can you add metadata to m4a audio files

Scripting Forums AppleScript | Mac OS X
#1

is there a way to use applescript to assign author/artist and title to a .m4a file. I wanted to assign this data so if a person imported the .m4a file into iTunes the appropriate information would so up.

thanks for any help

Kevin

Model: macbook pro
Browser: Safari 537.77.4
Operating System: Mac OS X (10.8)

#2

As far as I know Mac OS X doesn’t ship with standard tools that could do it without help from iTunes. A quick Google gave me mutagen which is a python module which can be easily accessed by a do shell script. I have no experience with mutagen but python scripts are setup quite easy.

Update:
I’ve downloaded mutagen and installed it and created a small script.

installation in terminal after download:
[format]cd /path/to/mutagen/
./setup.py build
sudo ./setup.py install[/format]
Then I ran the following code, and worked:

do shell script "python -c 'from mutagen.mp4 import MP4
audio = MP4(\"/Users/<username>/Desktop/no-tag.m4a\")
audio[\"\\xa9nam\"] = \"my own title\"
audio.save()'"

\xa9nam is the key for title, on mutagen documentation you can find a complete list of supported keys.

#3

thanks for the reply. I will try to work this into my script.

My only question is future usefulness. Is the mutagen stable or will I have to change it as the MAC OS is updated?

#4

This is all I can say about mutagen: Mutagen is “stable” because m4a is mpeg4-part3 where metadata is stored the same way as any other mpeg4 compression. It’s also poplar (2000 downloads a week). It’s in development for more than 5 years. It’s a python module that is recognized by python itself (not some home made module). Mutagen is installed in the /Library/Python folder which means it’s untouched between software updates (or at least should be). Only after a clean install (or possible mayor OS update?) you need to re-install this python module.

The biggest drawback is that you need to maintain the mutagen module yourself, that means when a new version is released you need to download it an install it by yourself. But this process can be automated by you of course.

#5

Hmm
I use this in a Filemaker Pro solution that I have 5 people using. It is not really a workable solution to have to push out those changes.

I currently use applescript from within Filemaker Pro solution to open Quicktime player, record a voice file (approx. 26 minutes in length) then save the file to a folder as .m4a file. I am able to get all that to work. I was looking for a way to tag the file with the the authors name, so the user has some control over the audio file when they distribute it to their clients.

Perhaps I will just use applescript to set the comments of the file via the Finder

thanks for your help

#6 

tell application "iTunes"
	set thetrack  to add afile
	set artist of thetrack to "The Artist"
        set name of thetrack to "A beautiful discourse"
end tell
#7

thank you