# Deleting everything up to a character (REGEXP)
**URL:** https://community.mp3tag.de/t/deleting-everything-up-to-a-character-regexp/4496
**Category:** Support
**Created:** [February 20, 2007, 7:22pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/deleting-everything-up-to-a-character-regexp/4496 "2007-02-20T19:22:58Z")
**Posts on this page:** 6
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@dizwell](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/dizwell)
#### Post date: [February 20, 2007, 7:22pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/deleting-everything-up-to-a-character-regexp/4496/1 "2007-02-20T19:22:58Z")
This is probably very basic, but I saw nothing in the FAQ about it, and I didn't have any luck with constructing a search string that produced results.
If I have a title of **Recit: Bellissima Romilda (Serse)**, what is the regular expression to remove everything up to the first colon-plus-space?
And what would the regular expression be to remove everything from the last-space-plus-open-bracket to the end of the string?
I am almost certain it would be possible to construct a single regular expression to do both things, but I think seeing two separate ones would help me learn the principles better.
I want to end up with a title of just **Bellissima Romilda** , in other words.
---
### Author:  [@dizwell](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/dizwell)
#### Post date: [February 21, 2007, 3:40am UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/deleting-everything-up-to-a-character-regexp/4496/2 "2007-02-21T03:40:45Z")
Replying to your own posts is probably the first sign of madness, but I've managed to achieve the result I was after, despite not having a clue what I was doing! So if anyone else is ever minded to convert a track such as:
**Recit: Some text (sung by Elvira)**
...to plain old
**Some text**
...then the answer was to create two actions.
First, the colon stripper: the action type is 'Format value', the field is TITLE, the format string is
**$regexp(%TITLE%,^(._)(: )(._)$,$3)**
Second, the bracket stripper: Action type is Replace with regular expression, the field is TITLE, the regular expression is
**^(._)(()(._)$**
...and the Replace matches with is $1.
I figure the first example could be created as a 'replace with regular expression', too, in the same fashion as the second example. Or vice versa, I suppose. But this worked for me, so I'm not messing with it!
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### Author:  [@studley](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/studley)
#### Post date: [March 25, 2007, 6:57pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/deleting-everything-up-to-a-character-regexp/4496/3 "2007-03-25T18:57:47Z")
> [@Dizwell](#):
>
> Second, the bracket stripper: Action type is Replace with regular expression, the field is TITLE, the regular expression is
>
> **^(._)(()(._)$**
>
> ...and the Replace matches with is $1.
I'm looking for something similar and was wondering if someone could help. I want to strip anything within brackets including: , { } , and ( ). Additionally, there could be multiple brackets within the filename.
Thanks,
David
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### Author:  [@DetlevD](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/DetlevD)
#### Post date: [March 26, 2007, 6:20am UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/deleting-everything-up-to-a-character-regexp/4496/4 "2007-03-26T06:20:20Z")
> [@studley](#):
>
> I'm looking for something similar and was wondering if someone could help. I want to strip anything within brackets including: , { } , and ( ). Additionally, there could be multiple brackets within the filename.Thanks,David
I think you need no similar regexp function but a simple replace function.
Create an action group and in there a series of replace actions.
Each action should replace one of your desired characters to remove, e.g. replace '**[**' (open bracket character) by a ' ' (space character), and so on.
If double spaces would be created in this process add a last action to replace double spaces by one space.
DD.20070326.1020
---
### Author:  [@mainyak](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/mainyak)
#### Post date: [March 26, 2007, 7:03am UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/deleting-everything-up-to-a-character-regexp/4496/5 "2007-03-26T07:03:30Z")
> [@Dizwell](#):
>
> Replying to your own posts is probably the first sign of madness, but I've managed to achieve the result I was after, despite not having a clue what I was doing! So if anyone else is ever minded to convert a track such as:
>
> **Recit: Some text (sung by Elvira)**
>
> ...to plain old
>
> **Some text**
>
> ...then the answer was to create two actions.
>
> First, the colon stripper: the action type is 'Format value', the field is TITLE, the format string is
>
> **$regexp(%TITLE%,^(._)(: )(._)$,$3)**
>
> Second, the bracket stripper: Action type is Replace with regular expression, the field is TITLE, the regular expression is
>
> **^(._)(()(._)$**
>
> ...and the Replace matches with is $1.
>
> I figure the first example could be created as a 'replace with regular expression', too, in the same fashion as the second example. Or vice versa, I suppose. But this worked for me, so I'm not messing with it!
Although you did manage to get it working, I will still reply with another way, which would probaly be faster if you are doing a lot of files.
You could replace everything with one "replace with regular expression":
**Field:** TITLE
**Regular Expression:** ^.+?:\ (.+?)\ (.+)$
**Replace With:** $1
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### Author:  [@system](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/system)
#### Post date: [February 9, 2026, 12:20pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/deleting-everything-up-to-a-character-regexp/4496/6 "2026-02-09T12:20:10Z")