# How does album art get recognized?
**URL:** https://community.mp3tag.de/t/how-does-album-art-get-recognized/69611
**Category:** Support
**Created:** [September 3, 2025, 9:49am UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/how-does-album-art-get-recognized/69611 "2025-09-03T09:49:22Z")
**Posts on this page:** 8
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@kagato1980](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/kagato1980)
#### Post date: [September 3, 2025, 9:49am UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/how-does-album-art-get-recognized/69611/1 "2025-09-03T09:49:23Z")
Sometimes album art is shown in Winamp / Android music player, if it’s embedded in the mp3 or if there’s a image in the folder.
Is there a way to ONLY show album art in mp3tag if there’s actual art embedded in the file? Because I don’t want to keep a seperate image in the folder, which is going to picked up by the image scanner of android, cluttering up my image albums.
Right now if I click on a song in mp3 tag, it will show a art preview, but I only know if it’s from the separate image in a folder if I first delete that image and then reload the mp3. But then if the image is missing, I have to restore the folder image and then embed it. Very cumbersome.
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### Author:  [@ohrenkino](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/ohrenkino)
#### Post date: [September 3, 2025, 9:54am UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/how-does-album-art-get-recognized/69611/2 "2025-09-03T09:54:03Z")
You can filter for files without embedded images with
`%_covers% MISSING`
or look for files that have embedded images with
`%_covers% PRESENT`
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### Author:  [@kagato1980](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/kagato1980)
#### Post date: [September 3, 2025, 9:57am UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/how-does-album-art-get-recognized/69611/3 "2025-09-03T09:57:30Z")
> [@ohrenkino](#):
>
> %\_covers% MISSING
Thanks, never knew about this filter function
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### Author:  [@ohrenkino](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/ohrenkino)
#### Post date: [September 3, 2025, 9:58am UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/how-does-album-art-get-recognized/69611/4 "2025-09-03T09:58:42Z")
There is more to manage one's collection with the help of the filter, see the documentation:
> **[Filter and Search – Mp3tag Documentation](https://docs.mp3tag.de/filter/)**
>
> Documentation on Filter and Search and keywords to form complex filter expressions. Mp3tag is the universal Tag Editor.
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### Author:  [@LyricsLover](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/LyricsLover)
#### Post date: [September 3, 2025, 10:01am UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/how-does-album-art-get-recognized/69611/5 "2025-09-03T10:01:18Z")
> [@kagato1980](#):
>
> Right now if I click on a song in mp3 tag, it will show a art preview, but I only know if it’s from the separate image in a folder if I first delete that image and then reload the mp3.
There is an Option - Tags: "Don't display first image from file directory as cover art"
From the [documentation](https://docs.mp3tag.de/customization/options/tags/#dont-display-first-image-from-file-directory-as-cover-art):
> ### Don’t display first image from file directory as cover art
>
> Mp3tag can display the first image from the file’s directory as cover art in the Tag Panel if the file has no embedded cover art. You can restrict cover display to embedded cover art with this option.
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### Author:  [@poster](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/poster)
#### Post date: [September 3, 2025, 12:39pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/how-does-album-art-get-recognized/69611/6 "2025-09-03T12:39:39Z")
> [@LyricsLover](#):
>
> There is an Option - Tags: "Don't display first image from file directory as cover art"
If this option is unchecked and Mp3tag shows a picture in the folder you also can recognize this. If the picture is embedded in the file Mp3tag will show image/jpeg or image/png aside the displayed picture. If the displayed picture is a file from the folder it will show the name of the file.
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### Author:  [@LyricsLover](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/LyricsLover)
#### Post date: [September 3, 2025, 1:10pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/how-does-album-art-get-recognized/69611/7 "2025-09-03T13:10:25Z")
Yep, you are right.
An external cover picture would look like this (with deactivated option):
The same cover picture embedded as metadata would look like this:
As you say, the main differences are the visible external file name for the external cover picture, and the visible cover type ('Front Cover') for the embedded case.
The dimension and the picture size is visible in both cases.
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### Author:  [@system](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/system)
#### Post date: [October 3, 2025, 1:10pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/how-does-album-art-get-recognized/69611/8 "2025-10-03T13:10:38Z")
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