Advanced search in Windows or how to find a file in Windows? All the secrets of searching on Google: you really can find everything

> How to download ID3 tags from the Internet?

Introduction.

If you store a collection of MP3 music (or any other formats: FLAC, APE, etc.), then probably among the files there are some that do not have ID3 tag fields filled in or whose names have an uninformative form like “track01.mp3”. How can I correct the situation and fill in the tags for beautiful display during playback? Filling them out manually is not an option; it can take months. Here we will be helped by a program that can find and download ID3 tags from the Internet, mp3Tag Pro .

Step one: Download and install the program.

Download mp3Tag Pro to the selected folder and start the installation. Follow the installation instructions to complete the process.

Step two: Launch the program. Selecting audio files for editing.

Run installed program. Using the folder tree on the left, find the directory where audio files that require editing tags are stored. You can also do this using the "Browse" button in the folder address bar.

Select all audio in the current folder using the "Select All" button and click "Generate" under the list of files.

From the drop-down menu, select "Get tags from FreeDB".

Step three: Retrieving tags from FreeDB. Saving information.

A new window will open. In it, on the "FreeDB" tab, click "Get Album". Select the appropriate album option from the drop-down list of search results.

The program automatically download ID3 tags from the Internet, and they will appear in the preview list. If all the tags are filled out correctly, click “Save Album” at the very bottom of the window, and they will be added to the album files. After this, you will always know the name of the artist, the name of the album and the song itself for each composition.

After saving, you can click on the “Rename” button that appears instead of “Save album”. This will allow you to change the file names using the information you just received from the tags - for example, using the "Artist - Song Title" template. The template is set in the upper left corner of the window.

This review will look at one of the most well-known solutions for editing tags - Mp3tag. Attention will be paid to both basic and additional features programs related to manual and batch editing of tags.

Audio library and tags

Relatively recently, the home audio library was stored mainly on hard media - cassette, CD, vinyl. This well-established tradition still exists, but more and more users prefer to listen to music online, without even downloading it to their device. At the same time, many music lovers choose the golden mean: the most convenient and inexpensive method of storage is on a computer hard drive, in the form of files in various audio formats. This approach has its own nuances. In particular, managing a large collection becomes increasingly difficult as it grows. A variety of formats, sources, artists, different sound quality - there are too many reasons to think about putting things in order in your home audio library.

In fact, the solution to the problem is well known and lies on the surface: to organize the collection, you can resort to tags. The more detailed this information describes the composition, the greater the chance of finding the desired track among the music archives.

It's obvious that tags take over informational role, and today it is difficult to find a software or hardware media player without metadata support or a music service without the appropriate capabilities when importing music from a computer to the Internet.

Introduction to Mp3tag

Each of the configurations is almost ready for use, but to change appearance, column , data sequence requires intervention in the template code.

Each template contains variables. In addition, it is possible to create new configurations where you can specify the encoding (ansi, utf-8 and utf-16), fields for data substitution. All export options are in the documentation, with a list of variables. Loops are used for substitution; scripting language and placeholders can also be used.

Despite the wide export capabilities built into text templates, the wizard step-by-step setup playlist would be useful - as a simplified configuration option that is easy to understand.

Resume

Mp3tag performs well when working with tags on a large scale, as well as directly when manually adding metadata. Proper use of scripts will help optimize work with the audio library and resolve specific issues. On the other hand, the program requires insight and consistent study of the documentation. You need to understand that GUI located towards the user only when in use basic operations with tags.

[+] Import and export support
[+] Ample opportunities for mass editing of tags
[+] Script support
[−] Lack of built-in player
[−] Most functions are available only to advanced users

“It’s time to tidy up your computer...” I think this thought has occurred to all users, and more than once. Without tidying up, any computer sooner or later turns into a junk dump, and find necessary files It's getting more and more difficult. Even if some sort of cataloging and storage system is developed, new interests may require new tools and new hierarchies. And if there are several machines or several users coexist on one machine, everything becomes even more complicated.

Of course, I tried to use some sorting methods other than the file system - because... Often you want to organize files not by one criterion, but by several equivalent ones, which is impossible to do in a tree hierarchy - a network structure is required. But all my efforts were frustrated by the interface. Judge for yourself.

