Version History

Every release of Metadatics, from the initial 1.0 launch onward.

Version 1.8.1 - October 17, 2026

The track lists in the MusicBrainz window can now be sorted by track number, title, or length, and the new Match to Files button lines up the MusicBrainz tracks with your files by title and length.
Removing album artwork now shrinks the file instead of leaving the space the artwork used behind.
Fixed album artwork in Monkey’s Audio (APE) files: added artwork couldn’t be read back, and saving could erase artwork the file already had.
Fixed MusicBrainz writing the Year in the wrong numerals or calendar, or not at all, for some region and time zone settings.
Fixed the file list still showing the old names after Rename Files changed only the capitalization of a file name.
Files that Rename Files can’t rename are now reported in the Error Log.
Fixed a comment with many lines pushing the other fields in the General tab out of view.
Fixed Add Files not letting you choose a folder on macOS 27.
Fixed Cut, Copy, and Paste piling up in the album artwork context menu on macOS 27.
Fixed dialog buttons touching each other on macOS 26 and later.

Version 1.8.0 - September 30, 2026

The App Store version now remembers the folders you give it access to, so you’re no longer asked for permission again each time you rename files. When prompted, you can choose a parent folder to grant access to everything inside it at once.
Adding files now selects all of the newly added files.
Moving to the previous or next track with ⌘[ or ⌘] now keeps the field you were editing active.
Fixed lyrics typed in the Lyrics tab being lost when moving to another track with ⌘[ or ⌘].
Fixed a possible crash when opening two or more files after sorting by File Name or Full Path in View Options.
Fixed the All Tags pane not keeping its size between launches.
Added Remove Selected Files (⌘⌫) and Remove All Files (⇧⌘⌫) to the File menu.
Fixed a misspelled toolbar label.

Version 1.7.3 - June 24, 2026

Fixed a crash when reordering files in the list by dragging.
Fixed a crash when extracting, copying, or converting album artwork while an online cover preview was shown for a file with no embedded artwork.
Fixed several MP4/M4A tags — including ISRC, ASIN, and Mood — being saved in a form other apps don’t recognize and lost when re-saved. They are now written as standard iTunes atoms, and previously affected files repair themselves the next time you save.
Fixed MP4/M4A track number, disc number, and BPM being saved as the wrong value when set above 32767.
Fixed online album-artwork search returning wrong or no results for artists or titles containing “&” or “+” (for example “Simon & Garfunkel”).
A file that can’t be saved no longer stops the rest of a batch from saving or disables saving until you relaunch.
Fixed missing progress and an incorrectly active toolbar while saving with “Save After Every Change” turned on.
Improved the reliability of batch artwork operations and dragging artwork out to the Finder, and window layout restoration on recent macOS versions.

Version 1.7.2 - June 20, 2026

Fixed the MusicBrainz lookup window and updated it to use MusicBrainz's current API.
Fixed a crash when requesting file access while reading or saving.
Fixed Remove Files freezing the app, and sped up removing large batches of files.
Fixed “could not read” errors after opening many files.
Fixed the status bar sometimes showing an incorrect artwork count.
Metadatics now prompts to save unsaved changes before removing files.

Version 1.7.1 - June 18, 2026

Fixed a crash when importing files whose tags use unusual names (names beginning with "@").
Fixed several MP4/M4A tags being corrupted on save — the iTunes "xid" atom and non-standard freeform atoms are now preserved.
Fixed "Save After Every Change" causing the file to save repeatedly.
Fixed Rename Files leaving Metadatics pointing at the old file path.
Fixed a crash when deleting a tag in the All Tags panel.
Fixed a crash in File Name to Tag when the pattern had more parts than the file's folder path.
Fixed a crash in the text-manipulation functions when removing more characters than a field contained.
Fixed the Comments field not wrapping long text in the field editor.
Fixed saving becoming disabled after a save error, and a possible double-save after batch operations.
Improved handling of tags containing non-UTF-8 text, and the stability of batch operations and undo.

Version 1.7.0 - June 8, 2026

Added support for MP2 (.mp2) files.
Improved iTunes online album-artwork search results.
Added type-ahead prefix filtering to the tag-name fields in the Add Tag and Edit Tag windows.
The progress panel no longer flashes briefly for very quick operations.
Updated to TagLib 2.2.1 for improved tag reading and writing.
Fixed file renames that could silently fail when the sandbox granted only read access to the destination folder.
Fixed the Add Tag window overwriting an existing tag value instead of appending to it.
Fixed truncation of the iTunes Catalog ID (cnID) for IDs larger than 32 bits.
Fixed the album-artwork pane shrinking below its minimum size when resizing the window.
Fixed reading of ASF/WMA artwork and of the Grouping (GRP1) tag.

