# Help to create an action to remove all advertising web-links **URL:** \ **Category:** Support\ **Created:** [May 31, 2012, 10:32am UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/help-to-create-an-action-to-remove-all-advertising-web-links/13500 "2012-05-31T10:32:02Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 19\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![ozzyk](https://community.mp3tag.de/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/o/58f4c7/32.png) [@ozzyk](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/ozzyk)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2012, 10:32am UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/help-to-create-an-action-to-remove-all-advertising-web-links/13500/1 "2012-05-31T10:32:02Z")
Hello, I am trying to remove all http, www, .com/.org/.net etc from all of my tracks. I have tried to create an action with wildcards but I think I am missing some information. ![:rolleyes:](https://community.mp3tag.de/uploads/default/original/1X/3a79e8b0b7d169b30216785521d7c6f4f895c421.gif ":rolleyes:") The addresses located randomly int the ID tag fields. So I tried Replace with wildcards but couldn't succeeded. Any help appreciated. Regards ---
**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:** [May 31, 2012, 11:05am UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/help-to-create-an-action-to-remove-all-advertising-web-links/13500/2 "2012-05-31T11:05:41Z")
There is no action for replacing with wildcards. The only one that comes close is "Replace with regular expressions" ... Load all the files that you want to modify into mp3tag. If you are not sure in which field you find the unwanted string you could first of all apply a filter. Press F3 to show the filter input box at the bottom at the window. Enter www into as filter. This filter looks at all fields whether it contains www. If you want to narrow it down to ID then enter ID HAS www Select all the files (or just one if you want to be careful) Press Alt-T to open the extended tags dialogue. Check if ID contains www. Select the field and press the delete button to remove it completely. If you select more than one file and the contents of ID is not the same you will see as default entry. If you want to get rid of the field anyway, delete it. For a replace action you would need to analyze more deeply what comes before and after the URL. ---
**Author:** ![ozzyk](https://community.mp3tag.de/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/o/58f4c7/32.png) [@ozzyk](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/ozzyk)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2012, 11:21am UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/help-to-create-an-action-to-remove-all-advertising-web-links/13500/3 "2012-05-31T11:21:01Z")
> [@ohrenkino](#): > > There is no action for replacing with wildcards. The only one that comes close is "Replace with regular expressions" ... > Load all the files that you want to modify into mp3tag. > > If you are not sure in which field you find the unwanted string you could first of all apply a filter. > Press F3 to show the filter input box at the bottom at the window. > Enter > www > into as filter. > This filter looks at all fields whether it contains www. > If you want to narrow it down to ID then enter > ID HAS www > > Select all the files (or just one if you want to be careful) > Press Alt-T to open the extended tags dialogue. > Check if ID contains www. > Select the field and press the delete button to remove it completely. > If you select more than one file and the contents of ID is not the same you will see as default entry. If you want to get rid of the field anyway, delete it. > > For a replace action you would need to analyze more deeply what comes before and after the URL. I am trying to apply couple of variants for replace expression where it finds http:// and another one with www. I am trying the commands for RE. I did this "^http://|\b.com/" but now I need to find out how to remove the remaining. This command did [http://blah.blogspot.com/](http://blah.blogspot.com/) to blah.blogspot I think I may find some solution to ease up my work. Thanks. Regards ---
