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submitted 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) by Cevilia to c/showerthoughts@lemmy.world

I have a folder of MP3s, some of which date back to 1999, just a few years after the format was popularised. Most of them have utterly terrible names (think RIDEONAM.MP3). I think at this point they might even survive the heat death of the universe. And they'll still be terribly-organised.

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[-] lichtmetzger@discuss.tchncs.de 45 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

I find music on YouTube and autoconvert it to MP3 with yt-dlp and ffmpeg. It fetches new music from my personal "Favorite Music" playlist, downloads the highest quality audio source, converts it to MP3, embeds the metadata and cover art and tries to parse the artist and title as best as possible.

yt-dlp -x -f bestaudio --audio-quality 0 --audio-format mp3 --embed-thumbnail --add-metadata --metadata-from-title "%(artist)s - %(title)s" --playlist-start 1 --playlist-end 999 https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=123abc -o "./files/%(artist)s - %(title)s.%(ext)s" --cookies-from-browser

Needs minimal adjustment sometimes if the title format is weird, but works 95% automatic. What I like most about this is the fact that music vanishes all the time from YouTube, but it doesn't affect me. No one deletes the files from my harddrive but me.

[-] ar99644@sh.itjust.works 3 points 22 hours ago

I've been doing something similar but but very basic. I didn't know you could also add thumbnails and metadata! Mind = blown..

I will change my old ways ASAP. A new era begins!

[-] Cevilia 7 points 1 day ago

Pro tip, make sure the browser you're copying the cookies of isn't logged in. Otherwise they may ban you sooner or later.

[-] Trainguyrom@reddthat.com 2 points 1 day ago

Is there a good guide to passing cookies to yt-dlp? Its one of those things I've been meaning to learn but never quite got around to yet...

[-] HugeNerd@lemmy.ca 12 points 1 day ago

I want to marry you.

[-] Korhaka@sopuli.xyz 2 points 1 day ago

I have just been downloading as it is with yt-dlp -x (created an alias so I just type dl) and then rename and sort the files manually as I find stuff is so often in different naming formats

this post was submitted on 25 Aug 2025
799 points (100.0% liked)

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