Version 1.6.15 - March 31, 2026

Removed the Google Images artwork source: Google had become unreliable due to reCAPTCHA.
Online album artwork search now defaults to iTunes and supports region selection via a new dropdown.
Added Discogs online artwork search results.
Added an album artwork preview window activated by pressing space.
Improved the toolbar search: better appearance and more reliable search results.
Minimum macOS version is now Big Sur (11).
More consistent behavior when editing text fields throughout the app.

Version 1.6.14 - September 4, 2025

Minor internal improvements.

Version 1.6.13 - August 21, 2025

Fixed an issue where renaming a file could leave Metadatics pointing at a bad file path if the rename failed.
Fixed the Movement Name column to show the correct values.
Fixed text colors so they remain correct when a row is highlighted.
Metadatics no longer writes malformed artwork tags when an image's format can't be determined.
Compatibility updates for the latest macOS.

Version 1.6.12 - July 21, 2024

Improved detection of OGG Opus files so they are recognized and tagged correctly.

Version 1.6.11 - December 11, 2023

Fixed a crash on macOS 10.13 caused by a HexFiend framework deployment-target mismatch.
Replaced the title-case library for more accurate capitalization results.

Version 1.6.10 - December 4, 2023

Fixed a crash that could occur when the Text Manipulation function processed certain strings containing consecutive spaces.
Fixed a bug where the entire main window could become hidden when the app was deactivated (the progress panel's hide-on-deactivate was affecting the whole window).
Stopped split-view resize handlers from firing during window restoration, preventing a subtle layout glitch at launch.

Version 1.6.9 - December 10, 2022

Rebuilt for the latest macOS.

Version 1.6.8 - July 15, 2022

Restored Google Image album artwork search after Google began redirecting to a cookie-consent page. The image helper no longer sends cookies.

Version 1.6.7 - June 21, 2022

Now shipped as a universal binary for better performance on Apple Silicon Macs.

Version 1.6.6 - July 12, 2021

Fix issue with album artwork search results.

Version 1.6.5 - January 9, 2021

Updated for Big Sur and Apple Silicon.
Added support for writing tags to OGG Opus files.

Version 1.6.3 - June 23, 2020

Fix a possible issue where the wrong global frame size could be written to WAV files.

Version 1.6.2 - February 7, 2020

Fix a possible crashing issue introduced in the last update.

Version 1.6.1 - February 5, 2020

Fix a possible crashing issue in the Text Manipulation function.
Fix an issue with pasting artwork.
Fix a possible crashing issue with certain Google image search results.

Version 1.6 - January 12, 2020

Add support for dark mode.
Add support for iTunes' new Movement/Work tags.
Allow "0" to be used in the batch album artwork width or height field to dynamically calculate the size.
Performance improvements when adding a large amount of files at once.
Updated Google Images album artwork search.
Fixed an issue with sorting track numbers after getting tags from MusicBrainz.
Fixed a possible data corruption issue when saving after every change is enabled.
Fixed a possible crashing issue when the window size launches too small.
Several other small bug fixes.

Version 1.5.7 - May 1, 2016

Fixed a possible issue when performing certain album artwork searches.

Version 1.5.5.1 - February 16, 2016

Trim whitespace around the entered license code and license name (non-App Store only).

Version 1.5.6 - April 25, 2016

Updated Google Images Search.

Version 1.5.5 - February 3, 2016

Fixed an issue where you would be unable to save files after renaming them.
Fixed an issue where text could be cleared from a text cell when opening a function window.
Metadatics should now be back in the Open With contextual menu.

Version 1.5.4 - January 30, 2016

Added composer and composer sort to MusicBrainz function.
Fixed an issue with Google Image Search.
Better support for reading AIFF files with multiple ID3 tags.
Keeps the selection when exporting album artwork.
Added a preference to preserve modification dates.
Fixed a possible sandboxing issue when renaming files.
Better support for reading invalid RIFF tags.
Disc and Track number two-digit padding are now two separate options in the Rename Files and File Name To Tags functions.
Fixed a possible crashing issue when trying to navigate to a column that is not editable.
Fixed an issue with saving .m4v files.
Improvements to the Convert To Title Case function.

