# Tags: Selective Copy and Pasting?
**URL:** https://community.mp3tag.de/t/tags-selective-copy-and-pasting/16926
**Category:** General Discussion
**Created:** [May 28, 2015, 6:24am UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/tags-selective-copy-and-pasting/16926 "2015-05-28T06:24:37Z")
**Posts on this page:** 9
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@ragtag](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/ragtag)
#### Post date: [May 28, 2015, 6:24am UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/tags-selective-copy-and-pasting/16926/1 "2015-05-28T06:24:37Z")
Occasionally, I need to copy the tags from one album to another. I have read a relevant post [here](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/14805/1). Please tell me if is possible to copy or paste the tag information selectively. For instance, can I copy or paste only the tags of certain fields for e.g. the track Titles?
Thank you.
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### Author:  [@ohrenkino](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/ohrenkino)
#### Post date: [May 28, 2015, 6:32am UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/tags-selective-copy-and-pasting/16926/2 "2015-05-28T06:32:15Z")
You can copy either the complete tag of a single file or a set of files to the clipboard and paste it to another set of files.
Or you can use the export function.
Of if you want to copy only a single title, then use the ordinary clipboard.
I cannot think of a case where only a single field needs updating in a set of files and in which the sequence of target files matches that of the source files ...
Could you enlighten me?
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### Author:  [@ragtag](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/ragtag)
#### Post date: [July 20, 2015, 11:44am UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/tags-selective-copy-and-pasting/16926/3 "2015-07-20T11:44:36Z")
> [@ohrenkino](#):
>
> You can copy either the complete tag of a single file or a set of files to the clipboard and paste it to another set of files.
> Or you can use the export function.
> Of if you want to copy only a single title, then use the ordinary clipboard.
>
> I cannot think of a case where only a single field needs updating in a set of files and in which the sequence of target files matches that of the source files ...
> Could you enlighten me?
My apology, ohrenkino, I missed your response and hence did not reply sooner. Thank you for always being such a big help. I do not have an example of the foregoing to give you anymore, and next time I will try out your proposals first.
Thanks.
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### Author:  [@Zerow](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/Zerow)
#### Post date: [July 21, 2015, 4:54pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/tags-selective-copy-and-pasting/16926/4 "2015-07-21T16:54:59Z")
> [@ohrenkino](#):
>
> [...]
> I cannot think of a case where only a single field needs updating in a set of files and in which the sequence of target files matches that of the source files ...
> Could you enlighten me?
How about if you discover that more than one song were by
Artist A feat. Artist B
and you have a lot of
Artist A
songs that should be by described as
Artist A feat. Artist B
?
Or you finally know who wrote the lyrics to some of the songs, from different albums?
You can prepare an action, but in situation like I can imagine wanting me to do it by hand, making an evaluation first of each case
But also, as you said, it can be done by clipboard
---
### Author:  [@esumsea](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/esumsea)
#### Post date: [December 2, 2021, 2:18pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/tags-selective-copy-and-pasting/16926/5 "2021-12-02T14:18:52Z")
Sorry to revive an old thread but I guess that is why we are told to search.
I have such a circumstance. I had a bunch of compilations album which catalogued 30 live shows. I then gave each song a separate album title reflecting the date the song was performed, as with this band I prefer to label albums by date chronologically.
I then changed my mind and just grouped the songs under the album name (30 Days of Dead), changing the album titles for each. But I realized I may yet find those original album titles useful, and wanted to paste them back from back up files. I could thenn easily move them to the sort album field or some custom field for later use. However those backup files did not contain other changes I had done since the backup, so I just want to paste the titles and nothing else.
This is just one example where this would be useful. There have been other instances where a selective paste would be really useful. Like ragtag, they are not readily accessible in my memory but I know there have been many times in the past where I wished there was a selective copy function. Sometimes as series of files just has that one field correct that you want to paste over but everything else should stay the same.
I am not sure that in the past 7 years this has been implemented but I suspect not by my search of this topic.
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### Author:  [@ohrenkino](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/ohrenkino)
#### Post date: [December 2, 2021, 2:25pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/tags-selective-copy-and-pasting/16926/6 "2021-12-02T14:25:18Z")
If ou want to assign only the album name from ALBUM to a bunch of files, then you could load the file with the correct name and all the files that should get this as a new name and then assign that data via the tag panel where you only set the data for ALBUM.
All other fields would remain unchanged.
A "many to many" function is not there (yet) - you would have to resort to the export and import via a text file.
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### Author:  [@esumsea](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/esumsea)
#### Post date: [December 2, 2021, 4:43pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/tags-selective-copy-and-pasting/16926/7 "2021-12-02T16:43:08Z")
Thanks for the clarification. Unfortunately the album names were different for each track so I cannot accomplish this with your first suggestion but I will explore the export functions. I do like the fact that you used the word "yet". Our wonderful developer is constantly honing this thing which is why I keep sending funds his way, as meager as my donations may be.
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### Author:  [@MotleyG](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/MotleyG)
#### Post date: [December 2, 2021, 9:42pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/tags-selective-copy-and-pasting/16926/8 "2021-12-02T21:42:10Z")
Maybe you can use the original backup files, copy them to a working temporary directory, then update the album details for these while keeping the original titles?
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### Author:  [@esumsea](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/esumsea)
#### Post date: [December 3, 2021, 2:01am UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/tags-selective-copy-and-pasting/16926/9 "2021-12-03T02:01:07Z")
Thanks for the suggestion but it does not save work. I could just cut and past the dates again. But I think I may find another use for my mac. I could import into itunes and use Doug's script to copy different tags from one file to anther there and then export.