# Using metadata placeholders (%artist%) in actions
**URL:** https://community.mp3tag.de/t/using-metadata-placeholders-artist-in-actions/11383
**Category:** Support
**Created:** [January 2, 2011, 6:40pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/using-metadata-placeholders-artist-in-actions/11383 "2011-01-02T18:40:55Z")
**Posts on this page:** 4
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@mario87](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/mario87)
#### Post date: [January 2, 2011, 6:40pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/using-metadata-placeholders-artist-in-actions/11383/1 "2011-01-02T18:40:55Z")
Hello everyone!
Sometimes I want to change a tag field (lets say, the ALBUMSORT tag) using information from other tags.
I've been trying to accomplish this by creating and action which replaces the desired tag, but when I try to replace it using placeholders (in this case, %artist% %year%) it doesn't work because it seems to not be parsing the placeholders.
Any idea? Is it possible to do what I want?
Thanks in advance!
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### Author:  [@dano](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/dano)
#### Post date: [January 2, 2011, 6:52pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/using-metadata-placeholders-artist-in-actions/11383/2 "2011-01-02T18:52:36Z")
Try the **Format value** action.
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### Author:  [@mario87](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/mario87)
#### Post date: [January 3, 2011, 6:03am UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/using-metadata-placeholders-artist-in-actions/11383/3 "2011-01-03T06:03:37Z")
It worked!! Thank you very much, you've made me save much time 😆
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### Author:  [@system](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/system)
#### Post date: [February 9, 2026, 12:22pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/using-metadata-placeholders-artist-in-actions/11383/4 "2026-02-09T12:22:47Z")