PersonalBrain(www.thebrain.com)

Enough good utility for organizing files, folders and URL links. Cons: paid, rather slow (Java-based), you cannot tag a large group of objects at once. Pros: it is possible to switch views (cloud, tree, table).

A utility for tagging files and searching for them. Cons: Works only on Windows, difficult to tag hundreds of files.

Tag-based file system. Cons: only works on Linux, uses the same interface as for the tree structure. Pros: the right choice of the place where tags should be used - the organization of a virtual file system.

Another problem that complements this one is the desire to have versioning in the file system. I've been using git since 2009 and everything is great except that git runs on top of the same tree file system. If we introduce a tagging organization, it would be natural to include versioning there.

What would you like

1. When any file lands on your computer (including when installing programs, unpacking archives, etc.), it is automatically tagged with the following tags:
- where it was downloaded from (url, local path indicating the name of the computer from where it was downloaded, or the name of this computer, if it was created from scratch on it, plus a link to original file and its version if it is a copy or version of another file)
- date of creation (when downloaded, timestamp)
- update date=creation date
- full name file (UTF-8 encoded)
- MIME file type
- human MIME type name (music, program, video)
- file size
This metainformation is versioned.
2. The user can add any number of other tags to the file at any time, change and delete them. You cannot delete or change automatic tags manually. When adding/changing/deleting tags, there are two saving options, see below.
3. When creating, modifying and saving any file (and metainformation), there are two saving options:
3.1 Saving minor file edits: the contents, file size and update date are overwritten. Saving minor changes to meta information: adding, changing, deleting tags without saving history.
3.2 Full save (commit) of the file: created new version file and meta information. Complete preservation (commit) of metainformation: a new version of it is created.
Selecting a save option - two hotkeys, for example: F2 - Save, Shift+F2 - Commit. When you click any of them, an input line pops up into which you can enter tags separated by commas (in the first case, these are just tags (which can, of course, consist of several words); in the case of commit, this will be a commit message). The same operations can be performed with a group of files.
4. In the absence of a search criterion, the default view is a tree in which files are ordered according to the following list of tag criteria: human MIME type name, update date, full file name. This list can be edited: change the order of tags, add and remove tags from the automatic list. You can create new lists of tags and save them as views. The tree can be used in the same way as a regular file system - entering and exiting “folder” tags, sorting files. For example, creating a folder and moving files there would mean creating a custom tag and assigning it to the files.
5. By default, the search is carried out only among latest versions meta information. The search interface consists of two panels: one contains a set of controls for filtering the search by standard attributes (date of creation, update, human MIME type name, size from, size to), on the other - the input line (searches by both standard and user attributes, also searches by parts of tags, there is autocomplete).
6. The search results are shown as a table of files with columns: metadata version - file version - name - size - human name MIME - type - creation date - update date - where downloaded from - custom tags / commit message. The order of the columns can be changed; by clicking on the column header, you can sort the output by that column. The total number of files and the time spent searching are displayed below. Searches can be saved and used later.
7. For each file from context menu the commands “view metainformation history”, “view file history”, “get file version” are available (in this case, all the criteria above apply to the received file, which allows you to build a graph of copies and versions of one file)
8. When you leave your computer (or delete a file), the metainformation and contents of the file are deleted along with the entire history.

Stages of achieving ideal

Virtual file system with implementation file manager under it and git-like versioning is not an easy task. To begin with, you can simply try to create a daemon add-on that implements the described functions and works on top of existing file systems (NTFS, ext3/4). You also need to install git and put everything in it hard drive. Next, the demon monitors
- the appearance of all new files, marking them with autotags and adding them to git
- transfer, modification and deletion of files, updating information in the storage database and in git
- answers queries to the database, producing results
Plus a search interface/file manager, at least in the form of plugins for total commander/FAR/Nautilus/mc (may Macos fans forgive me for not using their system).

Yes, I forgot to mention Google Desktop [deceased September 14, 2011, googledesktop.blogspot.com/2011/09/google-desktop-update.html], as well as Copernic Desktop Search and others en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desktop_search) Why ? Firstly, they also search in files (content inside files), which was not required. Secondly, there is no versioning in these engines. In fairness, I still note that they implement some of the functionality I described, so considering these engines makes sense - perhaps I will do this in subsequent articles.

