What music player can change album art?

Album art has long been an integral part of the music listening experience. In the era of digital music and streaming, album art continues to enhance the connection between fan and artist (https://oatuu.org/album-art-in-musicolet-enhancing-your-music-experience/). While most music players display album art automatically, some users may wish to customize or change it manually. Reasons include fixing missing art, using preferred images, or personalizing collections.

This article outlines key music players and methods that support album art changes. Players covered are iTunes, Windows Media Player, VLC, MediaMonkey, Spotify, and mp3tag. Tips for other programs are also provided.

iTunes

iTunes lets you edit the album art for songs and albums in your iTunes music library. Here are the steps to change album art in iTunes:

1. Open iTunes and find the album or song you want to edit.
2. Right click on the album or song and select “Get Info.”
3. Click on the Artwork tab in the pop-up window.
4. Either paste or drag an image file onto the blank square icon to change the artwork.
5. Click OK to save the changes.

The ability to edit album art only applies to music stored locally in your iTunes library. It does not allow you to change album art for streaming services like Apple Music.

Windows Media Player

Windows Media Player (WMP) has some handy built-in tools for editing album art on local music files stored on your computer. Unlike streaming platforms like Spotify, WMP focuses on managing files saved directly on your PC or external drives.

To edit the album art shown in WMP for a particular album or song, first right-click on the track and select Properties. In the properties window there is a tab for Album Art where you can select Change Image to pick a new picture from files saved on your PC. You can also just drag and drop an image onto the Album Art tab to set new cover art.

There are also options to remove album art entirely or reset to the original art. So Windows Media Player provides an easy way to customize the album or artist images shown in your library for local files.

Just keep in mind that if you edit the art in WMP, it only changes what is shown in WMP and does not actually embed updated album art into the music file itself. Services like mp3tag can permanently update the art stored in the file metadata.

VLC Media Player

VLC media player is a popular open source media player available for Windows, Mac, Linux, Android, and iOS. It supports many audio and video formats out of the box.

One useful feature in VLC is the ability to edit album art for files in your media library. To change the album art for files played in VLC:

1. Play the album or song in VLC where you want to change the art.
2. Click Tools > Media Information from the menu bar.
3. Right click the VLC logo in the bottom right and choose “Download cover art.”
4. In the window that opens, select a new image file on your computer to use as cover art.
5. Click open to set the new album art.

The new album art will now be displayed in VLC when playing that album or song. The change may also update the file’s embedded metadata. However, the new art is specifically for how VLC displays the files, and does not modify versions visible in other music apps by default. But you can use mp3tag or other tag editor tools to also update the embedded art globally across players.

MediaMonkey

MediaMonkey was originally focused on managing large music libraries. It has a powerful tagging and organization suite that can bulk edit metadata across lots of files with ease. For example, the tag editor allows editing the album art for multiple tracks simultaneously:

To edit multiple Album Art images, click Edit > Properties, and select the Album Art tab in the Properties Dialog. All images that are common to the selected files will be shown.

This makes it easy to fix album art issues across entire albums or discographies with just a couple clicks. The software also can automatically fetch album art from various online databases. For those with huge libraries, these sophisticated tools save tons of time updating metadata.

mp3tag

mp3tag is a dedicated tag editor with advanced tools for managing metadata in mp3 and other audio files.

One of the key features of mp3tag is the ability to edit album art. You can easily add, replace, or delete embedded album artwork from audio files using mp3tag’s interface. Some key capabilities include:

• Add album art by searching online databases or selecting from files on your computer
• Remove embedded art from one file or in bulk across multiple files
• Automatic fetching and embedding of artwork based on tag info

To edit album art in mp3tag, simply open the file(s) you want to modify, then click on the “Cover” tab. You’ll see options for searching various online databases or selecting a local image file to add as the artwork. From here you can also replace or remove any existing embedded album art.

mp3tag makes it very simple to maintain proper album artwork for your digital music library – another great reason it’s such a popular tool for audio file management.

Spotify Limitations

Unlike some other music players, Spotify has some limitations when it comes to changing album artwork.

Specifically, Spotify does not allow users to change the default album art that is set by the artist or label. This applies across devices for both Spotify’s free and paid Premium accounts.

The reason is that Spotify streams music from its centralized servers, so the metadata – including album art – is controlled on Spotify’s back end. Users don’t have permission to alter that metadata.

That said, there are some workarounds using Spotify features:

• You can create a playlist and upload custom artwork for that playlist.
• You can download songs for offline listening and potentially change the art before re-adding them to Spotify.

So in summary, Spotify itself does not allow changing album artwork due to how the service streams audio content. But features like playlists give users some options to display custom art for their music selections.

Other Players

There are many other music players for Windows, Mac, Android, and iOS. However, few of them have robust features for editing album art. Some examples include:

foobar2000: A popular lightweight audio player for Windows. However, it does not include integrated tools for editing album art (Source 1).

Apple Music: The default music app for iOS and Mac. Users have limited ability to edit album art within the app itself and must rely on iTunes or third party tools (Source 2).

Google Play Music: The default Android music player. It does not support editing album art and users must use other tools.

Extra Tips

When compiling a music library, high quality album art is key for an aesthetically pleasing experience. Source images from sites like Icon Collective that offer copyright-free art. For large batches, use mp3tag which lets you paste art to multiple files at once. If you run into issues with missing art or mismatches, check that file names match the metadata, then rescan the library in your player.

Some additional best practices:

• Use JPEG or PNG formats at least 300 x 300 pixels
• Name the image file the exact album name for easy matching
• Always embed art rather than link separate image files

By properly tagging your library and sourcing quality images, you’ll avoid problems and create an impressive music experience with integrated visuals.

Conclusion

There are several music players for Windows and Mac that allow you to edit or customize album art. The most popular options covered here include iTunes, Windows Media Player, VLC Media Player, and MediaMonkey. Each program provides tools to add album covers, edit image files, or embed art into music files like mp3.

The ability to customize album art can greatly improve the aesthetics and experience of your digital music library. Album covers are an essential part of presenting albums visually and help identify songs and artists. Well-designed covers also lend artistic flair and personality to your collection.

While Spotify currently does not offer custom album art features, other streaming apps may follow suit in providing more ways for users to personalize music libraries in the future. For now, the desktop and mobile apps outlined here provide excellent methods of managing and displaying album art.