I have inherited an 80Mb hard drive completely full of MP3 files. They are unorganised, instead being in a single unsorted "bucket"! Scanning manually using AudioShell (passing the mouse over separate files) they all seem to have core details in the metadata. Can MP3Tag be used to put some structure into them, specifically to re-sort/regroup them in a folder structure of Artist (top level of structure) and Album (second level)? Hope so - thanks for guidance.

Provided the files really have filled fields for artist, album and title ...
You can use the converter "Tag - Filename" and enter a mask with backslashes, e.g.
%artist%\%album%\%track% _ %title%
(or even
%artist%\%year% - %album%\$num(%track%,3) _ %title%
)
This should move each track to the specified directory.

Don't you just love it when on the same day you find not only the perfect program but also The Expert who tells you how to resolve your need. Need to tweek a few things but already it is MUCH better order. Plus now I have some critical insight. Thanks ohrenkino!

Don't suppose you know how to get a coffee stain out of a carpet ....

You're welcome!
Try mineral water with gas? ;-)

What do you do if the files have no data in any of the fields? How do you populate the fields and make sure they are populated correctly?

Unless the filename gives a hint of what might be in the file there is no other way than to listen to it, guess what it might be and then add at least artist and title.
You may add data to ARTIST by typing it in the tag panel field and then press save.
The Title has to added for each track.
If you have data in the filename you may use the converter filename - tag.
And then you can use one of the many web scripts that are available.
Or in short: no data - no fun.

The files are converted youtube files so I finally realized they don't correspond to regular songs and thus mp3 tag programs won't work. The file names are generally formatted <title>[space]—[space]<Artist>.mp3. Is there a way to capture that info to populate at least the title and artist fields and get me halfway home?

You could try to use a program like Picard or AcoustID. Both try to "detect" your song with something called 'audio fingerprint' and then map it to the MusicBrainz metadata database.

I have no idea how this will work for Youtube files. Unless someone else has submitted such files with a fingerprint, it will be nearly impossible to detect it.

yes, if the filename has this info, use menu CONVERT, select "filename - tag" then enter a "mask" in the naming field until you get it to capture what you're looking for. Once happy with that, test a few, and then run one giant batch.

you mask would be something like:

%title% - %artist%%

Garym - thanks. Works well except I can't figure out how to get rid of the space in front of the Artist name. How do I do that? Generally the file name goes <Title>[space][space][dash][space]<artist>.

Using %title%-%artist% got me the data but with the space before the artist name.

hmmm, redo with



note the two spaces after title and the single space between the dash and the start of artist. Just make sure any characters or spaces in the mapping are identical to what's in the filename itself.

Garym - thanks for the help. I realized after your post that my previous attempts before your post failed because I had the wrong "dash" character.

Thanks for helping out and clarifying things for me.

glad it worked...