P.S. By the way, there is an assumption (from the same Google) that soon everyone will migrate to the web and to the clouds, so desktop search engines are a must. I don’t agree about this: a person needs to have a private place and control over information without access to outsiders, no matter how Google would like to know everything about everyone. And it’s unlikely that anyone will ever upload absolutely everything to torrents. So desktop search with versioning has a future.

In this article you will learn some very interesting things about the built-in file Windows search and after reading the material you will be able to find even files lost in folders about which you know bits of information.

It is not difficult to guess that this article will talk about advanced search in Windows. Undoubtedly, every computer user periodically uses a form of the standard Windows “search engine,” but not everyone knows that this search engine can be used much more productively and is a difficult tool, as it might seem at first glance.

Options and parameters that expand search capabilities

Despite the fact that the title contains the word “expanding”, these same options will help us install additional screening filters on our search query by files and folders in Windows and will actually narrow down the number of files found, which is to our benefit.

* - Means any sequence of any characters, i.e. all characters.

? - Any one character

~<" something" - Search for a name (File name, author, etc., depending on where to put it) which should begin with the one in quotes. The example searches for the name where the beginning is something.

~>" something" - Search for a name that must end with the one in quotes.

=" Coursework" - Search for an exact match with what is in quotes.

~=" Well" - Search for names that contain the exact set of characters like the one in quotes. Those. on request filename:~="course" there will be files not only with the word Well, but also simply containing this sequence of characters (Kursovoy, Kursach).

~!" Well" - Search for files that do not contain what is in quotes. Those. this parameter is completely opposite to the previous one.

<> - Means like “neither is”, “not”. Those. request where it will be view:<>picture , will search everything except pictures.

() - Brackets serve to separate and clarify the combining group where the operators operate.

"" - Quotes are used to accurately find the order of characters inside quotes. Because of this, operators inside quotes do not work at all, as do filters.

OR- Operator OR. For example, request filename: kcoursework OR work will search for files where words occur either coursework or Job well, or both. In the English version OR.

AND- Operator AND. For example, request filename: k ursovaya and work will look for files where both words are present, and it makes no difference in what places they are located and not necessarily next to each other. In the English version AND.

NOT- Operator NOT. For example, request filename: coursework NOT work will search for files containing the word coursework but there is no word Job. In the English version NOT.

Here are some examples of using operators:

size:10MB and- Finds Ivan’s files of 10 megabytes, which were changed after 2009.

filename: (*156*) AND type:(PNG OR JPEG) - Finds files where the name contains 156 and its extension is PNG or JPEG.

Now filtering options.

Below we present what filtering options you can use when searching for files and folders.

file name:- The name of the file you are looking for. Analogue on English-language Windows - filename.

type: Specifies what type of file is being searched for at the moment. Can take both file extension values ​​(For example, type: PNG), and their logical definition (For example: type: music or type: picture ). Analogue on English-language Windows - type.

view:- Same thing as type:. Analogue on English-language Windows - kind :

modification date:- Indicates when the files were modified. Can take exact values, ranges, as well as verbal meanings (long ago, yesterday, etc.). Analogue on English-language Windows - datemodified.

modified date: 05/25/2010

date modified: >2009

date modified: 21.01.2001 .. 05.01.2014 (Required two points in the range)

creation date:- Indicates when the file was created. The values ​​are the same as for date modified. English equivalent datecreated.

size:- Indicates the size of the searched files. Can take as precise values ​​up to decimal numbers, and the range of sizes. The units of measurement are KB, MB, GB. English language option - size:.

size:<=7Мб >1.5MB - files larger than 1.5 megabytes, but less than or equal to 7.

attributes:- Sets an additional search mask by tags. The parameter is not often used due to the fact that tags are rarely used.

owner:- Search for files of a specific owner.

executor:- Specifying this attribute is relevant when searching for music of a particular artist.

Combining filtering options

You can use several different options at once when searching, and this will even be better, because it will reduce the list of found files, while increasing their relevance. With several search filters put a space between them; in fact, it replaces the AND operator.

Attention! The AND and OR NOT operators are never highlighted in blue in the search bar. If yours is highlighted, it means you forgot either quotes or brackets or something else. Please note that some filters may not work with certain operators. For example it cannot be type:(BMP AND PNG), since any file can only be of one type.

