Hydrogenaudio Forums > iTunes Covers Downloader

Anas

Dec 26 2005, 15:32

Please note: Since iTunes no longer allows you to download album art, without buying at least one song of the album, this program is pretty useless.

iTunes Cover Downloader

Cover Downloader for iTunes Covers, using this script.

IPB Image

With the iTunes Cover Downloader you can get the 600x600 pixels album art from the
iTunes Music Store.
You can search manually by Artist, Album & Song or use the scan engine to make the program
download the album art automatically for your music collection.
You can also call this program by commandline.

Manually Search:
It's very easy to use, just type your search parameters into the fields and click 'Search!'.
The search & download time can vary depending on your connection speed.

Auto-Scan:
There are a few things you should attend:
1. Cover Filename: You can use %artist% and %album% in the filename. They will autmatically be replaced.
2. Includes Filename: Check if you want to include the filename structure (eg if you haven't got folders).
Don't add file-endings (eg *.mp3) to the structure.
3. The One-Folder-Mode:
If this checkbox is enabled, all covers will be saved in the directory you entered below.

Command Line Usage:
iTunesCovers.exe "artist" "album" "song" "savepath" "filename"
iTunesCovers.exe "Drowning Pool" " " " " "D:\" "%artist%" Searches for all covers from Drowning Pool
and saves them as Drowning Pool1.jpg, Drowning Pool2.jpg, ...
(Don't forget to put the ' ' into the quotes if you choose to don't use a field!)
When you start the searching process you won't see a window or feedback in the command prompt.
If nothing happens, no covers are found.

Updated last: 2006-04-29 Version 0.2.0.7
- bugfixes
- pressing enter in manual search starts the search
- right click and hold on a cover to resize it to 300x300

Now just download & enjoy

.

Jojo

Dec 26 2005, 16:12

thanks for sharing. A nice feature would be if the program would automatically go through my music folder and download covers automatically based on the file's name or ID3 tags. If there are multiple choices the program could ask which one to use.

mote

Dec 26 2005, 17:20

QUOTE(Jojo @ Dec 26 2005, 11:12 PM)

thanks for sharing. A nice feature would be if the program would automatically go through my music folder and download covers automatically based on the file's name or ID3 tags. If there are multiple choices the program could ask which one to use.

try http://www.yvg.com/

Anas

Dec 27 2005, 04:02

QUOTE(Jojo @ Dec 27 2005, 12:12 AM)

thanks for sharing. A nice feature would be if the program would automatically go through my music folder and download covers automatically based on the file's name or ID3 tags. If there are multiple choices the program could ask which one to use.

Will add this feature tomorrow or so, don't know how long it will take. I've got a lot of things to do, so please be patient.

Habla

Dec 27 2005, 14:31

Can you also make it embed the art in the tags?

Jojo

Dec 27 2005, 15:36

QUOTE(Anas @ Dec 27 2005, 03:02 AM)

QUOTE(Jojo @ Dec 27 2005, 12:12 AM)

thanks for sharing. A nice feature would be if the program would automatically go through my music folder and download covers automatically based on the file's name or ID3 tags. If there are multiple choices the program could ask which one to use.

Will add this feature tomorrow or so, don't know how long it will take. I've got a lot of things to do, so please be patient.

sweet

Take your time though...

QUOTE(Habla @ Dec 27 2005, 01:31 PM)

Can you also make it embed the art in the tags?

I don't think that is as easy to implement...but one can always use a different program for that such as iTunes or mp3Tag

Synthetic Soul

Jan 1 2006, 14:06

QUOTE(Anas @ Dec 26 2005, 09:32 PM)

I worte a cover downloader for iTunes using Delphi and this script.
I think it's not that bad and should work for you (for me it does

).

It did work for me, but now it doesn't. After submitting my search I quite quickly get a dialogue with the mesage "<HTML><HEAD>.". When it first went wrong the message was longer than this (I think it was a DOCTYPE statement), but I didn't record it.

Is this just happening to me?

The online script quoted still works fine.

[M]

Jan 1 2006, 14:52

QUOTE(Synthetic Soul @ Jan 1 2006, 09:06 PM)

It did work for me, but now it doesn't. After submitting my search I quite quickly get a dialogue with the mesage "<HTML><HEAD>.". When it first went wrong the message was longer than this (I think it was a DOCTYPE statement), but I didn't record it. Is this just happening to me?

