namidaco
[FEATURE REQUEST] Option for different album art than the tracks' art
Is your feature request related to a problem? Please describe. Not really a problem, and I have no clue how hard it would be to add this feature, but it would be great if we had an option for putting art for an album with a different cover art than the released tracks.
Describe the solution you'd like Maybe just a pop up asking if you would like to apply it to all tracks or just the album cover in namida.
Additional context Inspiration came from the band Clockwork Indigo. On youtube, all their songs have their own cover art, and when you look at the album cover art, it is something else.
there is similar request here #5
the one u see on youtube is a playlist not actual album, in namida u can do the same for playlists, but for albums not yet
@vlada993 hey there fam!
Stumbled upon this issue for a very long time. The issue's stated by diverse metadata editors to be on Android, but it's actually a pretty logical thing once you think about it and not an "issue" per se.
Long story short: there's no single file that can store such information (a standalone cover art) since all tracks already have that spot covered (each has their own cover already, and to this day there's no multiple cover art support that I'm aware of).
But I found a solution! A while ago I studied the issue itself and came out with a solution: you'll need a file that exists exclusively to serve as a cover art. It'll look like this:
Don't worry Garrixers, I loove Sentio, just don't have all the tracks stored on this device! Enjoy ‘Our Time’, btw!
This might not look practical to you at first — having to add an "extra track" — but trust me, this not only works, but it's also the best solution available at the moment.
The only thing you need is a file that's empty, but that shares album artist, album name and year metadata in order to match. Also, set it do disc 1 and as track 0. For the metadata nerds like me, no need to modify track total, i.e. if an album has 10 tracks listed as total, there's no need to change that information; in fact, there"s no need to change anything else on any other file aside from this one.
See. The only storage space it makes use of is the cover art and a feb kbs of metadata. It doesn't bother, it doesn't hurt; it just works!
Remember to enable files that last less than 5 seconds in settings. Most players have it somewhere, and this one specifically does ("Minimum Track Duration"). Since it's empty, music players will automatically go to the next one while shuffling. OGG is the smallest audio file available, but it's not widely supported so better stick with the good old MP3 to prevent issues.
Sadly can't share MP3s here, but think it's pretty easy to set up. Don't know how to do so? Grab any video, go to https://mp3cut.net and cut it as much as you can; enable both fade in and out and convert to MP3.
Maybe I got lost while typing, so please excuse if anything doesn't make sense. Feel free to @ or reply and I'll gladly answer your questions!
Hope this helps :) Best regards, Z.
You are an absolute programming legend and thank you so much. I never would have come up with this in a million years. Having the real cover art really cures my ocd hahaah
Many thanks and keep up the good work, for me namida should sit right next to musicolet as the greatest offline music player on the internet.
On Sun, Jul 13, 2025, 04:59 A. Zatara @.***> wrote:
whoszatarash left a comment (namidaco/namida#537) https://github.com/namidaco/namida/issues/537#issuecomment-3066389325
@vlada993 https://github.com/vlada993 hey there fam!
Stumbled upon this issue for a very long time. The issue's stated by diverse metadata editors to be on Android, but it's actually a pretty logical thing once you think about it and not an "issue" per se.
Long story short: there's no single file that can store such information (a standalone cover art) since all tracks already have that spot covered (each has their own cover already, and to this day there's no multiple cover art support that I'm aware of).
But I found a solution! A while ago I studied the issue itself and came out with a solution: you'll need a file that exists exclusively to serve as a cover art. It'll look like this:
Screenshot_20250712_232857.jpg (view on web) https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/59de63d8-b8a9-48dd-ad7b-9550ee28c57b
Don't worry Garrixers, I loove Sentio, just don't have all the tracks stored on this device! Enjoy ‘Our Time’, btw!
This might not look practical to you at first — having to add an "extra track" — but trust me, this not only works, but it's also the best solution available at the moment.
The only thing you need is a file that's empty, but that shares album artist, album name and year metadata in order to match. Also, set it do disc 1 and as track 0. For the metadata nerds like me, no need to modify track total, i.e. if an album has 10 tracks listed as total, there's no need to change that information; in fact, there"s no need to change anything else on any other file aside from this one.
See. The only storage space it makes use of is the cover art and a feb kbs of metadata. It doesn't bother, it doesn't hurt; it just works!
Screenshot_20250712_233011_TagMusic.jpg (view on web) https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/1dc4908b-45ac-477f-a8a3-258e3b96ba4c
Remember to enable files that last less than 5 seconds in settings. Most players have it somewhere, and this one specifically does ("Minimum Track Duration"). Since it's empty, music players will automatically go to the next one while shuffling. OGG is the smallest audio file available, but it's not widely supported so better stick with the good old MP3 to prevent issues.
Sadly can't share MP3s here, but think it's pretty easy to set up. Don't know how to do so? Grab any video, go to https://mp3cut.net and cut it as much as you can; enable both fade in and out and convert to MP3.
Maybe I got lost while typing, so please excuse if anything doesn't make sense. Feel free to @ or reply and I'll gladly answer your questions!
Hope this helps :) Best regards, Z.
— Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub https://github.com/namidaco/namida/issues/537#issuecomment-3066389325, or unsubscribe https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/BAY666PVGYWGFXU7PX35ESD3IHDPPAVCNFSM6AAAAAB2CZ6WESVHI2DSMVQWIX3LMV43OSLTON2WKQ3PNVWWK3TUHMZTANRWGM4DSMZSGU . You are receiving this because you were mentioned.Message ID: @.***>
@whoszatarash haghagaha that's a very nice workaround, maybe u could have added the album tracks to a playlist then change the playlist artwork tho but ur solution was actually smart, nice job (tho it will not work with some sort types) i should allow custom albums/artists images but that's after #5 i think
@vlada993 woaaahhh thank u so much mann, u also sit among the greatest people on the internet :D
@vlada993 wow man, truly appreciate your words 💜 I'm beyond glad that this works for someone else. It's the first time I share this little trick so I wasn't sure if it would be practical for others or not.
Happy that it works for you! And same, having the cover art right there makes both our OCDs smile, doesn't it :)
Just a little side note: 1. This works with every music player on any device that can read such metadata. 2. I'm not affiliated in any way with this specific music player; just saw the issue and wanted to share some knowledge ;)
Thanks again and hope you have a great week! Best regards, Z.
@MSOB7YY Thanks mate. You see, at least for both @\vlada993 and me, having all tracks on a playlist to simulate an album is not quite it when you have an album tab that does (or should do) the job. Also, it doesn't hide the wrong cover from showing in said tab, so the issue's still kinda there.
What do you mean "it will not work with some sort types"? The file's meant to be a cover art and nothing else. If you're talking about tracklist sorting or even searching, that's not what it's meant for. This file is quite literally an image in .mp3 format, so it won't do anything else than that, and in my experience it works flawlessy. Curious to hear your thoughts.
Custom cover artworks is (if possible) a lot of work that I am yet to see in any music player. Streaming services, as you might now, don't tie metadata to music files, but that's thanks to the whole infrastructure they are stored on.
In order to achieve such thing, cover arts should be either stored inside the app or be web fetched, and that requires extra storage or internet connection respectively. Even so, it would make music files dependant on the app for such functionality to work, and that would defeat the whole purpose of offline media collections.
That for sure would be a benefit for the project, yeah, but it's not a solution itself. The one I've provided, on the other hand, is user-friendly, not software dependant and works cross-devices/apps.
I'm — again — curious to know how could this be implemented and your thoughts on such interesting topic!
Have a nice week :) Best regards, Z.
What do you mean "it will not work with some sort types"? The file's meant to be a cover art and nothing else. If you're talking about tracklist sorting or even searching, that's not what it's meant for. This file is quite literally an image in .mp3 format, so it won't do anything else than that, and in my experience it works flawlessy. Curious to hear your thoughts.
if it works fine then its fine. i was just mentioning that if u used another in-album-tracks-sorting it might put ur file down the list and not at the top, but its fine as long as u sort by track number or similar
In order to achieve such thing, cover arts should be either stored inside the app or be web fetched, and that requires extra storage or internet connection respectively. Even so, it would make music files dependant on the app for such functionality to work, and that would defeat the whole purpose of offline media collections.
yep sadly it would be tied to 1 player, therefore ur solution is actually better
I'm — again — curious to know how could this be implemented and your thoughts on such interesting topic!
its not much, it would just be like yt thumbnails, use a cached thumbnail or fetch new one from network. when u set a custom album artwork, it will be copied to the album artworks folder in app data, thats all
but again, this is tied to namida only, altho not big of an issue when cross-device sync is implemented between android and windows version
thanks for sharing ur solution :D
🎉 an update for this
u can already set custom album artwork for albums, and custom artist artwork for artists (open album dialog -> edit icon on top right) this came with the auto artwork fetch from network (#5)
@MSOB7YY
It's still software-locked so it's still not a real solution.
Although having options always help, it's definetly not a good thing when / if migrating. Your response could be "well, they shouldn't migrate then" and that would against my point, which is freedom — the reason people still crave for music players and go against streaming services.
Also I've noticed the metadata editor has badly defined strings such as "Tags" being user-defined-text (?) which.. don't make it a true metadata editor? So is it all just for display / show? Because if changes aren't reflected outside yout player then nothing's really changing. At first glance it seems powerful, but it the end it's just pointless.
(this isn't all about my workaround but it is the best one around, if you use local players enough you eventually come to realization lol)
Still tons of work ahead 🙏 cheers :)
@whoszatarash i mean yeah ur right, if there was common solution for this (or a protocol to follow, like m3u playlists for example) then it would be easier, i just did my part, and ur workaround is definitely better for ppl using multiple players albums/artists artwork are saved in app data so u can always copy them etc
about the tag issue, can u show screenshot or sample file?
@MSOB7YY Yeah, it's not really bad by any means, it just limits you to a single piece of software, which I try to evade because, you know, developments sometimes come to an end, even more on open source projects. But like I said it's always nice and very heplfu to have options.
Realized my wording might've sounde a bit too harsh on my previous message(s), and for that I apologize :)
Sure, here's both the screenshot and the audio file tested on Metadata2Go.
What bothers me is that it can only be read on this player and metadata-viewer websites — being, again, software-locked. It's strange because all the other tags I used were recognized (country, language, label, etx.), so I expected this one to be up there too.
Similar to the whole cover artworks thing (and like you said), it's great for people who use this player only, not but-so-great for those who don't. I have my own media player, but I was using Namida because it truly is currently the most complete metadata editor on Android, and deserved props for that, so it's a shame that tags limited to being custom text.