How to Use AudioShell, what are its Benefits and Cons? January 24, 2022May 23, 2022 Raza Ali Kazmi App Reviews, Rename Data, Solutions AudioShell is a third-party extension for File Explorer. It is designed to allow users to view and edit music file metadata (such as ID3 tags). The extension installs menu options to view and manage ID3 tags of various files straight inside the Windows Explorer. Once correctly integrated into your system, you can get the music tags information straight inside the various columns in the Windows Explorer and the Preview panel on the right. Product Spotlight (Duplicate Files): Use Sorcim’s Clone Files Checker to remove 1000s of duplicate audio files in your PC. Clone Files Checker follows Google Software Principles. It will not ask you to provide email address to download the software. What are ID3 Tags? Music tags, also known as ID3 tags, are metadata containers. They contain descriptive information about a music file such as album title, artist, released year, genre, cover art, composer, grouping, disc number, ratings etc. This information shows up every time you play a music file. Sometimes, your media player may automatically download this information online using a web-feeding technology called RSS Feeds, if the data is not available locally. Regularly filling up the music file metadata will ensure that your media is correctly displayed on computers and other electronic devices used to play the media file. AudioShell Supported File Formats AudioShell supports a large majority of file formats including: Viewing and editing ID3 tags of MP3 files (Supported ID3 tag versions: 1, 2.2, 2.3, 2.4) Windows Media Audio (WMA) files Windows Media Video (WMV) Advanced Systems Format (ASF) Apple iTunes (M4A) MP4 (MPEG 4 Audio) Adobe After Effects (APE) files Ogg Vorbis Flac, Opus, Wave Pack, and more… AudioShell Benefits There are various benefits of choosing AudioShell over other music tag managers. Some of them are as under: Freeware: AudioShell is a freeware software. You don’t need to purchase it or subscribe for monthly/ yearly subscriptions. Direct Integration: AudioShell creates Windows shell menu entries that make it easy to view and edit metadata directly. Tag Editor: AudioShell displays the file metadata straight inside the Windows Explorer- both in the columns and the preview panel. Compatibility: The software is compatible with almost all major operating system versions including Windows 11/ 10/ 8.1/ 8/ 8/7 (both 32-bit/ 64-bit). Unicode Support: The application comes with support for Unicode characters. Batch Editing: You can change ID3 tags individually for each file, or in batch for multiple files all at once. This saves you a lot of time and effort. Disadvantages of Using AudioShell AudioShell works differently than most other music taggers. Unlike other music tag editors, AudioShell does not have its own user interface or a program window. The program just adds up shell entries in the Windows Explorer besides displaying information in the columns and preview panel. Besides, you can also view or edit the music file tags information from the Properties dialog > AudioShell Information tab. Moreover, you’ll need to restart your computer after installing AudioShell in order to view or edit the music tags. How to Improve Content Retrieval Speed for ID3 Tags? It is recommended to use the ID3 Version 2 (also called as ID3v2). It stores the required header information at the beginning of the file, rather than at the end of the file data. ID3v2 makes it easier for your music player to quickly load the music tags information online, without downloading the entire file first. Limiting the size of your artwork to only 300*300 will help boost the content retrieval speed.