Install flactag with Homebrew, apt

Project links

• Homepage
• Repository
• Package manager page

Commands and aliases

• checkflac
• discid
• flactag
• ripdataflac
• ripflac

Project history

The official site presents flactag as a utility for tagging single-album FLAC files with embedded CUE sheets from MusicBrainz. Its version history starts with an initial version and then records additions such as MusicBrainz tag storage, file renaming, cover-art embedding, multi-file command-line handling, UTF-8 tag writing, disc ID reporting, request throttling, CUE generation, and updates for newer MusicBrainz libraries.

The project belongs to the era of whole-CD FLAC archiving, where a user might rip an entire album into one FLAC file, preserve the CUE sheet, and then need the resulting file to carry reliable album and track metadata.

Adoption history

Upstream documentation focuses on a narrow archival workflow rather than broad consumer adoption. It includes mailing-list references and scripts such as ripflac, ripdataflac, checkflac, and discid, which points to use by collectors and Unix audio archivists maintaining carefully tagged FLAC libraries.

How it is used

Interactive use processes FLAC files passed as arguments, queries MusicBrainz by disc ID, lets the user choose an album, copies tags into the tag window, and writes them with the w key. Batch options can check, write, force-write, rename, overwrite existing files, override the disc ID, or print MusicBrainz submission URLs.

The configuration file ~/.flactag controls renaming behavior, including filename formats and whether to generate a cuesheet after rename.

Why package nerds care

flactag is interesting because it combines several old-school media packaging concerns: FLAC metadata, embedded CUE sheets, MusicBrainz identity, terminal UI libraries, CD disc IDs, and safe-ish batch renaming.

For package maintainers it is a dependency-heavy but focused CLI, tying together libmusicbrainz, libflac++, S-Lang, libneon, unac, libjpeg, and AsciiDoc-era documentation.

Timeline

• 2000s: Initial version created for MusicBrainz-backed FLAC tagging.
• 2000s-2010s: Added cover art, batch command-line operation, disc ID reporting, UTF-8 tag writing, and file renaming.
• 2010s: Updated for newer MusicBrainz libraries, including libmusicbrainz4 and libmusicbrainz5.

Related projects

• FLAC, MusicBrainz, CUE sheets, libmusicbrainz, libflac++, S-Lang, SourceForge.

Sources

• https://flactag.sourceforge.net/
• https://sourceforge.net/p/flactag/code