How do I add album art to my Android music?

Album art, also known as cover art, is the visual imagery that represents a music album. It is the image printed or shown on the album cover or digital file. Album art provides a visual representation of the music and helps identify and brand the album and artist. It can also enhance the music listening experience by connecting the listener with the emotions and themes of the album.

There are several benefits to adding album artwork to music files on an Android device:

Makes it easier to identify songs and albums in your music library

Provides a richer music listening experience
Looks much nicer when viewing your music library or playing songs
Syncs the correct artwork with songs so album art displays properly in playback apps

Allows you to replace missing or low-quality artwork

Overall, album art makes your Android’s music library look more aesthetically pleasing and organized. It also helps you quickly differentiate between albums when browsing your music collection.

Locate Album Artwork

The first step is to find a high-quality image file of the album artwork. There are a few places online to search for album covers:

Album Art Exchange (https://www.albumartexchange.com/) – Search through over 700,000 covers. They have high resolution images, often scanned from the original CD/vinyl.
Discogs (https://www.discogs.com/) – This site has an extensive database of album artwork that users have uploaded.
Google Images (https://www.google.com/imghp) – You can search for the album title + “album cover” and filter results for high resolution images.

When searching, look for images that are at least 600×600 resolution. This will ensure the quality is high enough to look good on your Android device screen.

Once you’ve found a suitable high-res album cover image, download and save it to your computer.

Download the Artwork

To download the album artwork to your computer, open the web browser on your computer and navigate to a website with the desired image. Locate the artwork you want to download and right-click on the image. Select “Save image as” from the menu to save the image file to a folder on your computer.

For example, you can download album artwork from sites like Wikipedia. Find the image you want, right click and choose “Save image as” to download the file. Be sure to take note of the filename and folder location where you saved the artwork file.

Transfer the Artwork File to Your Android Device

Once you have downloaded or created the album artwork file on your computer, you need to transfer it to your Android device. There are a couple ways to do this:

Use a USB cable – Connect your Android device to your computer using a USB cable. You can then copy and paste the image file directly from your computer to your device’s storage. For example, into the Music folder if that’s where you store your music files. Make sure your device’s USB connection mode is set to File Transfer or MTP to enable file transfers.

Cloud storage – Upload the artwork file to cloud storage like Google Drive or Dropbox from your computer. Then open the cloud storage app on your Android device and download the file. Now you have the artwork file on your device ready to use.

Wireless transfer – There are apps like Android File Transfer that let you wirelessly send files from your computer to your Android device on the same WiFi network.

Once transferred, the album art file is ready to be linked with the music file’s metadata.

Use a File Manager App

A file manager app provides an easy way to transfer the artwork file onto your Android device. Some popular options include File Manager +, X-plore File Manager, and Files by Google.

To use a file manager:

Open the file manager app on your Android device.

Navigate to the location where you downloaded the artwork file, such as your Downloads folder.
Select the artwork file.
Tap the menu button in the app and choose “Copy.”

Navigate to the music folder where the song file is stored.
Tap the menu button again and choose “Paste” to copy the artwork file into the music folder.

The file manager allows you to easily copy the artwork into the same folder as the song so that it can be linked together.

Edit the Music File Metadata

One way to add album artwork is by editing the metadata directly in the music file. This allows you to embed the image data into the file itself. To do this on Android:

1. Use a file manager app like ES File Explorer to navigate to the folder containing your music files.

2. Long press on the song file and select Properties. This will show the metadata for that file.

3. Tap on the Artwork field. You will get an option to choose an image from your device storage. Select the artwork file you want to add.

4. Save the changes. The album artwork should now be embedded in the music file metadata. You may need to restart or rescan the media library for it to show up in your music apps.

This method allows you to directly edit the file tags. However, it can be time consuming to edit files one by one. Using a dedicated metadata editor app can help speed up the process.

Use a Metadata Editor App

Alternatively, you can use a dedicated metadata editor app to add artwork to music files on your Android device. Metadata editor apps allow you to view and edit the metadata tags of media files, including the album art. Some popular metadata editors for Android include:

Photo Exif Editor, EXIF Pro, and Wondershare UniConverter ^[1].

To add album art using a metadata editor:

Install and open the app on your Android device.
Locate and select the music files you want to add art to.
Tap the edit option to modify the metadata tags.

Select the artwork image file from your device storage.
Save the changes to write the new metadata, including the album art, to the files.

The advantages of using a dedicated metadata editor include more robust editing options, batch editing capability, and an intuitive interface for working with media file tags. Make sure to select a reputable app that safely writes metadata without altering or compressing the actual media.

[1] https://videoconverter.wondershare.com/edit-video/mp3-tag-editor-android.html

Update the Media Store

After adding the artwork file, you need to tell Android to rescan the media folder so it indexes the new artwork. The MediaStore database in Android keeps track of your music metadata, including any album artwork. When you add new files, MediaStore won’t know about them until you rescan the folder.

There are a couple ways to update the MediaStore index:

Use an app like Refresh MediaStore to quickly rescan folders. This is the easiest method without connecting your device to a computer.
On a computer, enable USB debugging and run the adb rescan command. This will force a full media rescan.
Restart your device, as Android performs a media scan on boot.

After updating the MediaStore, you should see the new album artwork appear in your music apps. Rescanning the folder ensures Android has the most up-to-date metadata.

Verify the Album Art

The final step is to open your music player app and verify that the album art is now displaying properly. Here’s how to check:

Open your music player app on your Android device, such as Google Play Music, Spotify, etc.

Select an album or song that you added artwork to.
The album cover image should now be shown next to the track listing.

If the correct album artwork is not appearing, first try restarting your music player app. The app may need to reload the updated metadata from the media store. If it still does not show after restarting, you may need to go back and recheck the steps for editing the metadata or updating the media store. Ensure the image file was transferred properly to your device and shows up using a file manager app.

When done correctly, you should now see your album covers appear within your Android music player seamlessly alongside your tunes. Adding artwork can greatly improve the aesthetics and enjoyability of your mobile music experience.

Troubleshooting

If the album art is still not appearing after updating the metadata and media store, here are some troubleshooting tips:

Make sure the image file meets the requirements – it should be a PNG or JPEG under 1MB in size. If the file is too large, try resizing it to under 1MB. Verify the file name does not have any special characters (reference).

Check that the art is saved in the same folder as the music files. If not, move the image file to the proper folder (reference).

Try fully restarting the device after updating the metadata. This forces a refresh of the media store.

As a last resort, uninstall then reinstall the music player app. This clears any cached data that may be causing issues displaying artwork.

For albums with many tracks, copy them to a playlist which may help artwork display properly (reference).

If problems persist, search online forums for the specific music app being used, as certain apps may have quirks with artwork.