# Re: Adding native FLAC padding column and removal

**URL:** https://community.mp3tag.de/t/re-adding-native-flac-padding-column-and-removal/60372
**Category:** General Discussion
**Created:** [March 14, 2023, 1:17pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/re-adding-native-flac-padding-column-and-removal/60372 "2023-03-14T13:17:14Z")
**Posts on this page:** 1
**Showing post:** 26

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### Author: ![Florian](https://community.mp3tag.de/user_avatar/community.mp3tag.de/florian/32/5759_2.png) [@Florian](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/Florian)
#### Post date: [January 23, 2024, 3:08pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/re-adding-native-flac-padding-column-and-removal/60372/26 "2024-01-23T15:08:30Z")

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Thank you all for your feedback! I didn't expect such heated discussion for such a tiny feature, but apparently I should have put more thought into this before releasing. Thankfully, we're still in beta stage.

I'm very hesitant to add yet another configuration option. I know it's great to be able to configure the exact size of the padding, but it will result in just more configuration options — there are also other tag formats with padding 😬

The discussion above revealed an inconsistency wrt. the new optimization feature: while writing tags, Mp3tag adds 4KB of padding in case the file needs to be rewritten. This should also be — and it's what most feedback here shows — the default when optimizing the padding. So I've just released [Mp3tag v3.23e](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/455), which does exactly that: if you choose **Utils → Optimize FLAC** from the right-click context menu of FLAC files, the files will have 4096 bytes of padding after optimization.

> [@xRussianBeautyx](#):
>
> In a perfect world, we shouldn't even have to care about manually reducing the padding.

I want to address this quickly: removing padding from FLAC after, e.g., removing embedded cover art would require rewriting the file if a new cover is added. I've tried to not be smart about this, because there are many different workflows, which might be disturbed by such automatic behavior. I think you meant your comment not as a suggestion, but wanted to quickly explain for people who are wondering about that.

And maybe there is also a silent group which was very happy with the complete removal of the padding. Please raise your voice so that I know, but also please use [the workaround via metaflac](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/why-does-certain-artwork-break-windows-explorer-metadata/59995/4) for the time being.

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