No. The same here.

Synthetic Soul

Jan 1 2006, 16:43

Thanks for the confirm - I was surprised that no-one else had reported so I thought maybe my router was blocking it somehow. I've never really figued out the firewall aspect of my router!

Anas

Jan 15 2006, 03:10

QUOTE(Synthetic Soul @ Jan 1 2006, 10:06 PM)

QUOTE(Anas @ Dec 26 2005, 09:32 PM)

I worte a cover downloader for iTunes using Delphi and this script.
I think it's not that bad and should work for you (for me it does

).

It did work for me, but now it doesn't. After submitting my search I quite quickly get a dialogue with the mesage "<HTML><HEAD>.". When it first went wrong the message was longer than this (I think it was a DOCTYPE statement), but I didn't record it.

Is this just happening to me?

The online script quoted still works fine.

I realized too late that something in the used script changed. I'll fixed it and added support for auto-scan and auto-scan with One-Folder-Mode ( One Folder, All Covers ).
I'll update my first post now and upload new version.

EDIT: Updated first post, just redownload the attachment to get the new version.

Synthetic Soul

Jan 16 2006, 07:56

QUOTE(Anas @ Dec 26 2005, 09:32 PM)

Now just download & enjoy (and hope it works

).

Many thanks Anas, working great now.

Edit: I've just worked out what the Scan function does. That's cool.

Anas

Jan 19 2006, 11:15

QUOTE(Synthetic Soul @ Jan 16 2006, 03:56 PM)

QUOTE(Anas @ Dec 26 2005, 09:32 PM)

Now just download & enjoy (and hope it works

).

Many thanks Anas, working great now.

Edit: I've just worked out what the Scan function does. That's cool.

Good to hear that you like it.

I just released a new Version: 0.0.1.3.
See first post

.

kurtnoise

Jan 19 2006, 11:55

Thanks Anas for this tool...

It works great. Question: could we have the sources of this app ?

Habla

Jan 19 2006, 14:12

Can this work with foo_openwith? I've tried a couple strings, but none of them worked.

david_dl

Jan 19 2006, 14:48

QUOTE(kurtnoise @ Jan 20 2006, 06:55 AM)

Thanks Anas for this tool...

It works great. Question: could we have the sources of this app ?

Does this app access iTMS directly, based on the PHP source code on that page, or does it take the images from the example script ? The latter is probably not a good idea, especially when he has sourece available

Anas

Jan 20 2006, 09:41

QUOTE(Habla @ Jan 19 2006, 10:12 PM)

Can this work with foo_openwith? I've tried a couple strings, but none of them worked.

No, it can't yet.

QUOTE(david_dl @ Jan 19 2006, 10:48 PM)

QUOTE(kurtnoise @ Jan 20 2006, 06:55 AM)

Thanks Anas for this tool...

It works great. Question: could we have the sources of this app ?

Does this app access iTMS directly, based on the PHP source code on that page, or does it take the images from the example script ? The latter is probably not a good idea, especially when he has sourece available

Nope it takes the images directly from the iTMS. The 'Stripped Down Art Search' provides the URL's to the images.

Habla

Jan 20 2006, 12:01

Any plans on making it compatible then?

Anas

Jan 20 2006, 12:10

QUOTE(Habla @ Jan 20 2006, 08:01 PM)

Any plans on making it compatible then?

I'm working on it, forgot to say that in my post.

The feature will probably be available in the next version, which I (hopefully) will release this weekend.

popplynogood

Jan 20 2006, 13:35

Can you explain what I am doing wrong.

I set it up, as I thought the scan was supposed to be done, pointed it at a bunch of MP3s with appropriate tags.

When I click Scan I get the messages you can see, then a list of all the MP3s, but it does nothing.

It works fine in manual mode.

In your notes you say it doesn't check the music folder, yet the message appears to say its looking for a certain jpg, without substitution. Then it says no results. It only takes a couple of seconds to do all this, it isn't going out and looking for anything.

Help?

Habla

Jan 20 2006, 20:21

QUOTE(Anas @ Jan 20 2006, 10:10 AM)

QUOTE(Habla @ Jan 20 2006, 08:01 PM)

Any plans on making it compatible then?

I'm working on it, forgot to say that in my post.

