos in the Biography section below the albums.

Deleting tracks and albums

Accounts with the Delete audio permission and admins can mark tracks or whole albums for deletion via the Delete entry in the options menu (⋮). A confirmation comes first.

Marked tracks disappear from the library immediately and can no longer be played. But they aren't deleted yet: a daily maintenance task only removes them for good after an adjustable retention period (default 28 days).

Until then, an admin can take the deletion back or carry it out immediately under Server settings → Marked for deletion; see Server administration.

Where to go next

• Exporting music
• Server administration