The use of the masstagger is made at your own risks. I could not be considered responsible for any mishandling, mistake or error from me or you.

The masstagger is one of the most important reason why people use foobar as it is a very very powerful to manage your record library. The list of things that you may do is not very far from infinity. But as all powerful tools, it needs some skills and will to be able to use it without harm for your files (Hydrogen audio is useful for help but it doesn't mean that the users of this forum love to repair the mishandlings done just for fun by unskilled people).

As this tool as been really improved with the different versions, be sure to have the last one so have to be able to do all that is possible.

The masstagger is avaible from the contextual menu. Just select the files which you want to change or right click on the playlist tab to process all the files into the playlist. you can use:

• Move/Rename or copy files
• Edit tags
• Copy tags

The Move/Rename or copy files window

You have always dreamed of a record library architecture which fits your way to sort files? Or have some old files which names are outdated (as 01-Audiotrack01, song 01 etc..). This window will allow you to update all your files.

Important: this tool uses the tags of your files to process (for the most important part) so be sure to use it with tagged files or it may be a real catastrophe

ALWAYS look to the preview field to see what will be done, even confirmed users. (it may prevent you from bad surprises)

None technical part

1. Create subdirectories according to / and \ characters is activated will do what is said, just take care because as the masstagger isn't clever it may create an endless tree, which could be quite annoying if you want to have an easy access to your files
2. Remove empty directory: will do what is said, useful to delete useless directories, untick if you want to keep your original tree as a safeguard
3. Same source as file directory: will put all the files and directories created into the original directory of the files. Untick it to create a new record library where you choose to do it.

Select the files to process and then choose the predetermined formatting strings:

• nn.title: will rename your files with the number of your tracks then the title. Very useful for the files named into an unuseful way as:

  old name of files added like this: new name of files added like this: title title title title title title title title title title title title title title title title title  1.  title 10.  title 11.  title 12.  title 13.  title 14.  title 15.  title 16.  title 17.  title  2.  title  3.  title  4.  title  5.  title  6.  title  7.  title  8.  title  9.  title 01.  title 02.  title 03.  title 04.  title 05.  title 06.  title 07.  title 08.  title 09.  title 10.  title 11.  title 12.  title 13.  title 14.  title 15.  title 16.  title 17.  title 01.  title 02.  title 03.  title 04.  title 05.  title 06.  title 07.  title 08.  title 09.  title 10.  title 11.  title 12.  title 13.  title 14.  title 15.  title 16.  title 17.  title

  It's linked to the character priority standard in windows where 2 is after 10 but 02 is before 10. It is not natural to humans but it's like that. (Humans are still more clever than computers)

• Album / nn.title: The other way is if the Create subdirectories according to / and \ characters is activated the "/" symbolizes a new directory which will be created
  

  name of files	other way
  album_01. title	album/01. title

• (date) album / nn. title:The other way is if the Create subdirectories according to / and \ characters is activated the "/" symbolizes a new directory which will be created
  

  name of files	other way
  (YYYY)album_01. title	(YYYY)album/01. title

• Artist / (date) Album / nn. title:The other way is if the Create subdirectories according to / and \ characters is activated the "/" symbolizes a new directory which will be created
  

  name of files	other way
  Artist_(YYYY)album_01. title	Artist/(YYYY)album/01. title

The edit tags windows

This part comes for a big part from the unofficial guide of picmixer

• Close this window when done: Seems you can guess what it does.

Actions to perform:

• Add: adds a tag.
  
  
  • Set value: Sets desired tag field (artist, album,custom,etc) to whatever you enter in the masstagger input window.
  • Auto track number: gives the track number according to the order of the files in the selection.
  • Add value: Adds desired tag field and sets it to whatever you enter in the masstagger input window.
  • Copy value: Copies one tag field to another.
  • Format value from other fields: This is where it becomes interesting. This option lets you enter a specific formatting pattern for any tag field you wish to edit or create.
  • Guess values from other fields: Guesses values from filename and lets you enter a certain fromatting pattern for it. For example if your files are named artist - album_title.
  • Guess values from filename: Guesses values from the other tags and lets you enter a certain fromatting pattern for it. For example if your files are tagged artist - album_title.
  • Input data (one line per track): enter the data for each song with the pattern indicated, line by line, (one line per song as it is said). Don't worry about the length, the lines could be very long (only adds a scrolling bar if it is too long)
  • Remove all except for: removes all tags except the indicated ones.
  • Remove all fields: Removes all tag fields (who would have guessed)
  • Remove field: Removes desired tag field.
  • Split field by separator: well I have stricly no idea of what it does or its interest..
  • Split multiple artist field: well I have stricly no idea of what it does or its interest (it may be for various artists albums)..
• Remove: removes the selected action to perform
• Clear: clears all the actions to perform
• Up/down: use it to do the actions to perform into a proper way, It is very important to do some actions into a correct order. (for example, copy and then delete instead of copying an already deleted field)

Note:

• When using complex formatting patterns you should first format a temporary %temp% tag with the desired pattern and then copy that one into the value that you wish. Afterwards you can remove the temp value. When processing a large batch of files you could do a test run on one of the files and then do the rest in one go. Think about what you are doing beforehand though.

Script

• Save: saves your actuak script with the name typed
• Load: loads the selected script
• Add: adds the selected script to the actual one
• Delete: deletes the script
• Save to file: will save the script into a specific file instead of an unknownplace into foobar.
• Load from file: will load a specific script file. It must be with the ".mts" extension
• Add from files: adds the selected script to the actual one.

I recommend to save your scripts often so as to be able to recover them months after (when you will have forgotten evrything about the masstagger).

Copy tags

It seems that it's only use is to have the same album into two different version for example a lossless untagged one and a lossy tagged one This tool might be useful to copy tags from the lossy to the lossless format ?