**Author:** ![pone](https://community.mp3tag.de/user_avatar/community.mp3tag.de/pone/32/272_2.png) [@pone](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/pone)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2012, 11:29am UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/help-to-create-an-action-to-remove-all-advertising-web-links/13500/4 "2012-05-31T11:29:44Z")
> [@ozzyk](#): > > I am trying to apply couple of variants for replace expression where it finds http:// and another one with www. I am trying the commands for RE. I did this "^http://|\b.com/" but now I need to find out how to remove the remaining. This command did [http://blah.blogspot.com/](http://blah.blogspot.com/) to blah.blogspot I think I may find some solution to ease up my work. Thanks. > > Regards You are not mentioning if the fields have only the URL or if the URL stands after proper tag values. Are the URLs ending after .com, .org, etc, or are those longer URLs? Maybe that helps: Action: Replace with regular expression Field: \_ALL Regular Expression: (http://|www.).+?.(com|org|net) Replace Matches with: ---
**Author:** ![ozzyk](https://community.mp3tag.de/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/o/58f4c7/32.png) [@ozzyk](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/ozzyk)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2012, 11:30am UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/help-to-create-an-action-to-remove-all-advertising-web-links/13500/5 "2012-05-31T11:30:13Z")
ok did it ^http://.\*|\[b.com/](http://b.com/) this one removes on all fields any http related info I think replacing http with www and com with net org etc will do the trick. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![DetlevD](https://community.mp3tag.de/user_avatar/community.mp3tag.de/detlevd/32/123_2.png) [@DetlevD](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/DetlevD)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2012, 11:52am UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/help-to-create-an-action-to-remove-all-advertising-web-links/13500/6 "2012-05-31T11:52:56Z")
> [@ozzyk](#): > > Hello, I am trying to remove all http, www, .com/.org/.net etc from all of my tracks. ... As a starting point you can learn from there ... [http://regexlib.com/REDetails.aspx?regexp\_id=96](http://regexlib.com/REDetails.aspx?regexp_id=96) [http://regexlib.com/REDetails.aspx?regexp\_id=1051](http://regexlib.com/REDetails.aspx?regexp_id=1051) DD.20120531.1553.CEST ---
**Author:** ![stevehero](https://community.mp3tag.de/user_avatar/community.mp3tag.de/stevehero/32/337_2.png) [@stevehero](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/stevehero)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2012, 11:56am UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/help-to-create-an-action-to-remove-all-advertising-web-links/13500/7 "2012-05-31T11:56:33Z")
> [@ozzyk](#): > > ok did it ^http://.\*|\b.com/ this one removes on all fields any http related info I think replacing http with www and com with net org etc will do the trick. 🙂 Here's the one I use \*NOTE I created separate ones for TITLE, ALBUM, ARTIST etc. DO NOT use on \_TAG beacause it will strip your WWW field. Its quite tricky looking but it works for most urls I can think off 🙂 _It replaces:_ DUMMY [www.youtube.com](http://www.youtube.com) DUMMY www.youtube.ie _With:_ DUMMY DUMMY _It replaces:_ DUMMY [www.youtube.com](http://www.youtube.com) _With:_ DUMMY _Action type:_ **Replace with regular expression** _Field:_ **TITLE** _Regular expression:_ `(?i)\s*(http:|\[Www\.|\(www\.|www\.)[^\s]+\.([a-z]{1,4}|[a-z]{1,4}\))(\s*)` _Replace matches with:_ `$3` [] case-sensitive comparison ---
**Author:** ![ozzyk](https://community.mp3tag.de/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/o/58f4c7/32.png) [@ozzyk](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/ozzyk)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2012, 12:16pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/help-to-create-an-action-to-remove-all-advertising-web-links/13500/8 "2012-05-31T12:16:07Z")
> [@stevehero](#): > > Here's the one I use \*NOTE I created separate ones for TITLE, ALBUM, ARTIST etc. DO NOT use on \_TAG beacause it will strip your WWW field. > > Its quite tricky looking but it works for most urls I can think off 🙂 > > _It replaces:_ > DUMMY [www.youtube.com](http://www.youtube.com) DUMMY www.youtube.ie > > _With:_ > DUMMY DUMMY > > _It replaces:_ > DUMMY [www.youtube.com](http://www.youtube.com) > > _With:_ > DUMMY > > _Action type:_ **Replace with regular expression** > _Field:_ **TITLE** > _Regular expression:_ **(?i)\s\*(http:|[Www.|(www.|www.)[^\s]+.([a-z]{1,4}|[a-z]{1,4}))(\s\*)** > _Replace matches with:_ **$3** > > [] case-sensitive comparison wow ![:w00t:](https://community.mp3tag.de/uploads/default/original/1X/cb01eca72fe9339ff6f3ec9f1e3c5fe002be0f0a.gif ":w00t:") that is a nice string of commands. Thanks a lot everybody for your help. I was previously doing replace only with the url addresses it was consuming too much time but this is very nice. Thanks again. ---
