Can you paste album art into Windows Media Player? Yes, you absolutely can! Adding and managing album art in Windows Media Player is a straightforward process that can significantly enhance your music library’s visual appeal and organization. This guide will walk you through everything you need to know, from finding and downloading album art to applying it to your songs.
Windows Media Player (WMP) is a robust media player that allows you to organize, play, and manage your music, videos, and other media files. A key feature of WMP for music enthusiasts is its ability to display album art. This visual element not only makes browsing your music more enjoyable but also helps you quickly identify albums and artists. Whether you’re looking to add album art to a new album, change album artwork for a specific track, or update album art that’s missing or incorrect, this guide has you covered. We’ll explore how to find album art, download album art, and most importantly, how to paste album art directly into your WMP library.
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Image Source: www.lifewire.com
Preparing Your Music Files
Before you start pasting album art, it’s essential to ensure your music files are well-organized. Having your music categorized by artist and album will make the process of applying artwork much smoother.
Organizing Your Music Library
- Consistent Folder Structure: Create a main folder for your music. Within that, create subfolders for each artist, and then further subfolders for each album by that artist. For example:
Music\Artist Name\Album Name. - Correct File Tagging: Ensure your music files have accurate metadata, such as artist name, album title, track number, and song title. This information is crucial for Windows Media Player to correctly associate the album art with the right music. You can often edit these tags using WMP itself or other dedicated tag editing software.
Finding and Downloading Album Art
The first step to adding visual flair to your music library is to find album art. There are several reliable ways to do this.
Methods to Find Album Art
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Windows Media Player’s Built-in Feature:
WMP has a feature to automatically download album art and other metadata. While not always perfect, it’s a good starting point.- Open Windows Media Player.
- Go to the “Library” view.
- Select the album or songs for which you want to find art.
- Right-click on the selected item.
- Choose “Update Album Info.”
- WMP will search online databases for matching information, including album art.
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Online Music Databases:
Several websites are dedicated to providing album art and music metadata. These are excellent resources when WMP’s automatic lookup fails.- AllMusic.com: A comprehensive database of music information, including album covers.
- Discogs.com: A vast community-driven database of music releases, often with multiple cover variations.
- Amazon.com / other online retailers: Album pages on online music stores usually display the album cover.
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General Image Search Engines:
You can also use search engines like Google Images, Bing Images, or DuckDuckGo.- Search for “[Album Title] [Artist Name] album cover” or “[Album Title] [Artist Name] artwork.”
- Look for clear, high-resolution images. Avoid low-quality or fan-made art unless that’s specifically what you want.
Downloading Album Art
Once you’ve found the desired album art:
- Right-click on the image.
- Select “Save image as…”
- Choose a location on your computer where you can easily find it, such as a dedicated “Album Art” folder within your Music directory.
- It’s a good practice to name the image file something relevant, like the album title.
Table: Popular Websites for Album Art
| Website | Description | Best For |
|---|---|---|
| AllMusic.com | Extensive music database with detailed artist and album information, including album art. | Finding official album covers and detailed music history. |
| Discogs.com | Community-driven marketplace and database for music. Offers many variations of album art. | Finding rare releases, different editions, and fan-submitted artwork. |
| Amazon.com | Online retailer with vast music inventory. Album pages usually display cover art. | Quick visual confirmation and often good quality official artwork. |
| MusicBrainz.org | Openly collaborative music database. Often used by other music software for metadata lookup. | Comprehensive metadata, including artwork, though direct download may vary. |
Pasting Album Art in Windows Media Player: The Step-by-Step Process
Now that you have your music files organized and your desired album art downloaded, it’s time to learn how to paste album art into Windows Media Player. This process is also referred to as assigning album art or applying album art.
Method 1: Adding Album Art to Individual Songs or Albums
This is the most direct way to paste album art when you have a specific image file.
Step 1: Open Your Music Library in Windows Media Player
- Launch Windows Media Player.
- Navigate to the “Music” library section. You should see your albums listed, often with placeholder icons if no art is present.
Step 2: Locate the Album or Song
- Find the album or the specific songs you want to add album art to. You can browse by Artist, Album, or Songs.
Step 3: Access the Album Art Editing Feature
- For an Album: Click on the album to expand it and see the tracks. Then, right-click on the album title itself or on one of the songs within that album.