The feature will probably be available in the next version, which I (hopefully) will release this weekend.

Great!

Anas

Jan 21 2006, 04:42

QUOTE(popplynogood @ Jan 20 2006, 09:35 PM)

Can you explain what I am doing wrong.

I set it up, as I thought the scan was supposed to be done, pointed it at a bunch of MP3s with appropriate tags.

When I click Scan I get the messages you can see, then a list of all the MP3s, but it does nothing.

It works fine in manual mode.

In your notes you say it doesn't check the music folder, yet the message appears to say its looking for a certain jpg, without substitution. Then it says no results. It only takes a couple of seconds to do all this, it isn't going out and looking for anything.

Help?

The program can't read file tags. To use the program you have to have a folder structure (for example D:\Music\ABBA\Album\ABBA - One Of Us.mp3).
I don't know if I ever will add tag support, but I don't think so.
I will try to add support for guessing fields from the filename.

Anas

Jan 22 2006, 04:58

New Version 0.0.1.4 now supports Commandline usage.
See first post

.

Anas

Jan 30 2006, 07:02

New Version, see first post

.

Synthetic Soul

Jan 30 2006, 07:35

If I do an Artist search for "editors" I get:

CODE

iTunes Cover Search
Search started...
Looking for covers...
13 covers found.
Downloading cover #1 of 13...
Downloading cover #2 of 13...
Downloading cover #3 of 13...
Downloading cover #4 of 13...

... in the console, and then a dialogue pops up :

Title: "iTunes Cover Search"
Message: "HTTP/1.1 404 Not Found."

A similar thing happens with the last version (three images appear and then the same dialogue).

I did a search for "ben folds" and the same dialogue appears when trying to download 15 of 19.

Any ideas?

Anas

Jan 30 2006, 08:30

QUOTE(Synthetic Soul @ Jan 30 2006, 03:35 PM)

If I do an Artist search for "editors" I get:

CODE

iTunes Cover Search
Search started...
Looking for covers...
13 covers found.
Downloading cover #1 of 13...
Downloading cover #2 of 13...
Downloading cover #3 of 13...
Downloading cover #4 of 13...

... in the console, and then a dialogue pops up :

Title: "iTunes Cover Search"
Message: "HTTP/1.1 404 Not Found."

A similar thing happens with the last version (three images appear and then the same dialogue).

I did a search for "ben folds" and the same dialogue appears when trying to download 15 of 19.

Any ideas?

Thanks for reporting.
I looked after it and found this out:
I searched for Editors just like you did and got the same error, so I checked the script I'm using.
I'm using the stripped down art search you can find here.
I searched there for Editors again and got this results. As you can see there are all 13 results listed. To get the art URL you have to call the script with the post variable 'pid' which should contain the playlist id.
Let's take the fourth result where the 404 Error occured. You will get this PHP error.
As you can see it's not my fault

, but an error in the script I'm using.
I will try to get in touch with tpemble, the author of this script.

Anas

Jan 31 2006, 03:17

I wrote an email to tpemble and received an answer today:

QUOTE

The reason that playlist doesn't work is because it's an audio book and does not have a track listing. I prevented the error from appearing, though.

Means: I can't get covers from Audiobooks, but the new version (0.1.1.4) now handles this error and doesn't stop searching when it finds one, it also won't display the 404 Error anymore.

kalmark

Jan 31 2006, 05:15

Anas, in scanning mode, the default values for Music directory structure and Filename seem to be mixed up - and this causes an access violation.

Anas

Jan 31 2006, 06:26

You're right

, thanks for the report. I fixed it now.
You can redownload from the first post, but it isn't neccassary, the problem only occures when starting the program the first time, then you can change the values.

Synthetic Soul

Jan 31 2006, 08:25

Cool, thanks Anas.

FYI: With the "Ben Folds" search the offending item appears to be a playlist, not an audiobook - but I suspect there is no way for the script to know the difference, and I don't really care either way if I can't download it. I just thought I'd highlight it though, in case it ever becomes useful knowledge.

Thanks again.

jaybeee

Jan 31 2006, 15:04

Great program. Just downloaded many covers

A 'stop scanning' button would be nice when it's scanning lots of albums and pulling up balnks cos of incorrect parameters for example.

