# MusicBrainz album Covers are sometimes quite large (and take LONG to download)
**URL:** https://community.mp3tag.de/t/musicbrainz-album-covers-are-sometimes-quite-large-and-take-long-to-download/55661
**Category:** Support
**Created:** [December 30, 2021, 8:34am UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/musicbrainz-album-covers-are-sometimes-quite-large-and-take-long-to-download/55661 "2021-12-30T08:34:21Z")
**Posts on this page:** 13
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Markus1](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/Markus1)
#### Post date: [December 30, 2021, 8:34am UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/musicbrainz-album-covers-are-sometimes-quite-large-and-take-long-to-download/55661/1 "2021-12-30T08:34:21Z")
Sometimes users have added rather large Cover images (e.g. png 18 MB, png 35 MB and so on) as the album's main cover image to the database mp3tag's MusicBrainz source is using. Downloading these covers takes very long, sometimes up to 5 minutes ☹
Would it be possible to check the file size **before** downloading the image and give the user an option to skip the download in that case?
Or: can the download be sped up?
(e.g. [Release “Last Night” by Moby - MusicBrainz](https://musicbrainz.org/release/f08b488c-7526-4c7f-8e12-5a317cf600b7) or [https://musicbrainz.org/release/7bc2a3ab-a99c-4e3c-b152-7017dc3e7452](https://musicbrainz.org/release/7bc2a3ab-a99c-4e3c-b152-7017dc3e7452))
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### Author:  [@LyricsLover](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/LyricsLover)
#### Post date: [December 30, 2021, 8:41am UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/musicbrainz-album-covers-are-sometimes-quite-large-and-take-long-to-download/55661/2 "2021-12-30T08:41:36Z")
+1 👍
An option to choose the size of the cover would be nice too. At least MusicBrainz offers the cover art in 250×250 Pixels, 500×500 Pixels, 1200×1200 Pixels and the original size.
The picture name for the various available sizes only change in the additional MBID`-250.jpg` or MBID`-500.jpg` or MBID`-1200.jpg`
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### Author:  [@Markus1](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/Markus1)
#### Post date: [December 30, 2021, 8:45am UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/musicbrainz-album-covers-are-sometimes-quite-large-and-take-long-to-download/55661/3 "2021-12-30T08:45:37Z")
Yes, maybe that's a nice solution. Right now it seems to always download the original size version…
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### Author:  [@abijahmaniaco](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/abijahmaniaco)
#### Post date: [December 31, 2021, 8:02pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/musicbrainz-album-covers-are-sometimes-quite-large-and-take-long-to-download/55661/4 "2021-12-31T20:02:25Z")
I automated an action in Photoshop to resize and save a 600x600 “web size” copy of the artwork for embedding.
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### Author:  [@LyricsLover](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/LyricsLover)
#### Post date: [December 31, 2021, 8:44pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/musicbrainz-album-covers-are-sometimes-quite-large-and-take-long-to-download/55661/5 "2021-12-31T20:44:31Z")
There is no need for Photoshop for this task. You can use the existing resize function in Mp3tag:
> [@Resize album art?](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/resize-album-art/15355/14):
>
> Starting with Mp3tag v3.00, you can resize embedded cover art with Mp3tag using an action of type [Adjust cover](https://docs.mp3tag.de/actions/adjust-cover). Since v3.01, this functionality is also available from the right-click menu of the cover window.
But the OP is asking for a faster DOWNLOAD. One possibility would be to DOWNLOAD smaller cover art. 😉
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### Author:  [@Markus1](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/Markus1)
#### Post date: [December 31, 2021, 9:36pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/musicbrainz-album-covers-are-sometimes-quite-large-and-take-long-to-download/55661/6 "2021-12-31T21:36:18Z")
Actually, in most cases when you do get these original sized images you NEED Photoshop. Because these mostly are completely unprocessed raw images from scanners / digital cameras. So just resizing them does not really help ☹
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### Author:  [@LyricsLover](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/LyricsLover)
#### Post date: [January 1, 2022, 12:57pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/musicbrainz-album-covers-are-sometimes-quite-large-and-take-long-to-download/55661/7 "2022-01-01T12:57:33Z")
This doesn't happen in "most cases", but from time to time you find such a raw image.
This leads to another feature request:
**Let the user choose the Cover Art TYPE**
This way you could exclude the raw/unedited cover art that you need to manually crop first.