- For a Specific Song: Right-click directly on the song title.
Step 4: Select “Paste Album Art” or “Edit Album Info”
- In the context menu that appears, look for an option like “Paste album art” or “Edit album info.” If you choose “Edit album info,” a new window will open.
Step 5: Paste the Album Art
- If you chose “Paste album art”:
- Ensure the album art image file you want to use is copied to your clipboard. To do this, open the image file in an image viewer (like Photos or Paint), right-click on the image, and select “Copy.”
- Go back to Windows Media Player.
- Right-click in the area designated for album art (often a blank square or the existing, incorrect artwork).
- Select “Paste.”
- If you chose “Edit album info”:
- In the “Edit Album Info” window, find the section for Album Art. There will usually be a box or an “Add” button.
- Click the “Add” button or right-click within the album art area and select “Paste.”
- If the image isn’t already on your clipboard, you might have an option to “Browse” for the image file you saved earlier. Navigate to where you saved the album art and select it.
Step 6: Save Your Changes
- After pasting or adding the image, click the “OK” or “Apply” button in the “Edit Album Info” window (if applicable) or simply click away from the album art area if you used the direct paste method.
- Windows Media Player will now apply album art to the selected songs or the entire album.
Method 2: Using the “Find Album Art” and “Paste” Combination
This method is useful if you’ve found an image online and want to quickly paste it without saving it first. However, saving the image is generally recommended for better quality control.
Step 1: Find and Copy the Album Art Image
- Navigate to an online source where you found the album art (e.g., a website listing).
- Right-click directly on the album art image.
- Select “Copy image.”
Step 2: Open Windows Media Player and Locate Your Music
- Open WMP and go to your Music library.
- Find the album or song you wish to update.
Step 3: Right-Click and Select “Paste Album Art”
- Right-click on the album or song.
- Choose the “Paste album art” option. If this option isn’t directly available, select “Edit album info,” and then look for a “Paste” option within the album art section of the editing window.
Step 4: Confirm the Paste Action
- The copied image should now appear. Confirm the changes by clicking “OK” or “Apply.”
Method 3: Embedding Album Art Directly into Music Files (Advanced)
While Windows Media Player allows you to display album art, it doesn’t always embed album art directly into the music files themselves by default. This means if you move the files to another player or computer without re-linking the art, it might disappear. To ensure the album art travels with your music, you can use tag editing software to embed the artwork.
Tools for Embedding Album Art:
- Mp3tag: A popular, free, and powerful tag editor that supports embedding album art into various audio file formats (MP3, FLAC, AAC, etc.).
- MediaMonkey: Another comprehensive music management tool that can also embed album art.
General Steps (using Mp3tag as an example):
- Download and Install Mp3tag: Get it from the official website.
- Load Your Music Files: Open Mp3tag and drag your music files or folders into the program.
- Find and Download Album Art: Use the “Tag Sources” feature within Mp3tag to search online databases (like Discogs or MusicBrainz) for album art and metadata. Alternatively, you can manually load a saved image file.
- Select Files and Embed Art:
- Select the files you want to embed album art into.
- Right-click on the selected files.
- Choose “Tagging sources” -> “Load cover…” or manually add the cover art to the selected files.
- Once the cover art is displayed in Mp3tag, click the “Save” button. This writes the album art into the actual audio file’s metadata.
After embedding, when you add these files to Windows Media Player, the art will be displayed automatically and will be portable.
Changing and Updating Album Artwork
Sometimes, the album art you have might be low quality, incorrect, or you simply want to change album artwork to a different version. The process is similar to adding new art.
Steps to Change Album Artwork
- Find New Album Art: Use the methods described earlier to find album art that you prefer. Save the new image file.
- Locate the Album/Song in WMP: Open Windows Media Player and navigate to your music library.
- Right-click and Edit: Right-click on the album or song. Select “Edit album info.”
- Replace Existing Art: In the “Edit Album Info” window, the current album art will be displayed.
- If you want to replace it with a new image file: Click the “Browse” button (or similar) and select your newly downloaded image.
- If you want to paste a new image from your clipboard: Copy the new image, then right-click in the album art area within WMP and select “Paste.”
- Save Changes: Click “OK” or “Apply” to save the updated artwork.
This process is how you update album art if WMP automatically downloaded incorrect or undesirable artwork.
