The evolution in the way we listen to music has been changing for decades. Whether on vinyl, cassette or CD, we had always conceived the physical format when listening to our favorite music. Since the appearance of the Internet as an essential element in our lives, we have started to consume music downloaded in MP3 and on many occasions we do not have the album cover. To solve it, there is a program like Album Art Downloader , which we will talk about below.
Album Art Downloader is a free and open source program that allows us to find and download album art , so that we can have our MP3 music files well organized.
The main virtue of this program is that it is capable of searching the covers on various specialized websites such as Amazon, CDCoverHideout, CDCoverIsland, Discogs, Album Art Exchange, Cover-Paradies, among others. This means that we can easily find the desired cover even for little-known artists or albums, regardless of our musical taste.
How to find album art with Album Art Downloader
Once we execute the application, its main menu appears with an interface with a simple and intuitive design , which despite being completely in English, we will quickly become familiar with its operation. In the central part it has a large workspace that provides enough space to correctly view any search we carry out.
At the top we find the “Artist” and “Album” sections, which will be the two essential search fields to carry out our task, as it will allow us to tell the application of which artist and album we want to search for the cover . In addition, with each new search a new window will open to make sure that nothing is accidentally lost. This is something that is optional and can be configured as we will see later from its “Options” menu.
On the right side of the interface we find a column where all the sources appear where the program will search for the desired cover. We can mark it to search in all or select only those where we want it to search. Although the program does not allow us to add our own pages to search, the options it offers us are more than enough.
These fonts also have a few small customization options. If we click on the three dots that accompany each source, a small menu of options will open. In them we can select the maximum number of results that each source shows us, as well as select that it is always downloaded in full size and use the source to first search the results.
Once we enter the name of the album artist we must click on the “Search” button and in a matter of seconds the program will be in charge of displaying all the covers found among all the selected sources. However, the number of results may be high and it may take us some time to find the correct cover page if no filters are applied or all sources are chosen for the search.
Customize search results
At the top we also have an options section (Options) that will allow us to configure some parameters of the application. For example, we can mark that the search results open in a new window, that the program closes automatically after saving.
We can also signal if we want full-size images to be downloaded automatically. Another option is the ability to filter by image size and cover type . This is very useful if we want you to search only for the front cover, back cover or even the internal brochures that accompany the CD. In addition, we can select the path of our hard drive where we want the downloads we make to be saved.
When downloading the covers, the procedure is equally simple. We just have to choose the desired one and click on it. In a matter of seconds, it will be downloaded on the established route. We can also press the right mouse button and a context menu will appear from where we can see a preview, choose the path for the download, copy to the clipboard or delete. We can also choose if we want the image to be saved as a front, back or CD image, so that everything is well organized.
Album Art Downloader free download
Album Art Downloader is an open source program that we can download for free from the SoucerForge website. It is compatible with the Windows operating system in practically all its versions such as XP, Vista, 7, 8 and 10. Additionally, it is possible to download a portable version of this program from here . In this way we can run it from any portable storage device such as a hard drive, a memory card and a pendrive on any computer.
Its latest available version is 1.05, which corresponds to March 2020 , so we have a well-updated software by its developer, which enables optimal performance.
Alternatives to Album Art Downloader
If we are looking for a program that helps us complete our collection of MP3 music with its corresponding cover, we present a couple of alternatives to Album Art Downloader that we can take into account for this task.
Album Cover Art Downloader
This useful software allows us to automatically download the covers of all the music albums that we have on our computer. In this way we can place them in their corresponding folder and thus be able to locate them better. In the event that the automatic search does not work, it will also be possible to perform the searches manually. We can download Album Cover Art Downloader from this link .
Creevity
It is an application that allows us to easily update our music folders by adding its corresponding cover. This is something that can be done automatically by recognizing the songs on our hard drive or manually. It also allows us to edit the metadata of the songs and load the covers that we have on our computer and export covers as images. We can download Creevity from here.