**Author:** ![stevehero](https://community.mp3tag.de/user_avatar/community.mp3tag.de/stevehero/32/337_2.png) [@stevehero](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/stevehero)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2012, 1:24pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/help-to-create-an-action-to-remove-all-advertising-web-links/13500/9 "2012-05-31T13:24:30Z")
> [@ozzyk](#): > > wow ![:w00t:](https://community.mp3tag.de/uploads/default/original/1X/cb01eca72fe9339ff6f3ec9f1e3c5fe002be0f0a.gif ":w00t:") that is a nice string of commands. Thanks a lot everybody for your help. > I was previously doing replace only with the url addresses it was consuming too much time but this is very nice. Thanks again. I've actually took time to improve it slightly. It has a funtion to turn case sensitivity on and off at certain parts to make sure it doesn't pick up the part [www.youtube.com](http://www.youtube.com) **D** ance in particular. The regexp stops when it see's a capital letter such as ' **D**' in this case. _Changes:_ DUMMY [www.youtube.com](http://www.youtube.com) DUMMY www.youtube.ie DUMMY _To:_ DUMMY DUMMY DUMMY _Changes:_ DUMMYwww.youtube.comDUMMYwww.youtube.ieDUMMY _To:_ DUMMY DUMMY DUMMY _Changes:_ DUMMY [www.youtube.com](http://www.youtube.com) _To:_ DUMMY\_ (\_ represents a whitespace character) _Changes:_ [www.youtube.com](http://www.youtube.com) DUMMY _To:_ _DUMMY (_ represents a whitespace character) **SO HERE IS THE IMPROVED VERSION** _Action type:_ **Replace with regular expression** _Field:_ **TITLE** _Regular expression:_ **(?i)(\s\*)(\s\*|[|()(http:|www.|www.)(?-i)[^\sA-Z]+.([a-z]{1,4})(\s\*|[|()(\s\*)** _Replace matches with: \_ **(Again \_ represents one whitespace character)**_ [] case-sensitive comparison If you find you have unwanted trailing/leading spaces which cannot be avoided using this action in some cases then place the below action at the very bottom of your action groups so it runs last on the list. _Action type:_ **Replace with regular expression** _Field:_ **\_TAG** _Regular expression:_ **\[1\]+|[\s\t]+$** _Replace matches with:_ [] case-sensitive comparison OR any double spaces, which my URL regexp one does not leave but it might be handy for your other needs. Again **DO NOT** use this on \_TAG as it will get rid of any mutli-lines you may have in UNSYNCEDLYRICS and so on. _Action type:_ **Replace with regular expression** _Field:_ **TITLE** _Regular expression:_ **\s{2,}** _Replace matches with:_ [] case-sensitive comparison Here is an example action \>\>\>\>\>\> [\_Script\_Test\_TEST.mta](https://community.mp3tag.de/uploads/default/original/2X/a/a4c6a92136d3c3ce200867f407caa63fbcce3def.mta) (232 Bytes) [\_Script\_Test\_TEST.mta](https://community.mp3tag.de/uploads/default/original/2X/a/a4c6a92136d3c3ce200867f407caa63fbcce3def.mta) (232 Bytes) * * * 1. \s\t ---
**Author:** ![ozzyk](https://community.mp3tag.de/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/o/58f4c7/32.png) [@ozzyk](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/ozzyk)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2012, 7:29pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/help-to-create-an-action-to-remove-all-advertising-web-links/13500/10 "2012-05-31T19:29:02Z")
Very impressive 🕶 I will give it a try thank you again 😃 ---
**Author:** ![DavidBergeron](https://community.mp3tag.de/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/d/48db29/32.png) [@DavidBergeron](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/DavidBergeron)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2012, 2:09pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/help-to-create-an-action-to-remove-all-advertising-web-links/13500/11 "2012-06-03T14:09:42Z")
> [@stevehero](#): > > I've actually took time to improve it slightly. It has a funtion to turn case sensitivity on and off at certain parts to make sure it doesn't pick up the part [www.youtube.com](http://www.youtube.com) **D** ance in particular. The regexp stops when it see's a capital letter such as ' **D**' in this case. > > _Changes:_ > DUMMY [www.youtube.com](http://www.youtube.com) DUMMY