Structuring Music Files

[Redcrosseknight 0]

Hello,

I am importing music files to my media server which runs Emby.  I have copied a couple of CDs and Emby can see them, but it does not sort it by Album.  All the songs are listed independently.  I must manually edit the metadata for each song for the songs to be grouped into albums.  

I followed the instructions to set up the file structure.  The structure is  /music/artist/album as documented here: https://emby.media/support/articles/Music-Naming.html?q=albums.  The music files are copied directly from CDs in .wav format.

Is there a way to edit files in bulk rather than one at a time?  The Bulky Mass Metadata Editor does not edit music media files; only movie and TV. Or is there a better way to structure the filesystem? 

Another question: Emby will automatically fetch metadata for movies and TV shows, but it does not appear to try to fetch metadata for music files.  I have enabled the metadata download feature, but it does not appear to work.   

Any help is greatly appreciated.  Emby works great for movies and TV shows.  This is the first problem I've had so far.

Thanks.

[Happy2Play 9780]

When it comes to music Emby is more reliant on the embedded metadata to get all relevant info from enabled metadata providers.  Per the KB all tracks need the same AlbumArtist and Album info to be grouped into said album.

Emby does not edit/write embedded track data so you have to use really any software available for that purpose such as Picard/MP3Tag or any other track editor out there.

As Emby just uses ffprobe to read existing data.  Yes there are some cases of no info and Emby tries to use structure/naming but 99% of the time embedded track data is required.

But very specific examples are needed along with server log for that example.

[Redcrosseknight 0]

Thank you for your response.  I'm sorry, but I don't know entirely what you are saying.  Should Emby be able to read the embedded track data?  What does it mean that the tracks need the same AlbumArtist and Album info to be grouped?  Does that mean that the metadata needs to be manually changed for Emby to sort into albums?  In other words, the file structure will not be used to sort into albums, correct?

Thanks again.

[user24 313]

15 minutes ago, Happy2Play said:

Emby does not edit/write embedded track data so you have to use really any software available for that purpose such as Picard/MP3Tag or any other track editor out there.

This is good advice. If you edit the (Emby database) metadata in Emby only, then you may lose it all on a library rescan!

If you don't understand music embedded metadata, then you may need to research this a bit more. Start here:

https://emby.media/support/articles/Music-Naming.html

A good approach after ripping/downloading music is to next check the embedded metadata (Mp3tag or Picard) and then import into Emby. 

Yes. Emby does read music embedded metadata.

Edited August 18, 2025 by user24

[Redcrosseknight 0]

I read that article, which is why I referenced in the OP.    

I'll give Picard a try, thanks.  

I still have a question.  If Emby reads the embedded metadata, why does it need something like Picard?

thanks for the info.

[user24 313]

42 minutes ago, Redcrosseknight said:

The music files are copied directly from CDs in .wav format.

I missed this aspect... you would possibly be better off ripping your CD files as FLAC (no loss of sound quality, and they take up about half the space). As best as I understand, FLAC files are more favorable for metadata.

[user24 313]

Just now, Redcrosseknight said:

I still have a question.  If Emby reads the embedded metadata, why does it need something like Picard?

Depending on how your music files were ripped/downloaded, they may have incomplete and/or incorrect metadata. That's why you should ideally check it with a music tagging program.

[Redcrosseknight 0]

That helps, thank you.

Picard is grabbing all the metadata with no problems, so I'll continue with that.

[user24 313]

You might also want to research MusicBrainz. If you have the MusicBrainz IDs (MBIDs) embedded into your music files, and MusicBrainz enabled as a data fetcher, then Emby should mostly fetch the relevant Artist data from the MusicBrainz database and populate your Emby music library accordingly. 

Good luck with getting it all sorted and having fun with Emby!

[Redcrosseknight 0]

Thanks!