What goes wrong with file names
Download sites and rips leave their marks in file names, and a name may be only a track number, or have no artist, or end with a tail such as "(Official Video)", a downloader's name or a web address. In the 60,902-song library we built the tools on, 5,485 names were ready to tidy.
A consistent pattern such as Artist - Title makes a folder easy to sort, easy to search and easy to check for duplicates, and it also makes a file that does not match the pattern stand out straight away.
How Repair My Music will tidy your names
The Names tool will do this for a whole library.
- It finds names that need tidying. These are names that are only a track number, names with no artist, and leftovers from download sites.
- It suggests a clean name. The artist is taken from the details saved inside the file. Where a name starts with a track number, you can choose to keep it or drop it.
- You approve every change. Nothing is renamed until you say so.
- Every rename can be undone. Press Undo on a song and the old name comes back.
When a song has no name at all
Some songs have no usable name, only "Unknown" or "Track 04". Often you have the same recording elsewhere in your library with a proper name. When the artist is missing or the name is a placeholder, Names listens to the song and looks for a named copy of the same recording in your own library. If it finds one, it suggests that copy's name as "Artist - Title", with no track number.
A match it is less sure of is marked "listen first", so you can play the song before you decide, and the matching happens on your computer and sends nothing over the internet.
How Names compares with Picard and Mp3tag
MusicBrainz Picard and Mp3tag are tag editors that can also rename files, and Picard looks each song up in the MusicBrainz database over the internet.
Names is built for tidying the file names across a big library. It works out a missing name from the details saved in the file, and from a named copy of the same recording in your own library, and it does that on your own computer with no internet needed. It changes file names only, so the tags inside your songs are never touched, and you approve each name, and every rename can be undone.
Facts about the other tools were checked on 12 November 2026. Sources: MusicBrainz Picard introduction; Picard and AcoustID, Picard documentation; Mp3tag, AlternativeTo; Mp3tag, SourceForge; MusicBrainz Picard, LO4D.
Close your DJ software first
Most DJ software remembers a song by its file path. If you rename a file while the software is open, or without telling it, the song can show as missing until the software finds it again. Close your DJ software before you rename, and check how yours handles renamed files before you tidy a large library.
What it will not do yet
- It cannot name a song that has no named copy in your library. Looking songs up in an online music database is planned for later, and it will need the internet and a free key that you register yourself.
- It changes file names only. Writing the artist, title, album, and year into the files is planned for later.
- It runs on Windows first.