# Arrange by bitrate and then delete?

**URL:** https://community.mp3tag.de/t/arrange-by-bitrate-and-then-delete/67980
**Category:** Mac
**Created:** [March 26, 2025, 3:44pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/arrange-by-bitrate-and-then-delete/67980 "2025-03-26T15:44:35Z")
**Posts on this page:** 8
**Page:** 1

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### Author: ![user123456789](https://community.mp3tag.de/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/u/a88e57/32.png) [@user123456789](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/user123456789)
#### Post date: [March 26, 2025, 3:44pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/arrange-by-bitrate-and-then-delete/67980/1 "2025-03-26T15:44:35Z")

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I have been having a clear out of a number of old hard rives and consolidating all my music into one place. This has ended up with an enormous folder of single tracks, downloads, cd rips, vinyl rips, purchases etc. What I want to do, is arrange the music files by bitrate, and delete the very low bitrate ones. I know that in windows you can do this, but it seems that you can't on Mac, so I wondered if it is possible to delete the entire file from within mp3tag? Or even select all the tracks, arrange by bitrate and then just open the lowest bitrate in a wider window, but when I try this, it opens hundreds of finder windows, rather that one with all the tracks for deleting in.

Can this be done? Or can anyone recommend any software to do this? Or maybe there's a better way to sort through the mess, workarounds, whatever? Any help is much appreciated, thanks.

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### Author: ![LyricsLover](https://community.mp3tag.de/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/l/c6cbf5/32.png) [@LyricsLover](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/LyricsLover)
#### Post date: [March 26, 2025, 3:49pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/arrange-by-bitrate-and-then-delete/67980/2 "2025-03-26T15:49:33Z")

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On Windows, just activate the additional Windows File Explorer Column called "Bitrate".  
Show all your music files and then sort descending or ascending by the value in this new bitrate column (click on the column header in Windows File Explorer):

![image](https://community.mp3tag.de/uploads/default/original/3X/8/f/8f4e1e202e5f04b5c56b6d7d91e76796905eee83.png)

If you look for a solution on Mac, I can not help you, sorry.  
(You should categorize your question to #Mac then.)

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### Author: ![ohrenkino](https://community.mp3tag.de/user_avatar/community.mp3tag.de/ohrenkino/32/4843_2.png) [@ohrenkino](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/ohrenkino)
#### Post date: [March 26, 2025, 4:37pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/arrange-by-bitrate-and-then-delete/67980/3 "2025-03-26T16:37:12Z")

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> [@user123456789](#):
>
> but it seems that you can't on Mac

Can't you add a column with the value %\_bitrate% to the file list?

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### Author: ![user123456789](https://community.mp3tag.de/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/u/a88e57/32.png) [@user123456789](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/user123456789)
#### Post date: [March 26, 2025, 5:22pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/arrange-by-bitrate-and-then-delete/67980/4 "2025-03-26T17:22:12Z")

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Thanks for the replies, I'm on MacOS Sequoia 15.3.2. I don't have access to a windows machine at the moment, and the drive is APFS formatted, anyway, unfortunately.

@ohrenkino Do you mean to edit the metadata tag to show the bitrate? Most of the files already have this, but finder does not allow it to be shown, so I am looking for a quick fix, to sort by bitrate and then, delete all under 256 or whatever.

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### Author: ![ohrenkino](https://community.mp3tag.de/user_avatar/community.mp3tag.de/ohrenkino/32/4843_2.png) [@ohrenkino](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/ohrenkino)
#### Post date: [March 26, 2025, 5:23pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/arrange-by-bitrate-and-then-delete/67980/5 "2025-03-26T17:23:50Z")

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> [@user123456789](#):
>
> delete all under 256 or whatever

you should be able to filter for such files in MP3tag  
with  
Filter: %\_bitrate% LESS 256  
Also, it should be possible to customize the file list and add a column that shows the bitrate and sort by it.

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### Author: ![Florian](https://community.mp3tag.de/user_avatar/community.mp3tag.de/florian/32/5759_2.png) [@Florian](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/Florian)
#### Post date: [March 26, 2025, 5:27pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/arrange-by-bitrate-and-then-delete/67980/6 "2025-03-26T17:27:32Z")

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By the way, the Mac version of Mp3tag also has a bitrate column by default.

File deletion is possible by selecting the relevant files and choose **File → Remove** while holding the option key ⌥ down.

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### Author: ![user123456789](https://community.mp3tag.de/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/u/a88e57/32.png) [@user123456789](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/user123456789)
#### Post date: [March 26, 2025, 9:26pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/arrange-by-bitrate-and-then-delete/67980/7 "2025-03-26T21:26:33Z")

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Perfect, that is exactly what I need, thank you!

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### Author: ![system](https://community.mp3tag.de/uploads/default/original/2X/c/ce7035d426cb755a7916793326d23b465222a407.png) [@system](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/system)
#### Post date: [April 25, 2025, 9:27pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/arrange-by-bitrate-and-then-delete/67980/8 "2025-04-25T21:27:23Z")

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