As an avid music lover with a large digital music collection, I’ve always been frustrated by the number of MP3 files that were missing album artwork. My music library looked disjointed and incomplete when songs lacked the proper cover art. I wanted my digital music to have the same visual flair as my old vinyl and CD collections perfectly lined up on the shelf.
Over the years, I’ve tested out every method, app, and trick to add album art to my MP3 files. At first, I tried the built-in options in music players like iTunes and Windows Media Player. But they were clunky and often failed to find or let me assign custom artwork. Next, I moved to third-party apps which gave me more control but took time to learn and use properly.
Finally, I’ve discovered the quickest and easiest ways to add album covers to MP3s on any device. In this blog post, I want to share everything I’ve learned – through much trial and error! – about seamlessly adding album art and organizing your digital music library. I’ll cover how to manually embed album covers, automatically fetch artwork, and use handy online tools to edit your MP3 metadata.
With just a bit of effort, you can now have a clean, orderly music collection that looks amazing inside your favorite music app. So read on for my album art tips and let your music library become a visual masterpiece!
So, let’s take a quick look at how you can manually or automatically add album art to MP3 on Windows 10, Mac, and Android.
Content Overview
How to Add Album Art to MP3 on Windows 10
- Add Album Art to MP3 with Groove Music (without Windows Media Player)
- Add Album Art to MP3 with Windows Media Player
- Add Album Art to MP3 with VLC
- How to Add Album Art to Mp3 Online
How to Add Album Art to MP3 on Mac
How to Add Album Art to MP3 on Android
Album Art Grabber
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How to Add Album Art to MP3 on Windows 10
Solution 1: Add album art with Groove Music (without Windows Media Player)
Groove Music comes with Windows 10. It is the default music you play on your Windows computer. We can use it to add Album Art to your MP3 files easily. Please follow the steps below:
Step 1: Open the Groove Music on your Windows 10
Step 2: Right-click a song to which you want to add album art and choose “Show album.”
Step 3: Click the 3-dots icon and choose “Edit info”
Step 4: Click the pen icon to browse and select an album art image on your computer, then click “Save.”
Note: If the album image didn’t show up after you clicked the save button, please turn off the “Media Info.” Click the setting icon at the lower-left and turn off the option to Automatically retrieve and update missing albums and metadata automatically.
Solution 2:
Adding Album Art to MP3 with the Windows Media Player (WMP)
One of the valuable features of the Windows Media Player is the ability to add Album Arts automatically.
Just import all the MP3 files to the WMP before starting the following steps:
- Right-click on a song and choose the second last option, “Update album Info.”
- Your album art is now downloading from the server of xboxlive.com. Choose an album art on the right, then click the “Finish” button at the lower right. It would take a couple of minutes to complete the album art update.
That’s it. The drawback of the WMP solution is that you cannot add album art manually in Windows 10.
Solution 3: Adding Album Art to MP3 with VLC Media Player
Groove Music and Window Media Player are two great music players. VLC is a free media player for Windows, Mac, and Linux. It has been the most popular Media Player among PC users and can also add Album Art to MP3 files. Just follow six simple steps:
- Download, and install VLC here
- Import MP3 files that you want to add album art to VLC
- Click “Tools” on the top menu and choose the “Media Information” option.
- You should see the current Album Art on the lower-right, right-click on it, and select the “Add Cover Art from file” option. Right-clicking on the Album Art and selecting the “Add Cover Art from File” option
- Choose an Album Art on your computer and double-click on it to select
- Click on “Close,” and the image should be added as an Album art to the mp3 song.
How to Manually Add Album Art to MP3 on Mac
You could either add your image or automatically get the album cover to MP3 with iTunes on the Mac computer.
Adding album art automatically, choose File> Library > Get Album Artwork.
Adding album art manually, choose Edit > [Item] Info, click Artwork, then do one of the following:
- Click Add Artwork, select an image file, then click Open.
- Drag the image file to the artwork area.
How to Add Album Art to MP3 on Android
Album Art Grabber is a simple app that changes or adds album/song covers for songs on your Android phone or tablet. It is easy to use, and you can add album art to MP3 on Android phones manually and automatically. You could get it on Google Play for free.
Open Album Art Grabber and import MP3 songs.
1. Tap a song or album. This opens the “Choose image from” window.
2. Select a source. Album Art Grabber can grab album art from LastFM, MusicBrainz (get album art automatically), or your SD card (manually get album art from images saved on your phone). Once selected, a window containing matching results will appear.