Version 1.5.3 - February 28, 2015

Added an option to prefer square images when searching for artwork online.
Added the ability to customize MP4 tag mappings in the preferences.
Copy All Tags now copies artwork as well.
Pressing return when editing in the table view now moves you to the next row.
Added a Date Created field.
When adding artwork, defaults to the folder that contains the selected files.
Added a preference to clear the files when adding new files.
Fixed an issue where a '2' would occasionally be added when renaming a file.
Fixed a possible issue with retrieving artwork from Google.

Version 1.5.2 - January 30, 2015

Fixed a problem with resetting the Number Sequence function when encountering new tags.
Changes made in a text field are no longer lost when pressing the Add Tag button.
Hidden files are now skipped when adding directories.
Fixed a possible issue when attempting to edit an album artwork's description.

Version 1.5.1 - December 16, 2014

Fixed an issue where a WAV file's size might not be updated correctly.
Fixed an issue when batch resizing artwork on files with multiple artworks.
Fixed an issue with multi-disc results in the MusicBrainz function.
Fixed a possible issue with the Rename Files function.
Fixed a problem where tag types that do not really exist in the file might be shown in the info tab.
Fixed a possible issue with reading ID3v2 comment frames.

Version 1.5 - November 28, 2014

New Features

Add support for DSD/DSF files.
Added ability to rename files from the File Name column in the main table view.
Added the ability to set the ID3 version for AIFF files.
Allow files with .m4v extension.
A warning is now given when a file could not be found when attempting to save.

User Interface Updates

New icon.
Added toolbar icons for all functions as well as keyboard shortcuts.
Added a column that shows if a file has artwork or not.
Album artwork can be dragged from Metadatics to the Finder.
Path to the currently selected file is shown at the bottom.
Moved the All Tags add/remove/edit icons to the bottom toolbar.
Shows how many selected files have artwork and how many unique artworks are selected.
Podcast tag is now a checkbox in the All Tags column.

Function Updates

Added a Batch Resize Artworks function.
Number Sequence function can set when to increment or reset the sequence.
Added Sentence Case to the Text Manipulation function.
More information is pulled from the MusicBrainz function.
More file information is exported when exporting to a CSV file.
Added more file info format specifiers to functions.
Batch album artwork function alerts you how many album artwork files were extracted.

Bug Fixes

Fixed an issue where raw data tags were not written to MP4 files.
Fixed an issue where unsupported images could be added as artwork.
WAV INFO chunks are now forced to the end of the file for better compatibility.
Extracting artwork now defaults to the audio file's location.
A warning is now given when a file could not be found when attempting to save.

Version 1.4.5 - July 18, 2014

Fixed an issue where some files might be misinterpreted as read-only.

Version 1.4.4 - July 6, 2014

Fixed a possible crashing issue when clearing files.
Fixed an issue where a track might not register as needing to be saved.
Fixed an issue where an entered value might be lost when adding album artwork.
Fixed a possible issue reading certain FLAC files.
Fixed a possible issue with saving Part Of A Compilation to MP4 files.

Version 1.4.3 - February 9, 2014

Fixed retrieving album artwork from MusicBrainz.
Fixed a possible issue with reading MP4 tags.
Fixed a possible issue when using the Title Case function.
Fixed an issue where the program may hang when exporting an XML file.
Fixed a bug where the file rename function would add unnecessary numbers to the end of the file name if the filename was not changing.
Fixed a possible crashing issue when searching for tracks on MusicBrainz.
Added the ability to select multiple tracks when arranging in the MusicBrainz results window.

Version 1.4.2 - December 2, 2013

Fixed Google Images search.
Added support for .alac files.

Version 1.4.1 - November 13, 2013

Fixed an issue with reading some Vorbis comments tags.
Window can be resized much smaller, fixing a display issue on some devices.
Enabled full-screen mode.
Improved error handling with read-only files.
Improved error handling when using functions.
Other minor bug fixes.

Version 1.4 - October 30, 2013

Added support for reading and writing WAV INFO Chunks.
Added the option to move files in the Rename Files function.
Added the ability to extract album artwork to the source file's location.
Added a tag mappings window that shows current tag mappings for each tag type.
Added options to the Rename Files function to remove illegal NTFS characters and/or illegal SMB characters.
Now reads info from Apple Loops.
Improved reading of some MP4 tags.
Metadatics now appears in the Finder's Open With menu for audio files.
Fixed a display issue that sometimes occurred when resizing the window.
Fixed an issue where the display would not update after importing metadata from a file.
Fixed an issue where forward slashes in tags would be replaced by colons when performing some functions.
Fixed an issue where MusicBrainz would crash if the search query contained certain characters.
Fixed an issue where you might not have permissions to save a file after performing the Rename Files function.
Fixed an issue with pasting artwork copied from Safari.
Fixed sorting of fields with numbers to sort in natural numeric order.
Other minor bug fixes.