For example, you can use the query:

size:5KB..20 KB type:picturefilename:~<"m" *little* датаизменения:‎01.‎03.‎2014 .. ‎31.‎03.‎2014

This app ros looks for images between 5 and 20 kilobytes in size with a file name that begins with a letter m and in which the word appears little. In this case, the file should have been changed during March 2014.

As you can see for yourself, with such capabilities you can easily search for files from many years ago, remembering at least some little details about it.

Several templates

In order for you to understand everything better and be able to try Windows advanced search yourself, we decided to make several of the most commonly used advanced search templates that can often come in handy.

How to find all files in a folder?

Sometimes a person wants to count how many files are in a particular folder and he is faced with the question of how to do this. Using Windows Search? But then what should I introduce? The input originates from regular expressions, and those who know first-hand what it is have already guessed what kind of character needs to be entered into the search field.

In the search field you need to enter: * (Star).

How to find all files of the same type (Extensions)?

If you want to find, for example, only pictures, use the filter type:picture, and if you want to find files of a certain extension, then you can use either *.jpeg or type:JPEG.

How to find files created at a specific time?

For this you need to use a filter creation date:DD/MM/YYYY. It is written about above. You can also set a filter not by the exact time the file was created, but by the interval. For example, from September 2011 to December 2012. The correct formulation of a search query with such a filter is described above.

How to find files of a certain size?

You need to use a filter size: and indicate the required file size in kilobytes, megabytes or gigabytes. You can read above about how you can search in a range of sizes and how to correctly indicate the size of the files you are looking for.

We really hope that this material will be useful to you, and if you have anything to add, then write in the comments.

One of the simplest applications for working with tags on Windows is . The utility has an extremely convenient interface - you just need to drag the file into the program window to assign a tag to it. And that's not all. Other benefits of TaggedFrog include:

Integration with ;
the ability to tag web links, Office documents, PDF files, images, etc.;
simple interface;
quick access to files stored in different directories using the tag cloud;
the ability to directly open files from the application;
support for English, German, Japanese, Russian and Spanish languages;
automatic tagging.

Installing TaggedFrog is very easy. The process is standard: and run it by double clicking. Once installed, TaggedFrog will appear in the Start menu. Now let's see how to use this handy utility.

Usage

TaggedFrog is very easy to use. The graphical interface of the program is as simple and clear as possible (Fig. A).

Figure A: As you can see, I've already created several tags. When you first launch TaggedFrog, the tags field is empty.

To add tags to files:

1. Launch TaggedFrog.
2. Open a folder with files in Explorer - for example, “My Documents”.
3. Drag files from Explorer to the top or bottom panel of TaggedFrog.
4. In the window that appears (Figure B), enter tags separated by commas.
5. Click OK.

Figure B This window allows you to add additional files to assign the specified tags. To do this, click the “+” button and specify the path to the file.

That's all, actually. However, there is another way to assign tags. Because TaggedFrog integrates with Explorer, you can add tags to files directly from the Explorer window. To do this:

1. Open File Explorer and navigate to the folder where the files you need are stored.
2. Right-click on the file and select the “Add Tags” option from the context menu.
3. In the window that appears, enter tags separated by commas.
4. Click OK.

In the same way, you can assign tags to several files at once. To do this, select the desired files with the mouse while holding down the key, and then open the “File” menu and select the “Add Tags” option. Otherwise, the process is no different from that described above.

Tags should be assigned wisely so that in the future you can actually find something using them. Many files can have several tags at once - this allows you to organize data as efficiently as possible.

Search files

Now let's see how to use tags. In Fig. A shows a list of tags I created. When you click on any tag, a list of files that it matches appears in the bottom panel of TaggedFrog. You can open the file by double clicking.

In the left vertical panel of the application there is a tree of file types - “Bookmarks”, “Documents” (Office Documents), “PDF Documents” and “Images”. When you click on any of them, a list of tags corresponding to the selected file type is displayed in the upper right panel.

Tag management

Rename tag;
view file statistics for a given tag;
remove tag.

You can also add tags to favorites to view all files that match that category. Let's say you have the tags "Linux", "Open Source" and "Ubuntu". Create a new set of tags by selecting the Filter | New Set" (Filtering | New Set), and assign the tag "Linux" to this set.

When you select this set in the “Favorites” panel, all files with the tag “