Anas

Feb 1 2006, 07:11

QUOTE(jaybeee @ Jan 31 2006, 11:04 PM)

Great program. Just downloaded many covers

A 'stop scanning' button would be nice when it's scanning lots of albums and pulling up balnks cos of incorrect parameters for example.

Added to to-do list.

justanother

Feb 1 2006, 09:51

would it be possible to use the tags of the musicfiles to search for the cover? that would be really neat.

ethanw

Feb 1 2006, 10:35

wow, looks like a great program. Here comes the stupid question. Usually, as per Apple's ruthless tyrrany, you can't add covers for cd's you ripped to itunes. Does this program take the url pointing to the image from the itunes store and automatically import it to your file info in your itunes library, thus circumventing Apples "block"?

also, a little of topic. does it take much longer to load tracks (as in, it takes the ipod longer to start playing them) that have covers with them, or add time to the GAP between songs?

thanks for the hard work, looks promising

Anas

Feb 1 2006, 10:58

QUOTE(justanother @ Feb 1 2006, 05:51 PM)

would it be possible to use the tags of the musicfiles to search for the cover? that would be really neat.

I've got no experience with file tags, but I will think about it.

QUOTE(ethanw @ Feb 1 2006, 06:35 PM)

wow, looks like a great program. Here comes the stupid question. Usually, as per Apple's ruthless tyrrany, you can't add covers for cd's you ripped to itunes. Does this program take the url pointing to the image from the itunes store and automatically import it to your file info in your itunes library, thus circumventing Apples "block"?

also, a little of topic. does it take much longer to load tracks (as in, it takes the ipod longer to start playing them) that have covers with them, or add time to the GAP between songs?

thanks for the hard work, looks promising

This program doesn't save album art into tags nor does it interact with iTunes. It just downloads the album art and saves it where you want it.

ethanw

Feb 1 2006, 11:14

QUOTE(Anas @ Feb 1 2006, 12:58 PM)

This program doesn't save album art into tags nor does it interact with iTunes. It just downloads the album art and saves it where you want it.

thanks, still awesome.

Anas

Feb 4 2006, 11:06

QUOTE(Anas @ Jan 21 2006, 12:42 PM)

QUOTE(popplynogood @ Jan 20 2006, 09:35 PM)

Can you explain what I am doing wrong.

I set it up, as I thought the scan was supposed to be done, pointed it at a bunch of MP3s with appropriate tags.

When I click Scan I get the messages you can see, then a list of all the MP3s, but it does nothing.

It works fine in manual mode.

In your notes you say it doesn't check the music folder, yet the message appears to say its looking for a certain jpg, without substitution. Then it says no results. It only takes a couple of seconds to do all this, it isn't going out and looking for anything.

Help?

The program can't read file tags. To use the program you have to have a folder structure (for example D:\Music\ABBA\Album\ABBA - One Of Us.mp3).
I don't know if I ever will add tag support, but I don't think so.
I will try to add support for guessing fields from the filename.

Done. You can now read search parameters only/additional from filename.

QUOTE(Anas @ Feb 1 2006, 03:11 PM)

QUOTE(jaybeee @ Jan 31 2006, 11:04 PM)

Great program. Just downloaded many covers

A 'stop scanning' button would be nice when it's scanning lots of albums and pulling up balnks cos of incorrect parameters for example.

Added to to-do list.

Done. Download 0.1.1.7

justanother

Feb 9 2006, 12:32

hi anas

well, i have a problem with the itunes cover downloader... it used to work but now it doesn't - it just says: no cover found; although i tested it with some i already downloaded with it... seems a little bit curious - do you know what could be the reason?

cya thomas

Anas

Feb 9 2006, 13:41

QUOTE(justanother @ Feb 9 2006, 08:32 PM)

hi anas

well, i have a problem with the itunes cover downloader... it used to work but now it doesn't - it just says: no cover found; although i tested it with some i already downloaded with it... seems a little bit curious - do you know what could be the reason?

cya thomas

There's currently a problem with the script I'm using (error).
There's nothing I can do about this so please be patient. I think the author of the script will fix this soon (hopefully).

arman68

Feb 10 2006, 03:07

Since the source is available for the php script, wouldn't it make it make sense to be able to specify a custom URL for the script? That way it would be possible to run it on a local server, which not only would make it faster, but more importantely would lessen the load on tpemble server.

david_dl

Feb 10 2006, 04:13

I was under the impression you had re-implemented the PHP code in whatever language you are using. I strongly suggest you do this, the source is on the site and its fairly simple to understand (C-like syntax). IMHO, to use his servers is abusive, and will also result in slower cover downloading. If you want a temporary workaround, I posted a PHP script to get iTunes covers directly (based on this code) in the uploads forum somewhere a while ago.

