Cover Art and FLAC padding removal

[qbic]

I noticed that resizing the cover art of FLAC tracks has not been working properly for some time.

For example, if I have an album with a high-resolution cover that is, let's say 1MB in size. And I try to resize it to something more suitable like 500x500, nothing changes in terms of file size of the track/album. So in the end I end up with a track that weighs the same as before the resize of the cover.

If I import the same track or album afterwards to Aimp's tag editor and try doing the same thing over again, I end up with the expected results and the track weighs less.

This is the case with any FLAC file while with mp3 everything appears to be working fine.

[LyricsLover]

That is the expected behaviour.

FLAC does not reduce its filesize automatically. This is also called "padding". The once used space remains reserved, until you give Mp3tag the command to reduce it.

[ohrenkino]

AFAIK since V3.24 the padding in FLAC files is set automatically:

Mp3tag - the universal Tag Editor - History of changes

[2024-01-23] CHG: optimization function for FLAC files now preserves a small padding block to increase performance for possible tag modifications. (#60372)
and as @LyricsLover wrote:
[2024-01-18] NEW: added optimization function to remove padding from FLAC files to Utils submenu in right-click context menu. (#60372)

So, which version are you using?

[LyricsLover]

There is a new right-click "Utils" called "Optimize FLAC".

This feature was introduced in Mp3tag v3.23e.

[qbic]

Thanks everyone for your input. I'm using v3.25 at the moment. I wasn't aware of that Optimize FLAC option. I just tried it out, and it appears to be working fine.

Any way to apply this automatically when the tag is saved?

[ohrenkino]

Not AFAIK.
See this thread for possible reasons.

Re: Adding native FLAC padding column and removal

A long time ago, two years in fact, I created this thread: I had asked for something to be added in MP3tag: to be able to see and remove padding from FLAC files natively within MP3tag. As you know, adding a cover art to FLAC files creates the necessary space within the file to accomodate it. However, what you may not know, removing the cover art does NOT remove the extra space that the cover art needed. You need to use metaflac.exe to sanitize the tags. So, I would like to ask Florian where …

It may be an idea to add a column for the actual padding or filter for files that have to much of it and then treat only those.

[qbic]

Thanks for pointing me to this thread. It would be great if this option could be implemented as an action, but it looks like that's not possible at the moment.

[LyricsLover]

What would be the advantage using an Action over the existing Utils context menu or a metaflac.exe Tools-Entry?

[qbic]

I already use Actions regularly for some repetitive tasks. Quite a few actions actually that I keep in a group and call with a single click, well two. One of those actions is cover resize. If this was possible, I would also add this one so tracks can be optimized at the end.