Rename music files by ID3 tags, automatically

The problem with music filenames

Music files arrive with terrible names. Ripped CDs become track01.mp3, track02.mp3. Forum downloads use whatever convention the uploader felt like. Files moved between devices lose their structure. Mix sources and it gets worse.

⚠️ Manually renaming a music library is not a realistic option.

The song info is already there: every MP3, FLAC, and M4A file embeds ID3 tags with the artist, album, title, and track number. Music players like Apple Music and Plex read them fine — but open those files in Finder or Explorer, or copy them to a USB stick, and you're back to track01.mp3. Renamer reads the tags and rewrites the filenames.

What Renamer does

Drop a folder of music into Renamer. Add the ID3 actions for artist, album, title, and track number. Drag the fields into a format pattern. The live preview shows you exactly how every file will be renamed before you commit.

A basic pattern like Artist - Title turns:

• 🎵 track01.mp3 → Tame Impala - The Less I Know The Better.mp3
• 🎵 AT01.mp3 → Tame Impala - Let It Happen.mp3
• 🎵 01_song.mp3 → Tame Impala - New Person, Same Old Mistakes.mp3

Add more fields — Artist - Album - TrackNumber - Title — for libraries where files from different albums sit in the same folder:

• 🎵 AT01.mp3 → Tame Impala - Currents - 01 - Let It Happen.mp3
• 🎵 AT02.mp3 → Tame Impala - Currents - 02 - Nangs.mp3

Result: Now your filenames sort cleanly in any file browser. Albums group together because the album name is in the filename. Tracks within an album sort by track number because the number comes first. Backups, USB sticks, car stereos, and anything else that reads filenames instead of tags finally show your music in the right order.

Quick walkthrough

Here's how to set up a basic ID3 renaming workflow.

1. Drag the music files into Renamer:
   Drop your folder of MP3, FLAC, or M4A files into the app window (or use File → Add). Renamer reads the ID3 tags from each file automatically.
2. Create a new Renamerlet and call it "Tidy Music":
   Click the + (plus) button in the lower-left to create a workflow, then name it for reuse.
3. Add the "Organize Music" action:
   Select the Organize Music action from the action list. This exposes the ID3 fields — Artist, Title, Album, Track Number, Year — as draggable elements.
4. Drag Artist and Title into the format field:
   Arrange Artist, then a dash separator, then Title, so the live preview shows filenames like "Tame Impala - The Less I Know The Better.mp3". Add more fields as needed.

Tip: Save the Renamerlet and reuse it on every new album you import. The setup work happens once.

💡 You can mix ID3 fields with other metadata if you want them: year of release, genre, bitrate. Music collectors often build patterns like 2015 - Tame Impala - Currents - 01 - Let It Happen.mp3 to keep everything sortable by year and artist together.

Save the workflow and reuse it forever

💾 Save your workflow for next time

Once you've built a renaming pattern that works, save it as a workflow (we call them Renamerlets). The next time you rip a CD, download an album, or import a folder of mismatched files, drop them in, click the saved workflow, done.

Music collectors tend to end up with two or three saved workflows: one for albums where everything is in a single folder, one for compilations and mixtapes that need the artist in every filename, one for podcasts and audiobooks with their own metadata structure. Setting them up takes ten minutes; using them takes seconds.

Why Renamer beats the alternatives

🚩 Why not just use a music player to fix this?

• Apple Music, Plex, and other music players are good at displaying music libraries correctly, but most don't rewrite the underlying filenames. They read your tags and show the song correctly while the file on disk stays named track01.mp3. The moment you copy files outside the player, you're back to nonsense filenames.
• Tag editors like Mp3tag and Kid3 can rename files based on tags, and if you're already using one for tag editing they work fine. Renamer is the alternative for people who want a single tool that handles all their batch renaming jobs (photos, music, documents, code) instead of separate utilities for each file type.
• Manual renaming works for one album. It doesn't work for ten thousand tracks.
• Other batch renamers can rename, but most don't read ID3 metadata at all. The ones that do typically have UX from 2008. Renamer is built for this.

Also useful for

• Renaming photos by date and EXIF →
• Bulk renaming with regex →
• All Renamer features →