Version 1.3.1 - July 28, 2013

Fixed a bug with the MusicBrainz function.
Fixed an issue with searching by filename.

Version 1.3 - July 22, 2013

Added a Replace Text function to Text Manipulation with regular expression support.
Added regular expression support to the File Name To Tags function.
Added support for importing and exporting to CSV files.
Added the option to keep function windows open after applying.
Added a preference to search the containing folder for artwork image files.
Added Comments column to the main table view.
Added Quick Look support.
Added DATE internal key.
Added the ability to select more than one tag in the All Tags panel.
Added the ability to copy only selected tags in the All Tags panel.
Expanded ability to paste tags: paste and replace existing tags, paste and add to existing tags, or paste and replace all tags.
Added Search function to the Edit menu.
Added Google Images and Discogs to the online album artwork search function.
Rename Files function now always generates unique file names, preventing accidentally overwriting files.
Return key now creates a new line in the comments field.
Added support for previewing when a function changes the album artwork.
Improved undo and redo capabilities.
Improved handling of certain invalid FLAC files.
Fixed an issue with reading and writing M4B audio books.
Fixed an issue where the Part of a Compilation check-box would not properly update.
Fixed an issue where changing selected files would sometimes not commit changes.
Fixed tabbing between fields in the function windows.
Added and changed some key commands.

Version 1.2 - March 1, 2013

Added support for writing ID3v2.3 tags to MP3s.
Added support for selecting string encodings for ID3v2 tags.
Added a Sorting tab to the metadata editor.
Added the ability to paste album artwork from image data or image URL on the clipboard.
Added the ability to resize and convert album artwork.
Added Quick Look support to the Online Album Cover Search window.
Added an option to skip leading zeros in the File Name To Tags function.
Added an option to ignore Roman numerals when changing capitalization.
The Album Artwork Panel now displays image data size and image type.
Added Revert To Saved in the right-click menu.
User is now alerted of invalid files.
ID3v2 comment language is now set to English, allowing iTunes to read it.
Changed wording on Copy Selected Tags to Copy Selected File's Tags.
Improved MusicBrainz title results.
Files are now released from Apple's quarantine after being saved.
Fixed: spelling mistake in one of the context menus.
Fixed: possible issue reading iTunes RATING tags.
Fixed: Lyrics panel wouldn't always apply the lyrics to the selected files.
Fixed: sorting in the MusicBrainz query window would produce wrong results in the results window.
Fixed: album artwork resolution might not always be displayed properly.
Fixed: Track Total and Disc Total check-boxes were not connected in the View Options window.
Fixed: General tab text boxes were 2px too far to the right.
Fixed: Save files dialog now shows the number of files actually being saved.
Fixed: tag types in the Info tab are now updated after saving a file.
Fixed: Save button is now disabled in preview mode.
Fixed: the Adding Files progress bar is now displayed when files are dragged to the icon.

Version 1.1.1 - January 16, 2013

Fixed a bug introduced in 1.1 where using the minus button to remove a tag could crash the program.
Fixed a possible crashing issue with the title case function.
Fixed an issue where a forward slash in metadata would create unwanted folders when renaming files.
Fixed an issue where the itunNORM tag was not written to MP4 files properly.
BPM is now handled as a string instead of a number, allowing for non-numerical values.
Album artwork of unknown type is now read from MP4 atoms.

Version 1.1 - January 8, 2013

Added a search bar.
Added a function to fix character encodings.
Added a View Options window to select which columns to show/hide.
Added an Album Artwork menu to the main menu.
Added Disc Total and Track Total as optional columns.
Added Reveal In Finder to the File menu.
Added keyboard shortcuts to switch between the metadata tabs.
Added a menu item and keyboard shortcut to remove selected files.
Album Artist Sort Order and Composer Sort Order are now recognized in ID3v2 tags.
Auto-sizing columns now takes into account the column header title.
Toolbar configuration is now saved between launches.
Fixed an issue where Album Title was disabled in the Rename Files function window.
Fixed an issue where changing Apply To in some function windows did not always update the display.
Fixed an issue where changes to a field would be lost if not committed before pressing Save.
Fixed an issue where removing a tag with multiple values could not be undone.
Fixed a possible crashing issue when removing artworks.
Improved handling of corrupt ID3v2 tags.
Added high-resolution icons.

Version 1.0 - November 19, 2012

Initial release.

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