How do you embed album art into an MP3 using Python?

Question

I've been using mutagen for reading and writing MP3 tags, but I want to be able to embed album art directly into the file.

Solution 1

Here is how to add example.png as album cover into example.mp3 with mutagen:

from mutagen.mp3 import MP3
from mutagen.id3 import ID3, APIC, error

audio = MP3('example.mp3', ID3=ID3)

# add ID3 tag if it doesn't exist
try:
    audio.add_tags()
except error:
    pass

audio.tags.add(
    APIC(
        encoding=3, # 3 is for utf-8
        mime='image/png', # image/jpeg or image/png
        type=3, # 3 is for the cover image
        desc=u'Cover',
        data=open('example.png').read()
    )
)
audio.save()

Solution 2

I've used the eyeD3 module to do this exact thing.

def update_id3(mp3_file_name, artwork_file_name, artist, item_title):    
    #edit the ID3 tag to add the title, artist, artwork, date, and genre
    tag = eyeD3.Tag()
    tag.link(mp3_file_name)
    tag.setVersion([2,3,0])
    tag.addImage(0x08, artwork_file_name)
    tag.setArtist(artist)
    tag.setDate(localtime().tm_year)
    tag.setTitle(item_title)
    tag.setGenre("Trance")
    tag.update()

Solution 3

Looks like you have to add a special type of frame to the MP3. See the site on ID3 tags

Also the tutorial for mutagen implies that you can add ID3 tags in mutagen see

Solution 4

Possible solution

Are you trying to embed images into a lot of files? If so, I found a script (see the link) that goes through a set of directories, looks for images, and the embeds them into MP3 files. This was useful for me when I wanted to actually have something to look at in CoverFlow on my (now defunct) iPhone.

View more solutions

Comments

[nosklo]

isn't that a very bad idea? Won't you increase your mp3 sizes by embedding the same picture many times on all mp3 of a single album? Album art should belong to the folder where the album is located.

[sdu]

@nosklo there are mp3 players showing only embedded pictures and not the one located in folder

[Mark Ransom]

@nosklo I have found that my mp3 files are so large that a tiny thumbnail doesn't make much difference. I estimated my average size at 6MB, I allow my thumbnails to be up to 60KB so they only add 1% to the file size. With JPEG that turns out to be plenty.

[Tensigh]

This doesn't work; I follow the code above and I get "TypeError: an integer is required"

[Brutus]

For me neither, I get: TypeError: 'str' object cannot be interpreted as an integer. Full trace and source here: gist.github.com/brutus/69c51cd706a6cf5d1594

[Admin]

As of v0.7, usage is like this: audiofile = eyed43.load(file_name) and audiofile.tag.artist = artist, etc. See: eyed3.nicfit.net

[Mark Ransom]

I found it necessary to use v2_version=3 in the save so that the new tags could be read by Windows 7, and I simplified this code by reading directly into an ID3 object. Otherwise this answer was perfect, none of the errors reported by others.

[bittterbotter]

The link expired.

[Rajeev Atmakuri]

This blog does a good job of explaing the eyed3 implementation using the updated and latest API. tuxpool.blogspot.in/2013/02/…

[MagTun]

@MarkRansom, how did you "simplified this code by reading directly into an ID3 object"? Please post your code in an answer.

[codezjx]

Great answer, but in my case, I found it necessary to add 'rb' mode to read success, just like this: data=open('example.png', 'rb').read()

[Jaccoud]

eyeD3 does NOT support Unicode so it will fail whenever the paths to the music file or the picture contain any non-ASCII character. So it is useless if you have songs like "Canção do mar", "Dvořák's 9. Simphonie" or "昨日は歌を歌いました". I suggest Python's metagen module.