If you use VLC Media Player and if you want to display or add album art to any MP3 files, then just access media information options and either browse and put up an album art (also known as cover art) or try to download it automatically. The only thing that you have to do is bring up the media information screen and then the options will be accessible in the bottom-right after you right click on the art or VLC icon.
The cover art along with other metadata information are used by different audio or music players in different ways. The data is saved on the MP3 file itself. You will notice the file size changes if you add cover picture, especially if you add large pictures. When the same MP3 file is transferred to your smartphone as an example, your player will use the album picture and other metadata information to display on-screen while playing and also giving you the feature to sort out or browse by artist, genre etc.
Here are the steps with screenshots to edit your cover art picture using VLC media player:
- Go to Tools > Information.
It brings up the Current Media Information screen.
- On the bottom right, there will either be a picture or you will see the VLC icon. Right click on it.
- From the right click menu, use:
- Download cover art: To get the album picture automatically from the internet.
- Add cover art from file: Manually browse and choose a picture file.
The information will be saved automatically.
View Comments (83)
My problem with the cover art is I play an album and all the songs show the right art work. then I play a different one and sometimes it is the right art but sometimes it is changed to a previously listened to one. I've gotten so tired of trying to keep changing it I've just said to hell with it! It's too frustrating trying to keep things as they should be and no one seems to know how to fix the problem!
I feel your pain. I'm sick of all my podcasts having f'd up artwork
I realized I wasn't saving the new album art because the Save Metadata button won't appear unless you edit the text.
I use Cinnamon MInt Linux, so none of these Windows-related solutions work. When I did use Win7/10, the art cover edit function did work at that time, but can't find a fix.
Will look for an Open Source alternative media player
Hey LOCO E, the instructions given are for how to do it in VLC and it works the same in Linux. I’ve done it before in VLC for Linux. Check out the app kid3 though as it makes it easier to manage your audio file metadata for large numbers of files. Editing cover art isn’t really an expected functionality for a media player IMHO.
No it does not for linux.. you hit save and close and it is gone
Maybe it has something to do with the file permissions in Linux?
Change to ´tools´ ´preferences´ and unselect ´allow metadata network access´. VLC will now stop to display pictures you haven´t been integrated into the audiofile (testet with flac) and/or the folder, the files are contained in.
Does anyone know how to get the poster frame/cover art option to work on a Mac? I can bring up the Media Info screen but the right-click on the VLC icon does nothing.
I'm having the same problem. Have you figured it out? Thanks
I haven't been able to figure this out. I have a folder with 480 songs. Somehow the same cover art got assigned to all but about 6 of them. I have deleted everything in appdata/roaming/art and I have removed the cover art with mp3tag. VLC media player still shows the same cover art even though both of those things were done. Also, right-clicking and choosing download cover art does literally nothing. Fingerprint also does nothing. It always says that no fingerprint could be found.
worked fine for me, just loaded one track at a time and changed the pic and a few other things
I stumbled upon my own solution. I changed the view in Windows Explorer to Large Icons and noticed that the same cover art was associated with the folder that the files were in. I wasn't able to remove it so I created a new folder and moved the files to it, then deleted the old, empty folder. This solved the problem for me. It had nothing to do with VLC. the problem was that the image was associated with the folder in Windows.
You are right.Thank you.
Expanding on what TwinStars said because I found a twist...the subfolder that gets created to put the picture into has to be a unique name. In case you decide to split a compilation into individual albums with their own cover art, you must use a MP3 tag editor and make sure the Album field is unique because in a compilation they could end up being the same. VLC uses that field to create the unique folder to put the picture into.
I completely obliterated VLC with Revo Uninstaller and when I installed the new version I cleared preferences and cache. And I re-ripped all my CDs. Same issue. This flat out does not work. You CANNOT change cover art. VLC puts what it wants and you have ZERO CHOICE in the matter. Frustrating as hell.
Hopefully my last comment. After being prompted for update to 3.0.14 as indicated above I was then prompted AGAIN to update to 3.0.16 (that was weird)...repeated the whole process again exactly as above. Now it finds the correct cover art every time. The *.jpgs with the correct cover art are in each folder which I ripped a single CD into.
Who knows? This behavior is not predictable. I'll take what I can get.
Same problem different machine and this time using 3.0.16. VLC should put this at the top of their list to fix and it's probably a 5-minute fix for them. They know this is buggy as hell. PLEASE FIX SO WE CAN SELECT COVER ART OR ELSE TAKE DOWN THIS STUPID HOW-TO!!! There.
TWINSTARS SAVED THE DAY:
CLEAR THIS FOLDER COMPLETELY AFTER EXITING VLC...RESTART AND YOU'RE GOLDEN:
C:\Users\\AppData\Roaming\vlc\art
I had the smae problem and clearing the art folder fixed it. Thanks so much!
Right-clicking on the album art and clicking "add art form file" does nothing. Please help!
Delete the folders that are under: C:\Users\USERNAME\AppData\Roaming\vlc\art
Do that after exiting VLC...then restart...you will see the correct art.
Caveat going forward so you don't have to do this again...
See my most recent post about a twist that occurs when you have a compilation of different albums that are ripped. The ALBUM field in the MP3 tag editor must be unique to the album before you play in VLC because that's what VLC uses to create and name the folder to stick the cached art into. If you leave that alone (all albums share same Album field name), you'll be back to the same problem.
I had exactly the same problem for one of my music tracks so I thought I would try using the mp3 tag app to change the art work but I got a message "file cannot be opened for writing" I figured something in the file was preventing changes. So I uploaded the mp3 to a file conversion site - set convert to mp3, downloaded back to my computer. Now I can change the artwork again!
Great to know album art can be edited via vlc player!
Doesn't work unless Save Metedata comes up. And I don't know how to make that happen. So IT DOESN'T WORK!!
Change any info in any of the info entry's fields and meta save will come up on the bottom next to close button
You have to change the text on the page. You can change it right back. But when modify any text on the page, the button to save the metadata appears
Changing any text on the page worked for me, the metadata button appears
In my case, I am replacing the existing art. After choosing the new art, I typed something in the year box and the metadata button showed up for me to click save and close. To have the mp3 correctly showing the new art, you have to clear the cache. My VLC cache in Windows 7 is C:\Users\user name\appdata\RoamingVLC\art. Close VLC and delete everything within this folder. When you open up VLC again to play the file, the correct art will show up.
THAT WORKED!!! Thank you TwinStars...earlier I was looking for the cache by googling but got pointed in the wrong direction.
@TWINSTARS Thank you, this worked perfectly for me and fixed my problem!