Anas

Feb 10 2006, 08:11

QUOTE(david_dl @ Feb 10 2006, 12:13 PM)

I was under the impression you had re-implemented the PHP code in whatever language you are using. I strongly suggest you do this, the source is on the site and its fairly simple to understand (C-like syntax). IMHO, to use his servers is abusive, and will also result in slower cover downloading. If you want a temporary workaround, I posted a PHP script to get iTunes covers directly (based on this code) in the uploads forum somewhere a while ago.

You're right I will implement it directly into the program. Thanks for the hint.

justanother

Feb 10 2006, 09:07

yeah!

thx a lot

Anas

Feb 16 2006, 15:29

Just released version 0.1.1.8 and the source for this version.

Eli

Mar 24 2006, 18:01

Is anyone else having problems with the program now? I had been using it for some time as it was working quite well. Now when I use it to scan a directory it just scans, but doesn't download and save the cover. I can do them 1 at a time with the manual menu, but thats not really the point.

krazy

Mar 24 2006, 18:48

Hi Anas, just discovered your excellent programme! Well done! I just have one request:

Would it be possible to add an option to not search for cover art if the information is incomplete? For example if the programme fails to find ARTIST information and finds ALBUM info only then it skips the folder and doesn't search.

The reason for this is that sometimes if the program only finds album info for some folders and it erroneous eg. '-d'. When it searches this, there are 20-odd incorrect covers downloaded.

Anas

Mar 25 2006, 02:31

QUOTE(Eli @ Mar 25 2006, 01:01 AM)

Is anyone else having problems with the program now? I had been using it for some time as it was working quite well. Now when I use it to scan a directory it just scans, but doesn't download and save the cover. I can do them 1 at a time with the manual menu, but thats not really the point.

Works for me, I can't figure out what the problem is without detailed info. Can you post, which options you use?

QUOTE(krazy @ Mar 25 2006, 01:48 AM)

Hi Anas, just discovered your excellent programme! Well done!

You're welcome.

QUOTE(krazy @ Mar 25 2006, 01:48 AM)

I just have one request:

Would it be possible to add an option to not search for cover art if the information is incomplete? For example if the programme fails to find ARTIST information and finds ALBUM info only then it skips the folder and doesn't search.

The reason for this is that sometimes if the program only finds album info for some folders and it erroneous eg. '-d'. When it searches this, there are 20-odd incorrect covers downloaded.

Good point. I'll add an option to not search for a cover if one of the pattern fields could not be found.
EDIT: ASFAICS not possible, because there is not cetain way to know when eg an artist is just crap or a real name.

Eli

Mar 25 2006, 07:20

Im searching my music directory:

E:\FLAC

%artist%\%album%

*.flac

Folder.jpg

WinXP w/ SP1

worked fine last time I used it, and as I said it works fine if I use the manual search. It seems to be searching fine, but is not downloading covers.

What other details can I give?

Anas

Mar 25 2006, 07:43

The console output wouldn't be too bad, too. I already have an idea where it could come from, but I'm not sure. Will look into it.

PotatoSalad

Mar 25 2006, 11:05

Hey Anas,

Great program, I'd been looking for something like this since I used amaroK.

I don't know if you're familiar with amaroK, but their cover manager is excellent (they use Amazon instead of iTunes, though).

jpg, 586KB
resolution 2624 x 1200

You really can't tell much from the screenshot. There is an amaroK liveCD, which I'm booting into right now with Qemu to see if it's any good.

Anyway, I really like your program, but it lacks that "holy crap, this thing is awesome! it does everything right!" feel which is very seldom accomplished, but very near to it in my opinion with amaroK's cover manager. I think you could easily turn yours into something even better.

TkR

Mar 25 2006, 21:40

One problem I've been having with this program is when I use the scan mode it doesn't see that the folders already have folder.jpg files in them and just overwrites them. Any suggestions?
Thanks for the great program btw.