# How to remove cover art AND shrink file size?
**URL:** https://community.mp3tag.de/t/how-to-remove-cover-art-and-shrink-file-size/9558
**Category:** Support
**Created:** [December 20, 2009, 2:40am UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/how-to-remove-cover-art-and-shrink-file-size/9558 "2009-12-20T02:40:04Z")
**Posts on this page:** 6
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@hello](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/hello)
#### Post date: [December 20, 2009, 2:40am UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/how-to-remove-cover-art-and-shrink-file-size/9558/1 "2009-12-20T02:40:04Z")
The files in question are flacs. Adding cover art increases file size. Removing cover art doesn't decrease it, then what's the point of removing? ๐
I had to install Mp3Tag because i couldn't make my foobar2k delete cover art at all. That alone shows my capabilities to understand things, so please explain to me as to an idiot, though some things i've already learned from this forum, like, tags are held in a container which reserves some fixed space at the beginning of the file, and if a too large picture is being embedded, more space will be takenโฆ and never given back? At the moment i know one way to shrink files to their state before adding pictures: it's re-encoding them \> WAV \> back. But i could bet there's something simpler.
Thanks.
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### Author:  [@Florian](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/Florian)
#### Post date: [December 20, 2009, 8:16am UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/how-to-remove-cover-art-and-shrink-file-size/9558/2 "2009-12-20T08:16:47Z")
If you remove cover art via Mp3tag from FLAC files, Mp3tag keeps the free space as padding for future changes.
If you really want to get rid of the free space you'd have to use another tool (e.g., the metaflac command line utility).
Kind regards,
Florian
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### Author:  [@hello](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/hello)
#### Post date: [December 20, 2009, 2:44pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/how-to-remove-cover-art-and-shrink-file-size/9558/3 "2009-12-20T14:44:28Z")
Thanks. Its _--list_ option finally had helped me understand what i was doing wrong. PICTURE was not a tag field name like TITLE or ARTIST, it was a whole new block in metadata ๐
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### Author:  [@DazBYorks](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/DazBYorks)
#### Post date: [December 21, 2009, 1:55am UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/how-to-remove-cover-art-and-shrink-file-size/9558/4 "2009-12-21T01:55:24Z")
Hi,
[This thread](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/8891/1) may be useful.
Daz
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### Author:  [@LyricsLover](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/LyricsLover)
#### Post date: [April 13, 2024, 3:38pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/how-to-remove-cover-art-and-shrink-file-size/9558/5 "2024-04-13T15:38:52Z")
For future readers of this (old) thread, please have a look at this new Utils entry "Optimize FLAC" in the context menu for FLAC files, introduced in Mp3tag 3.23d:
> [@Re: Adding native FLAC padding column and removal](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/re-adding-native-flac-padding-column-and-removal/60372/17):
>
> I've just released [Mp3tag v3.23d](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/455) with a new entry Utils โ Optimize FLAC in the right-click context menu of FLAC files. This will remove the excess padding from the selected FLAC files. To display existing padding, create a column with value %\_tag\_size\_appended%. This reports the size of the padding for FLAC files, where %\_tag\_size\_prepended% reports the size of the Vorbis Comments and embedded cover art.
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### Author:  [@Florian](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/Florian)
#### Post date: [April 13, 2024, 6:33pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/how-to-remove-cover-art-and-shrink-file-size/9558/6 "2024-04-13T18:33:49Z")