pytaglib 3.2.0

cross-platform, Python audio metadata ("tagging") library based on TagLib

pytaglib

pytaglib is a Python audio tagging library. It is cross-platform and very simple to use yet fully featured:

• supports more than a dozen file formats including mp3, flac, ogg, wma, and mp4,
• supports arbitrary, non-standard tag names,
• supports multiple values per tag,
• supports reading and writing embedded pictures (cover art).

pytaglib is a very thin wrapper around the fast and rock-solid TagLib C++ library.

News

2026-02-03 pytaglib-3.2.0 has been released.

• add support for embedded pictures and other binary data
• drop support for Python 3.9 (EOL)

For a full list of changes in this and previous releases, see the Changelog.

Install

Use your favorite Python package manager to install the pytaglib package. Example when using pip:

    pip install pytaglib

In most cases, this should pick a provided binary wheel that bundles the native TagLib library suitable for your platform. If it doesn't, and the installation fails, see below.

Usage

>>> import taglib
>>> with taglib.File("/path/to/my/file.mp3", save_on_exit=True) as song:
>>>     song.tags
{'ARTIST': ['piman', 'jzig'], 'ALBUM': ['Quod Libet Test Data'], 'TITLE': ['Silence'], 'GENRE': ['Silence'], 'TRACKNUMBER': ['02/10'], 'DATE': ['2004']}

>>>     song.length
239
>>>     song.tags["ALBUM"] = ["White Album"] # always use lists, even for single values
>>>     del song.tags["DATE"]
>>>     song.tags["GENRE"] = ["Vocal", "Classical"]
>>>     song.tags["PERFORMER:HARPSICHORD"] = ["Ton Koopman"]
>>> # with save_on_exit=True, file will be saved at the end of the 'with' block

Pictures (Cover Art)

pytaglib supports reading and writing embedded pictures (cover art) for formats that support it (MP3, FLAC, etc.):

>>> import taglib
>>> f = taglib.File("song.mp3")

>>> # Read existing pictures
>>> for pic in f.pictures:
...     print(f"{pic.picture_type}: {pic.mime_type}, {len(pic.data)} bytes")
Front Cover: image/jpeg, 50000 bytes

>>> # Add a new picture
>>> with open("cover.jpg", "rb") as img:
...     f.pictures = [taglib.Picture(
...         data=img.read(),
...         mime_type="image/jpeg",
...         picture_type="Front Cover"
...     )]
>>> f.save()

>>> # Remove all pictures
>>> f.pictures = []
>>> f.save()

For detailed API documentation, use the docstrings of the taglib.File class or view the source code directly.

pyprinttags

This package also installs the pyprinttags script. It takes one or more files as command-line parameters and will display all known metadata of that files on the terminal. If unsupported tags (a.k.a. non-textual information) are found, they can optionally be removed from the file.

Installation Notes

Things are a bit more complicated than usual with Python because pytaglib requires the native (C++) TagLib library.

If there are no binary wheels for your platform, or you want to manually compile pytaglib, you will need to have Taglib installed with development headers, and also development tools for Python.

On Ubuntu, Mint and other Debian-Based distributions, install the libtag1-dev and python-dev packages. On Fedora and friends, these are called taglib-devel and python-devel, respectively. On a Mac, use HomeBrew to install the taglib package. For Windows, see below.

As an alternative, run python build_native_taglib.py in this directory to automatically download and build the latest Taglib version into the lib/taglib-cpp subdirectory (also works on Windows).

This requires Python and a suitable compiler to be installed; specific instructions are beyond the scope of this README.

Linux: Distribution-Specific Packages

• Debian- and Ubuntu-based linux flavors have binary packages for the Python 3 version, called python3-taglib. Unfortunatelly, they are heavily outdated, so you should instally the recent version via pip whenever possible.
• For Arch users, there is a package in the user repository (AUR).

Manual Compilation: General

To create a binary wheel for your platform, use any PEP-517 compatible build frontend. Example using build:

    python -m build

or with uv:

    uv build

which will place the wheel inside the dist directory.

Compilation: Windows

Install MS Visual Studio Build Tools (or the complete IE) and include the correct compiler version as detailed here. Also enable cmake in the Visual Studio Installer.

Then:

• open the VS native tools command prompt
• navigate to the pytaglib repository
• run python build_native_taglib.py which will download and build the latest official TagLib release
• run python setup.py install

Development

To start hacking (contributions welcome!), clone the repository and set up a project environment with your favorite tool. I use uv, where you should need only two commands for most workflows:

# set up virtual environment, run cythonize, compile
$ uv sync --reinstall

# run tests
$ uv run pytest

Contact

For bug reports or feature requests, please use the issue tracker on GitHub. For anything else, contact me by email.