MusicBrainz offers this 14 Types:
- [2 List of possible types](https://musicbrainz.org/doc/Cover_Art/Types#List_of_possible_types)
- [2.1 Front](https://musicbrainz.org/doc/Cover_Art/Types#Front)
- [2.2 Back](https://musicbrainz.org/doc/Cover_Art/Types#Back)
- [2.3 Booklet](https://musicbrainz.org/doc/Cover_Art/Types#Booklet)
- [2.4 Medium](https://musicbrainz.org/doc/Cover_Art/Types#Medium)
- [2.5 Tray](https://musicbrainz.org/doc/Cover_Art/Types#Tray)
- [2.6 Obi](https://musicbrainz.org/doc/Cover_Art/Types#Obi)
- [2.7 Spine](https://musicbrainz.org/doc/Cover_Art/Types#Spine)
- [2.8 Track](https://musicbrainz.org/doc/Cover_Art/Types#Track)
- [2.9 Liner](https://musicbrainz.org/doc/Cover_Art/Types#Liner)
- [2.10 Sticker](https://musicbrainz.org/doc/Cover_Art/Types#Sticker)
- [2.11 Poster](https://musicbrainz.org/doc/Cover_Art/Types#Poster)
- [2.12 Watermark](https://musicbrainz.org/doc/Cover_Art/Types#Watermark)
- [2.13 Raw/Unedited](https://musicbrainz.org/doc/Cover_Art/Types#Raw.2FUnedited)
- [2.14 Other](https://musicbrainz.org/doc/Cover_Art/Types#Other)
I assume, that most of the users are only interested in Front Cover Art.
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### Author:  [@abijahmaniaco](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/abijahmaniaco)
#### Post date: [January 2, 2022, 5:37pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/musicbrainz-album-covers-are-sometimes-quite-large-and-take-long-to-download/55661/8 "2022-01-02T17:37:09Z")
Once you drag and drop artwork, you can right click it and designate type.
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### Author:  [@abijahmaniaco](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/abijahmaniaco)
#### Post date: [January 2, 2022, 5:45pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/musicbrainz-album-covers-are-sometimes-quite-large-and-take-long-to-download/55661/9 "2022-01-02T17:45:00Z")
I have a plugin for MusicBee called “Album Art Downloader”. It was a real game-changer for me. It allows you to search the sources you specify for the artist and album given. Using it, I rarely download from MusicBrainz. My typical sources are iTunes, Qobuz, and Deezer for the basic cover-art. I retrieve scans from discogs to ensure that they’re release-specific.
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### Author:  [@ohrenkino](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/ohrenkino)
#### Post date: [January 2, 2022, 6:21pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/musicbrainz-album-covers-are-sometimes-quite-large-and-take-long-to-download/55661/10 "2022-01-02T18:21:08Z")
> [@abijahmaniaco](#):
>
> I have a plugin for MusicBee called “Album Art Downloader”
Here is a thread on using Album Art Downloader with MP3tag:
> [@How to use AlbumArtDownloader in Tools for Cover Art](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/how-to-use-albumartdownloader-in-tools-for-cover-art/19422):
>
> [AlbumArtDownloader](https://sourceforge.net/projects/album-art/) is arguably one of the best free album cover art downloaders around. It effortlessly searches a large number of cover art sources with standalone scripts that are constantly updated. And it presents all the found art with previews, sizes, etc. Download and install AlbumArtDownloader from SourceForge: [https://sourceforge.net/projects/album-art/](https://sourceforge.net/projects/album-art/) In MP3TAG, click on Tools and select Options... (Ctrl-O shortcut) In the Mp3tag Options window, select Tools on the left side,…
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### Author:  [@Markus1](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/Markus1)
#### Post date: [January 2, 2022, 6:51pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/musicbrainz-album-covers-are-sometimes-quite-large-and-take-long-to-download/55661/11 "2022-01-02T18:51:11Z")
This is getting rather offtopic 🙂
There is a really easy solution to the problem. mp3tag stores the sources definitions in
`.\AppData\Roaming\Mp3tag\data\sources\MusicBrainz.src`
Just edit the file, find the code accessing the CoverArtArchive and replace
` say "/front"`
by
` say "/front-1200"`
to always get the 1200px files.
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### Author:  [@Florian](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/Florian)
#### Post date: [January 14, 2022, 4:05pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/musicbrainz-album-covers-are-sometimes-quite-large-and-take-long-to-download/55661/12 "2022-01-14T16:05:54Z")
I've added an option to configure the MusicBrainz cover size via _File → Options → Tag Sources_ with [Mp3tag v3.11h](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/455).
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### Author:  [@system](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/system)
#### Post date: [February 13, 2022, 4:06pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/musicbrainz-album-covers-are-sometimes-quite-large-and-take-long-to-download/55661/13 "2022-02-13T16:06:31Z")
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