www.youtube.ie DUMMY > _To:_ > DUMMY DUMMY DUMMY > > _Changes:_ > DUMMYwww.youtube.comDUMMYwww.youtube.ieDUMMY > _To:_ > DUMMY DUMMY DUMMY > > _Changes:_ > DUMMY [www.youtube.com](http://www.youtube.com) > _To:_ > DUMMY\_ (\_ represents a whitespace character) > > _Changes:_ > [www.youtube.com](http://www.youtube.com) DUMMY > _To:_ > _DUMMY (_ represents a whitespace character) > > **SO HERE IS THE IMPROVED VERSION** > > _Action type:_ [b][color="green"] Thanks for the code! I was just wondering if you could edit the code the to include websites like [test.com](http://test.com) and [www.test.com/test](http://www.test.com/test) Edit: [www.Test.com](http://www.Test.com) doesn't get deleted and ([www.test.com](http://www.test.com)) leaves behind ")" ☹ How would you fix it? ---
**Author:** ![stevehero](https://community.mp3tag.de/user_avatar/community.mp3tag.de/stevehero/32/337_2.png) [@stevehero](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/stevehero)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2012, 3:54pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/help-to-create-an-action-to-remove-all-advertising-web-links/13500/12 "2012-06-03T15:54:15Z")
> [@DavidBergeron](#): > > Thanks for the code! I was just wondering if you could edit the code the to include websites like [test.com](http://test.com) and [www.test.com/test](http://www.test.com/test) > > Edit: [www.Test.com](http://www.Test.com) doesn't get deleted and ([www.test.com](http://www.test.com)) leaves behind ")" ☹ How would you fix it? There was a slight fault with the regexp used which is now fixed: I've placed the fixed regexp along with the regexp for removing unwanted whitespaces into a 'Format' action to fix all in one go. Action #1: _Action type:_ **Format value** _Field:_ **TITLE** _Formatstring:_ **$regexp($regexp($regexp(%title%,'(?i)(\s\*)(\s\*|[|()(http:|www.|www.)(?-i)[^\sA-Z]+.([a-z]{1,4})(\s\*)[^\sA-Z]+(\s\*)', ),'\[1\]+|[\s\t]+$',),'\s{2,}', )** **_This changes:_** [Dummywww.test.com](http://Dummywww.test.com) Dummywww.test.comDummy [www.test.com/testDummy](http://www.test.com/testDummy) [www.test.com/test/Dummy](http://www.test.com/test/Dummy) [www.test.com/test/test/testDummy](http://www.test.com/test/test/testDummy) **_To:_** Dummy Dummy Dummy Dummy Dummy Dummy **_& Changes:_** DUMMY [www.youtube.com](http://www.youtube.com) DUMMY www.youtube.ie DUMMY DUMMYwww.youtube.comDUMMYwww.youtube.ieDUMMY DUMMY [www.youtube.com](http://www.youtube.com) [www.youtube.com](http://www.youtube.com) DUMMY DUMMY [www.youtube.com](http://www.youtube.com) ([www.youtube.com](http://www.youtube.com))DUMMY DUMMY[[www.youtube.com](http://www.youtube.com)]DUMMY **_To:_** DUMMY DUMMY DUMMY DUMMY DUMMY DUMMY DUMMY DUMMY DUMMY DUMMY DUMMY DUMMY Action #2: _Action type:_ **Format value** _Field:_ **TITLE** _Formatstring:_ **$regexp($regexp($regexp(%title%,'(?-i)\s+[^\sA-Z]+.([a-z]{1,4})(]|)|\s\*)(\s\*)', ),'\[2\]+|[\s\t]+$',),'\s{2,}', )** **_Changes:_** Dummy test.comDummy Dummy [test.com](http://test.com) Dummy [Dummytest.com](http://Dummytest.com) Dummy Dummytest.comDummy DUMMYtest.comDummy **_To:_** Dummy Dummy Dummy Dummy [Dummytest.com](http://Dummytest.com) Dummy Dummytest.comDummy DUMMYtest.comDummy Please note that action #2 ignores anything without a space before 'test' Its just for safety. You can however once you run this group action **ATTACHED HERE \>\>\>** [\_Script\_Test\_TEST.mta](https://community.mp3tag.de/uploads/default/original/2X/8/8fc843b8cb1ebdb2acd5d72e94f901041e065ea1.mta) (360 Bytes) Hit F3 and paste _%title% HAS .com_ or any other URL you may have instead OR _%title% MATCHES (?-i).\l_ which will find a '.' followed by a lowercase character. Hope this helps 😉 [\_Script\_Test\_TEST.mta](https://community.mp3tag.de/uploads/default/original/2X/8/8fc843b8cb1ebdb2acd5d72e94f901041e065ea1.mta) (360 Bytes) * * * 1. \s\t 2. \s\t ---
**Author:** ![DavidBergeron](https://community.mp3tag.de/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/d/48db29/32.png) [@DavidBergeron](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/DavidBergeron)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2012, 6:36pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/help-to-create-an-action-to-remove-all-advertising-web-links/13500/13 "2012-06-04T18:36:46Z")
stevehero, Thanks for the help. Can I use the \_All tag with your code? I have websites in every field including track number lol, so it'll take too long if I fill out 2 or 3 codes for each field. P.s. a lot of the websites are [DJWhatever.com](http://DJWhatever.com) so how do you change the code to include it? Thanks, p.s. do you know any good guides to learn regex, I just found out about it. ---
