# Can't replace "\\\\" with anything

**URL:** <https://community.mp3tag.de/t/cant-replace-with-anything/54126>\
**Category:** Support\
**Created:** [August 19, 2021, 11:01pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/cant-replace-with-anything/54126 "2021-08-19T23:01:32Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![BillDoor](https://community.mp3tag.de/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/b/a698b9/32.png) [@BillDoor](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/BillDoor)\
**Post date:** [August 19, 2021, 11:01pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/cant-replace-with-anything/54126/1 "2021-08-19T23:01:32Z")

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On a lot of my files I have "\" as an artist separator in the artist and/or composer field (ex. Hans Zimmer\James Newton Howard) and I want to replace all instances of it with ", " but no matter what I try it doesn't work, I'm able to replace everything BUT those 2 characters.

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**Author:** ![poster](https://community.mp3tag.de/user_avatar/community.mp3tag.de/poster/32/4881_2.png) [@poster](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/poster)\
**Post date:** [August 20, 2021, 5:00am UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/cant-replace-with-anything/54126/2 "2021-08-20T05:00:33Z")

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You have to format `\\` with CTRL-e (\</\>) or otherwise the forum software eats one of your backslashes.

`\\` in MP3Tag is a separator for multivalue fields. You should see 2 artist-fields in the extended tag-view (ALT-t).

If you want to combine them with a "," as separator you can take an action of the type "Merge duplicate fields".  
Field: ARTIST  
Separator: ,

The slash can easily be replaced with an action of the typ "Replace".  
Field: COMPOSER  
Original: /  
Replace with: ,

For this you could also use the converter Tag-\>Tag  
Field: COMPOSER  
Format string: $replace(%composer%,/,',')

wihich gives you an immediate preview of your format string.

But I wonder what you want to do if you have artist with a comma in the name itself, i.e. "Earth, Wind & Fire".

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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:** [September 19, 2021, 5:00am UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/cant-replace-with-anything/54126/3 "2021-09-19T05:00:53Z")

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