beets/docs/plugins/mbsync.rst

MBSync Plugin
=============

This plugin provides the ``mbsync`` command, which lets you fetch metadata
from MusicBrainz for albums and tracks that already have MusicBrainz IDs. This
is useful for updating tags as they are fixed in the MusicBrainz database, or
when you change your mind about some config options that change how tags are
written to files. If you have a music library that is already nicely tagged by
a program that also uses MusicBrainz like Picard, this can speed up the
initial import if you just import "as-is" and then use ``mbsync`` to get
up-to-date tags that are written to the files according to your beets
configuration.


Usage
-----

Enable the ``mbsync`` plugin in your configuration (see :ref:`using-plugins`)
and then run ``beet mbsync QUERY`` to fetch updated metadata for a part of your
collection (or omit the query to run over your whole library).

This plugin treats albums and singletons (non-album tracks) separately. It
first processes all matching singletons and then proceeds on to full albums.
The same query is used to search for both kinds of entities.

The command has a few command-line options:

* To preview the changes that would be made without applying them, use the
  ``-p`` (``--pretend``) flag.
* By default, files will be moved (renamed) according to their metadata if
  they are inside your beets library directory. To disable this, use the
  ``-M`` (``--nomove``) command-line option.
* If you have the ``import.write`` configuration option enabled, then this
  plugin will write new metadata to files' tags. To disable this, use the
  ``-W`` (``--nowrite``) option.
* To customize the output of unrecognized items, use the ``-f``
  (``--format``) option. The default output is ``format_item`` or
  ``format_album`` for items and albums, respectively.