**Author:** ![stevehero](https://community.mp3tag.de/user_avatar/community.mp3tag.de/stevehero/32/337_2.png) [@stevehero](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/stevehero)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2012, 8:47pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/help-to-create-an-action-to-remove-all-advertising-web-links/13500/14 "2012-06-04T20:47:33Z")
Use this but ONLY AFTER you run the first two actions I gave above. Also use the filter as I've described before and run on a dozen or so files at once. **ONLY use this for stubborn '.com's'** _Action type:_ **Format value** _Field:_ **TITLE** _Formatstring:_ **$regexp($regexp($regexp(%title%,'^[^\s]+.([a-z]{1,4})(\s\*)[^\sA-Z]+(\s\*)', ),'^[\s\t]+|[\s\t]+$',),'\s{2,}', )** I bought a program called RegexBuddy because I was eager to learn. (see [http://www.regexbuddy.com/democreate.html)](http://www.regexbuddy.com/democreate.html)) But other resources are: [http://journalxtra.com/webmasterresources/...ick-guide-3436/](http://journalxtra.com/webmasterresources/regular-expressions-a-quick-guide-3436/) [http://www.regular-expressions.info/tutorialcnt.html](http://www.regular-expressions.info/tutorialcnt.html) [http://www.regexpstudio.com/TRegExpr/Help/RegExp\_Syntax.html](http://www.regexpstudio.com/TRegExpr/Help/RegExp_Syntax.html) You are going to have to do this for every tag as Format does not allow \_TAG but that should not be a big task. The only thing you need to change are highlighted **PURPLE** _Action type:_ **Format value** _Field:_ **TITLE** _Formatstring:_ `$regexp($regexp($regexp(%title%,'^[^\s]+\.([a-z]{1,4})(\s*)[^\sA-Z]+(\s*)', ),'^[\s\t]+|[\s\t]+$',),'\s{2,}', )` Just hit the duplicate button to copy the action within a group action and then change that values to the FIELD you want to affect. ---
**Author:** ![Ron\_Mark](https://community.mp3tag.de/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/r/c37758/32.png) [@Ron\_Mark](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/Ron_Mark)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2018, 3:59am UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/help-to-create-an-action-to-remove-all-advertising-web-links/13500/16 "2018-07-30T03:59:44Z")
Just a thought, there has been a lot of talk about removing "advertising" web-links but what if I wish to keep the legitimate ones like the artist bandcamp link but remove any others? Is there a way to exclude these from removal? ---
**Author:** ![ozzyk](https://community.mp3tag.de/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/o/58f4c7/32.png) [@ozzyk](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/ozzyk)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2018, 5:25am UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/help-to-create-an-action-to-remove-all-advertising-web-links/13500/17 "2018-07-30T05:25:45Z")
I agree. The legitimate ones should stay. ---
**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:** [July 30, 2018, 5:38am UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/help-to-create-an-action-to-remove-all-advertising-web-links/13500/18 "2018-07-30T05:38:34Z")
> [@Ron\_Mark](#): > > Is there a way to exclude these from removal? How do you find out it is a legitimate one? ---
**Author:** ![Ron\_Mark](https://community.mp3tag.de/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/r/c37758/32.png) [@Ron\_Mark](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/Ron_Mark)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2018, 11:02pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/help-to-create-an-action-to-remove-all-advertising-web-links/13500/19 "2018-07-30T23:02:35Z")
Personally, I would like to keep any Bandcamp links but am looking for something where I can indicate what ones are to remain...and the remainder can be deleted. ---
**Author:** ![system](https://community.mp3tag.de/uploads/default/original/2X/c/ce7035d426cb755a7916793326d23b465222a407.png) [@system](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/system)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2026, 12:23pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/help-to-create-an-action-to-remove-all-advertising-web-links/13500/20 "2026-02-09T12:23:52Z")