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Topic: Removing embedded art does not decrease the size of the files (Read 1972 times) previous topic - next topic
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Removing embedded art does not decrease the size of the files

Hello there, people from Hydrogenaudio.

I am currently having an issue. Here's what happened: I decided to remove all the embedded art from my audio files in order to safe up on some hard drive space. However, much to my dismay, I noticed that the filesize did not decrease after the removal of the embedded art (I tried using both foobar2000 and TagScanner). So, I would like to ask, is there a way to "completely" remove those images (other than re-encoding the files, which, unfortunately, is not an option because there are a bunch of lossy files in my library too)?

Thank you for your time.
 

Removing embedded art does not decrease the size of the files

Reply #1 –
This is due to padding in the files’ tags. That is, in order to avoid rewriting the entire file when you change something in the tag that would affect the size of the file (because the audio comes after the tag), most applications will instead replace it with empty data (padding).

There are a few ways to get rid of padding. I believe foobar2000’s own Rebuild MP3 stream can remove it in MP3 files. This topic offers a method to remove padding from FLAC files using the official tool metaflac, and claims that the program JRiver Media Centre can remove padding from files of various formats.

That was just from me Googling quickly; you might find more information now that you know what to look for, and I’m sure there are people here who have experience in this area.