# insert albumartist from artist
**URL:** https://community.mp3tag.de/t/insert-albumartist-from-artist/19099
**Category:** Support
**Created:** [June 28, 2017, 1:21pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/insert-albumartist-from-artist/19099 "2017-06-28T13:21:36Z")
**Posts on this page:** 6
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@balma01](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/balma01)
#### Post date: [June 28, 2017, 1:21pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/insert-albumartist-from-artist/19099/1 "2017-06-28T13:21:36Z")
Hi,
I'm realizing that I have many files without the "album artis"t tag and I need to populate it using the same infos iserted into "artist".
I wanna do it on all the files with an empty album artist that are not compilation or podcasts.
A couple of questions about it:
1. can I do it with a script?
2. if yes can I see a sample somewhere?
3. ather ideas on how to do it ?
Thanks in advance
mb
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### Author:  [@Florian](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/Florian)
#### Post date: [June 28, 2017, 1:43pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/insert-albumartist-from-artist/19099/2 "2017-06-28T13:43:23Z")
You can do this with an action in Mp3tag:
Action: Format value
Field: ALBUMARTIST
Format string: $if2(%ALBUMARTIST%,%ARTIST%)
The $if2 part in the format string preserves existing album artists. If you want to override all with artist, simply use %ARTIST% as format string.
Kind regards
– Florian
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### Author:  [@ohrenkino](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/ohrenkino)
#### Post date: [June 28, 2017, 4:31pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/insert-albumartist-from-artist/19099/3 "2017-06-28T16:31:34Z")
There is actually a post in the FAQs on this: [/t/967/1](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/967/1)
I would use a filter with something like
%albumartist% MISSING AND %compilation% MISSING AND %podcast% MISSING
To hide all those files that should not get treated.
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### Author:  [@balma01](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/balma01)
#### Post date: [June 29, 2017, 5:22am UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/insert-albumartist-from-artist/19099/4 "2017-06-29T05:22:38Z")
Thanks guys.
I cheched the FAQ but I miss that post. Sorry.
Anyway the filter and the action suggested are what I'm looking for. Thanks. I saw that I can acheive the same result using a convert tag \> tag. I think that is not so different from an action. Am I wrong ?
Just the last question: I noted that to set the 'album artist' using the action, for some files is an operation fast and for other files the operation is slower. All my files are in flac format so, wh there's this big difference?
Thanks again for your help and for the great software.
MB
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### Author:  [@ohrenkino](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/ohrenkino)
#### Post date: [June 29, 2017, 5:26am UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/insert-albumartist-from-artist/19099/5 "2017-06-29T05:26:56Z")
> [@mb01](#):
>
> ... for some files is an operation fast and for other files the operation is slower....
That depends a lot on the local circumstances.
Perhaps the padding in some files is not big enough so that the file has to be rewritten.
Or the HDD has a cache that has to be refreshed when handling some files (slow) and caches for others (fast).
Perhaps you have other programs running that claim HDD access time.
And so on.
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### Author:  [@system](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/system)
#### Post date: [October 14, 2025, 11:53am UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/insert-albumartist-from-artist/19099/6 "2025-10-14T11:53:49Z")
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