Granular control over embedded cover art (per album, playlist, UGC)

[rafalhycko]

Would it be possible to add an environment variable that would completely block downloading covers? For example, it could be called YUBAL_NO_COVER. It would help me a lot.
Thank you for the work you’re doing to develop Yubal!

[guillevc]

Hi, do you mean playlist covers? Or all covers (tracks get embed covers)?

[rafalhycko]

Hi!
What I meant was all covers - albums and playlists. Currently, tracks automatically get embedded covers. It would be great to have an option to control whether covers are downloaded and embedded (for albums, playlists, UGC, etc.).
This wouldn’t be such an issue if there were an easy way to remove those covers using a docker-based tag editor - but I’m not aware of any such solution. At the moment, I use Kid3 locally to remove embedded covers. However, it’s not convenient to:

1. Download each album
2. Remove covers manually
3. Re-upload the files

Maybe something like this could be implemented:

YUBAL_COVER_UGC=false
YUBAL_COVER_ALBUM=false
YUBAL_COVER_PLAYLIST=false

This would give much better control over when album artwork is embedded.

Thanks again for your work on Yubal

[SerpentDrago]

Not the developer just a user.

MusicBrainzPicard works perfectly in a docker / web configuration , i use it to edit my music files on my Unraid server fine . there's also command line based editors

You could also just map a remote drive to your system and edit away . i have no idea why you would need to transfer from a server then transfer back .. that sounds crazy

Also why would you NOT want embedded covers ?

[rafalhycko]

Regarding albums, I prefer not to embed cover directly into the audio files. Instead, I like to keep a high-resolution cover image in the same album directory as a separate file. Just personal preference - plus a bit of storage savings. A 4 MB cover embedded into each of 12 tracks adds up to 48 MB per album. Across 1,000 albums, that’s about 48 GB dedicated solely to cover art.

Thanks for suggesting Picard. Were you referring to the jlesage/musicbrainz-picard container?

I’m rarely on the same local network as my server, so smb/nfs isn’t really an option for me. That’s why I use Nextcloud - but modifying files means downloading them first.

Ideally, I’d like to handle everything directly on the server without having to transfer files back and forth. Picard might make that possible.

[SerpentDrago]

you could also just use tailscale to your server (easy to use vpn) and still map a drive / access it via smb as it would then be "local" this is exactly what vpn's are made for ! make your remote network resources appear local securly !

the specific container i use on unraid is jlesage/musicbrainz-picard .
make sure you lookup how to use it , it can be a bit confusing at first but very powerful .

I can see now why you may want to use cover art in the directory . never thought of it that way . i personally would prob just embed a low res image in the tags and then have higher res in folder . then setup whatever app i'm using to prefer local over embed

[rafalhycko]

I use pure wireguard for remote access to the server. I have a public IP address and don’t need the additional features that Tailscale offers.
Due to its high sensitivity to ping and jitter, smb is not very convenient - especially when editing metadata in a large number of files. The protocol was not designed to be used in this way. Occasional access can work with a good connection, but with a poor connection it doesn’t perform very well.

i personally would prob just embed a low res image in the tags and then have higher res in folder . then setup whatever app i'm using to prefer local over embed

This is a solution, but for years the method I described above has worked well for me, and I wouldn’t want to change it :) That’s why I think it would be good to have the option to disable downloading covers. The user can decide for themselves whether the cover should be downloaded or not.

[SerpentDrago]

Agreed more options are always best , just trying to help you in your current situation ! also agree smb kinda sucks !

if you don't mind command line , may i suggest https://beets.io/ , not used it myself but its apparently the absolute best library organization tool and can do almost anything . should be right up your alley ! it also apparently has a minimal web frontend

[rafalhycko]

Thanks for offering to help, I really appreciate it! I’ll have to take a closer look at beets because, from what I was able to quickly find out, Picard won’t remove the cover. It might set or replace it, but it won’t delete it. Unless I’m missing something.