The Music Library Management blog

I'm Dan, the founder and programmer of bliss. I write bliss to solve my own problems with my digital music collection.

Subscribe in a reader

Read the latest news, as it's posted.

Three advantages of embedding album art

August 12, 2010 in album art

What are the advantages of embedding album art? Album art should, generally, be embedded in your mp3s. There are other ways of storing album covers in your digital music collection but embedding is the best way. Here's why:

1. Save time. The album artwork is embedded in your mp3, so wherever your music goes, so does your art. You don't have to remember to copy separate image files
2. More accurate. The album art is embedded into the music so the two have a strong relationship. Alternatives, like storing a separate image file in the same album directory, is looser and more prone to error.
3. Safer. The album art cannot be mistaken as the art for another record because the relationship between embedded art and the music is strong. If you store an image of an album cover in a directory containing many albums, you have to resort to filenames to link the art to the correct album. Some players may pickup the wrong art.

There are disadvantages. Embedded art takes up more storage space because the art is duplicated. The duplication itself needs management. Generally, given storage space is cheap, I aim for convenience and opt to embed art.

Thanks to Intangible Arts for the image above.

More like this:

• The case of the disappearing Folder.jpg files
• What's the best album art size?
• HD album covers - find, install and upgrade automatically
• Windows Media Player album art... blissed!