# auto-tagging based on folder structure
**URL:** https://community.mp3tag.de/t/auto-tagging-based-on-folder-structure/15061
**Category:** General Discussion
**Created:** [September 26, 2013, 2:35pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/auto-tagging-based-on-folder-structure/15061 "2013-09-26T14:35:55Z")
**Posts on this page:** 5
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@nofish](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/nofish)
#### Post date: [September 26, 2013, 2:35pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/auto-tagging-based-on-folder-structure/15061/1 "2013-09-26T14:35:55Z")
Hello to all, first time poster here...
I have my music collection organized in folders on my computer and actually I'm fine with this.
But recently I bought a player that can't play folders content (it stops after playing a single song), so I have to rely on mp3-tagging.
My music collection is organized like this:
D:\Music(genre)(artist)(album)
What I'm trying to do now is generate album tags automatically from folder names which would look like this.
genre - artist - album, ie resembling the structure on the computer as closely as possible.
Is this possible with mp3tag ?
I've searched older similar threads about this topic but none led to success so far.
---
### Author:  [@ohrenkino](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/ohrenkino)
#### Post date: [September 26, 2013, 4:05pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/auto-tagging-based-on-folder-structure/15061/2 "2013-09-26T16:05:51Z")
> [@nofish](#):
>
> Hello to all, first time poster here...
>
> I have my music collection organized in folders on my computer and actually I'm fine with this.
> But recently I bought a player that can't play folders content (it stops after playing a single song), so I have to rely on mp3-tagging.
>
> My music collection is organized like this:
>
> D:\Music(genre)(artist)(album)
> ...
Load the files.
Fill the tags first, then use the structured information to compose the fields as you like.
For that select all the files.
Then use the function
Convert\>Filename - Tag
Enter
%genre%\%artist%\%album%
Now look if the player can cope with the filled tags.
If not, create an action of the type "format value" for ALBUM
Enter as format string:
%genre% \_ %artist% \_ %album%
I would recommend to use the underscore as separator as this is hardly ever used as character in normal titles - whereas the hyphen is. So if you find that you want to get rid of the genre and artist data in the album again, it is easier to separate.
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### Author:  [@nofish](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/nofish)
#### Post date: [September 26, 2013, 4:40pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/auto-tagging-based-on-folder-structure/15061/3 "2013-09-26T16:40:40Z")
Hi,
thanks for your reply.
However, I think this is not quite what I'm looking for, because this would mean manually filling A LOT of tags first. ☹
What I'm looking for is basically a "copy path to album tag" function with formatting option.
Please see attached example from Mp3tag.
As a result I'd like to have "Hip Hop\Freestyle Fam - Lyrical Onslaught (Mixtape)" (taken from the filepath) in the album tag.
Possible ?l
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### Author:  [@ohrenkino](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/ohrenkino)
#### Post date: [September 26, 2013, 4:53pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/auto-tagging-based-on-folder-structure/15061/4 "2013-09-26T16:53:33Z")
What a shame that you do not get aquaninted with the functions first.
The convert-function with my given mask would releive you from entering anything manually except the mask ... but as you do not want to it ...
Shame - that would have gotten you 2 things at once: filled tags and structured data.
and with this structured data you could do almost anything you like - only easier.
If you use the Convert\>Filename - Tag with a maks like
%album%\%album%\%album%
you would get all 3 parts of the path into the album field - as an unstructured string though, with no slashes or backslashes in it.
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### Author:  [@nofish](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/nofish)
#### Post date: [September 27, 2013, 8:38am UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/auto-tagging-based-on-folder-structure/15061/5 "2013-09-27T08:38:06Z")
Sorry, didn't want to come across as unwillingly to try something. 🙂
It was just that my head was quite confused yesterday because I already tried various things before posting and so I got your previous post wrong and took it as I'd have to fill in the tags manually.
It's clear though on re-reading today, my fault...
And you're right, it did indeed bring my in the right direction.
I tried "%album%\%album%\%album%" and it's actually fine as I don't care about formatting too much and now I also understand the tag formatting thing better.
However, just to be honest, meanwhile I found another tagging program where I somehow found this easier to do (easier to wrap my little brain around 😃) so everything is fine now.
Thanks a lot for your help.