Viewing Album Art in Windows Media Player
Once you’ve successfully added or pasted album art, you’ll want to know how to view album art effectively within WMP.
Ways to View Album Art
- Library View:
- Album View: This is the most common view for appreciating album art. Go to Library -> Music. Then, select “Albums” from the left-hand navigation pane. Your albums will be displayed as tiles with their respective cover art. You can switch between different display modes (e.g., “Thumbnails”) to see larger artwork.
- Artist View: Sometimes, artist pages also display associated album art.
- Now Playing Screen:
- When a song is playing, WMP’s “Now Playing” screen will prominently display the album art for the current track. You can switch to this mode by clicking the “Switch to Now Playing” button (often looks like a music note or a small album art square) at the bottom right of the WMP window, or by pressing
Ctrl+3.
- When a song is playing, WMP’s “Now Playing” screen will prominently display the album art for the current track. You can switch to this mode by clicking the “Switch to Now Playing” button (often looks like a music note or a small album art square) at the bottom right of the WMP window, or by pressing
- Details Pane:
- When you select an album or song in the library, a details pane often appears at the bottom or side, showing information including the album art.
Troubleshooting Common Issues
While the process is generally simple, you might encounter a few issues when trying to paste album art.
Common Problems and Solutions
- Album Art Not Appearing:
- Check File Format: Ensure your album art is in a common image format like JPG, PNG, BMP, or GIF.
- Image Size/Resolution: Very large or very small images might cause issues. Try resizing your artwork to a moderate resolution (e.g., 300×300 or 500×500 pixels).
- Corrupted File: The downloaded image file might be corrupted. Try downloading it again.
- Permissions: Ensure Windows Media Player has the necessary permissions to access the folder where you saved the image.
- Metadata Conflicts: If you’ve used multiple tools to manage your music, there might be conflicting metadata. Try clearing existing artwork and re-applying it.
- “Paste Album Art” Option is Grayed Out:
- This usually means that WMP doesn’t recognize the selected item as something that can have album art applied directly via pasting. Ensure you’ve selected an album or a song within your library.
- Try selecting “Edit Album Info” instead, and then use the “Add” or “Paste” function within that window.
- Artwork Looks Blurry or Pixelated:
- This indicates that the original image you downloaded was of low quality. You’ll need to find album art with a higher resolution. Aim for images at least 300 pixels in width or height.
- Artwork Changes Back After Restart:
- This can happen if the artwork isn’t properly saved or if there’s a conflict with metadata already embedded in the file. Embedding the artwork directly into the music file using a tag editor is the most reliable solution for this.
FAQs
What is the best way to add album art to many songs at once?
The most efficient way to add album art to multiple songs is to apply it to the album. Select all the songs belonging to a specific album, right-click, choose “Edit album info,” and then apply album art to the album as a whole. WMP will then associate that art with all the songs in that album. If you need to do this for many albums, using a dedicated tag editor to embed album art into each album’s files is even more effective.
Can I download album art directly from the internet within Windows Media Player?
Yes, Windows Media Player has a built-in feature to automatically download album art and other metadata. Select your album or songs, right-click, and choose “Update Album Info.” WMP will search online databases to find and add album art for you.
How do I ensure my album art stays with my music when I move files?
To make sure your album art travels with your music, you should embed album art directly into the audio files. Use a tag editor like Mp3tag or MediaMonkey. These tools write the image data into the music file’s metadata (ID3 tags for MP3s), so the artwork remains with the song regardless of where you move or play it.
What if the album art I find online is too large or too small?
If the album art is too large or too small, you can use a simple image editing tool (like Paint, Photos, or online editors) to resize it. A good general recommendation for album art resolution is around 300×300 pixels up to 500×500 pixels for a balance of quality and file size. After resizing, save the image and then use the steps above to paste album art into Windows Media Player.
How do I update album art if the downloaded version is incorrect?
If Windows Media Player automatically downloaded the wrong album art, or if you simply want to change album artwork, follow these steps: Right-click on the album or song, select “Edit album info,” and then use the “Add” or “Paste” function to replace the existing artwork with the correct image you’ve found.
By following these detailed steps, you can effectively paste album art, add album art, and manage album artwork within Windows Media Player, transforming your music library into a visually rich and easily navigable experience. Remember that proper file organization and metadata tagging are key to a smooth experience when you assign album art to your collection.