Source
r/linuxquestions•
HyperSpaz

Which music players don't automatically write Metdata?

Hi Linux Questions,

I've switched through a lot of music players & library managers in the past; from Deadbeef, Clementine, Rhythmbox, Guayadeque, Tomahawk, Audacious, and for a while even foobar2000 over WINE.

My personal preferences w.r.t. to the user interface aside, do you people know which players do not mess with the metadata of my files automatically? I found the listen count and rating of Guayadeque very helpful, but it resulted in my files not matching their original version anymore, which was important for me.

I'm getting ready to cycle through again and see what sticks, but this would be a great first exclusion criterium.

Posted Jul 13, 2015, 11:09 AM UTC

78
Sarcism•

Banshee has the option you're searching for. It will happily persist those metadata and don't write them to the actual files if you don't want to.

2
mostlypissed•

VLC and SMPlayer don't, as far as I'm aware. They just play the files without changing them.

1
lainlives•

I am pretty sure Amarok doesn't, but last I checked it brings in a good chunk of KDE stuffs (which some people consider a problem).

1
sandwichsaregood•

MPD doesn't; it stores stuff like that in an external database.

1
ZachsKappler•

Clementine shouldn't mess with metadata unless you tell it to. It prefers a sqlite database for that stuff. Noise from elementary OS uses only a database, but I wouldn't recommend it unless you only own under 500 songs. More than 500 makes it act weird, and it can't handle my 3,000+ song library at all.

1
HyperSpazOP•

That's good to know! I have a new system and am trying it out again. Incidentally, do you you know how to fix Qt applications for high-DPI screens?

1
ZachsKappler•

No clue, sorry.

1
HyperSpazOP•

Was a long shot, I know.

1