# Year in Album field

**URL:** <https://community.mp3tag.de/t/year-in-album-field/17027>\
**Category:** Support\
**Created:** [July 6, 2015, 8:47pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/year-in-album-field/17027 "2015-07-06T20:47:42Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Drunk247](https://community.mp3tag.de/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/d/e19adc/32.png) [@Drunk247](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/Drunk247)\
**Post date:** [July 6, 2015, 8:47pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/year-in-album-field/17027/1 "2015-07-06T20:47:42Z")

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All my album tags have a year - album in the album field. (example: 1983 - Stay Hungry)

Anyway i can batch delete the year so only the album name is present?

Thanks for any help!

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**Author:** ![0LD3\_DUDE](https://community.mp3tag.de/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/0/3e96dc/32.png) [@0LD3\_DUDE](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/0LD3_DUDE)\
**Post date:** [July 6, 2015, 10:48pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/year-in-album-field/17027/2 "2015-07-06T22:48:24Z")

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I thought the default separator was " - ". You must not be making use of the Tag ► filename or Filename ► tag features?

Change your filenames using that album field with the dash in it (Tag ► filename). Then use Filename ► tag to create new tags.

You will have to edit the default fields, obviously. You should save them to a text file (copy and paste into a Notepad .TXT file), in case you ever want to reset them.

So you create an ugly file name like this with Tag ► filename:

**%artist% - %album% - %track% - %title%**

Twisted Sister - 1984 - Stay Hungry - 02 - We're Not Gonna Take it.mp3

And create nice new tags with everything in the right field using Filename ► tag. This step removes the year from your album field.

**%artist% - %year% - %album% - %track% - %title%**

Then use Tag ► filename to fix those ugly file names, because no one wants all that mess.

**%artist% - %title%**

Twisted Sister - We're Not Gonna Take It.mp3

So either get creative with those two features, or get to editing all your music one song at a time. Pay attention to how you must change those fields occasionally, going from tag to filename, to tag, and back to filename.

I would copy/paste the original settings into a .TXT file for reference.

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**Author:** ![poster](https://community.mp3tag.de/user_avatar/community.mp3tag.de/poster/32/4881_2.png) [@poster](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/poster)\
**Post date:** [July 7, 2015, 2:48am UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/year-in-album-field/17027/3 "2015-07-07T02:48:53Z")

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> [@Drunk247](#):
>
> All my album tags have a year - album in the album field. (example: 1983 - Stay Hungry)
> 
> Anyway i can batch delete the year so only the album name is present?

Define an action:  
Action type: Guess values  
Source: %album%  
Guessing pattern: %dummy% - %album%

or alternatively

Action Type: Format Value  
Field: ALBUM  
Format String:$cutleft(%album%,7)

You can use the latter format string with the Convert-Menue too. In the convert menue have an immediate preview of the result so you can see if your format string is right.

Convert Tag - Tag  
Field: ALBUM  
Format String: $cutleft(%album%,7)

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**Author:** ![system](https://community.mp3tag.de/uploads/default/original/2X/c/ce7035d426cb755a7916793326d23b465222a407.png) [@system](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/system)\
**Post date:** [February 9, 2026, 12:25pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/year-in-album-field/17027/4 "2026-02-09T12:25:45Z")

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Closed on February 9, 2026, 12:25pm UTC