3. Tap the album art you want to use. A confirmation window will appear. Tap the Set button. The album art is now connected to the selected song or album.
How to Add Album Art to MP3 Online
tagmp3.online is an online tool that helps you to add and change album artwork to MP3 music files for free.
- Upload an MP3 file into the dashed border to upload MP3 (Only MP3 files supported)
- When Processing is completed, add the image as album art from your computer.
- You will be redirected to the download page and click the download button to get the generated MP3 File.
Other Online Tools for Adding Album Art:
How to Delete The Album Art Images Embedded In MP3 Files
To manually remove embedded album art in MP3, We need to find the hidden album image files and delete them. Here’s the procedure,
1. Go to Start > Control Panel > Folder Options, and select the View Tab. In the View tab, under Advanced Settings,
- Tick the option “Show hidden files, folders, and drives.“
- Untick the option “Hide protected operating system files.“
Press the “Apply” button to save these settings. Open the folder where you saved mp3 files, and you will see the hidden image files with the title like this:
- AlbumArt_{GUID}_Small. jpg
- AlbumArt_{GUID}_Large. jpg
- Folder.jpg
Those images are the album art. You could delete these files, and your mp3 files will show the album art is missing or unknown.
FAQss
Q: Why does the album art not show up after I added it?
A: If the album art you added is not appearing, try restarting your music player app or rescan your music library to refresh the metadata. Also check that the image file type (e.g. JPG, PNG) is supported.
Q: The album art I added is very low quality/blurry. How can I fix this?
A: For best results, use album art images that are at least 300×300 pixels. Lower-resolution images will look pixelated when resized to fit the album art thumbnail. Replacing the low-quality images with higher-resolution versions should fix this issue.
Q: The album art changes keep reverting back after I edited them. Why?
A: Some music apps will overwrite your custom album art if they can automatically fetch artwork online. Turn off the auto-update artwork setting in your player app’s preferences.
Q: I want to add the same album cover to multiple songs. Is there an easy way?
A: On Windows, you can right-click multiple selected MP3 files, choose Properties > Details > Artwork tab, and add one image to apply it to all.
Q: How do I remove the incorrect album art that was added?
A: You can delete the artwork file associated with the MP3 as outlined in the article. Then refresh your music library to remove the artwork from view.
Q: I added album art, but it doesn’t show on my Android/iOS device. Help?
A: Try re-syncing the files or re-transferring the MP3s manually after adding album art. Check they are not being overwritten by auto-updates on the mobile device as well.
Summary
Adding album art to your MP3 music collection can greatly improve its appearance and organization. Fortunately, with the right tools, it’s easy to add album covers to MP3 files on Windows, Mac, Android, and online.
On Windows, you can use music apps like Groove Music, Windows Media Player, or VLC Media Player to add album artwork and update the metadata. Mac users can add custom album art within iTunes or also use VLC. For Android devices, a dedicated app like Album Art Grabber provides an easy way to find and add album covers directly on your phone.
Online solutions like GetAlbumArt allow adding album art without downloading any additional software. To manually edit metadata, you simply drag and drop MP3 files onto the website, then assign a cover image from your computer.
No matter which platform or method you use, resizing your images to at least 300×300 pixels will ensure the album art looks sharp on your music player. Turning off any auto-update metadata features prevents your new artwork from being overridden.
With so many choices, you can feel confident finding a simple process to finally add album covers to your MP3 collection. Your digital music can now match the visual presentation of your old CDs or vinyl albums. Just a few clicks gives you well-organized and great-looking music files to enjoy.
8 Responses
Thanks for the above info. I have two questions though…
How do get all the mp3s that I want to add my art to in the groove player?
And, how do I make the art show when I play the mp3 with other music players?
1. You could add an album cover to each by using the ID3 tag editing feature.
2. The music will show the album cover automatically while you play a song.
I need to add album art to existing mp3 songs in my android music player. How do I do that?
You could do that by using the ID3 tag editing feature. For more details, please check the user manual page.
Neither WMP nor VLC works. Total waste of time.
Could you send me the song files? maybe I could check it out for you.
With VLC, you need to save the metadata after you change it. The “save metadata” box does not pop-up by itself, you must make another change to the metadata, for example, go to “Comments” and hit the space-bar. –Gary
You CAN manually add artwork in Windows Media Player.
To do this:
1. COPY image to use as artwork
2. right-click album in WMP -> “paste album art”
3. done.
Notice that you need to have copied your image first (so that it is in your clipboard), only then that option shows up.