The Best Free Music Management Tools for Organizing Your MP3s

Use these apps to get your music library back in shape

By
Mark Harris
Mark Harris
Writer
  • University of Wolverhampton
Mark Harris is a former writer for Lifewire who wrote about the digital music scene and streaming music services in an easy to understand, no-nonsense manner.
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Updated on June 14, 2021
Reviewed by
Jon Fisher
Jon Fisher headshot
Reviewed by Jon Fisher
  • Wichita Technical Institute

Jonathan Fisher is a CompTIA-certified technologist with more than 10 years of experience writing for publications like TechNorms and Help Desk Geek.

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Backup & Utilities

If you have a collection of digital music on your computer, using a music manager (often called an MP3 organizer) is an essential tool for good organization. Below are several free digital music managers with built-in tools for working with your MP3 library.

01
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Set up a Home Server: MediaMonkey Standard

MediaMonkey on Windows
What We Like

  • Manages a library of 100,000 files.

  • Functions as a home server.

  • Syncs with iOS 11 and Android 8.

What We Don't Like

  • Not multi-user friendly.

  • Android sync isn't seamless.

  • No Mac version.

The free version of MediaMonkey (Standard) has a wealth of features for organizing your music library. You can use it to automatically tag your music files and download the right album art. If you need to create digital music files from your audio CDs, MediaMonkey comes with a built-in CD ripper. You can also burn files to a disc using its CD/DVD burning facility.

MediaMonkey can also be used as an audio format converter tool. Usually, you need a separate utility for this task, but MediaMonkey supports a few formats, like MP3, WMA, M4A, OGG, and FLAC. This free music organizer can also sync with various MP3/media players including Android devices and the Apple iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch.

02
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Repair Your MP3s: Helium

Helium software.
What We Like

  • User-friendly interface.

  • Plays, catalogs, and tags a range of formats.

  • Handles collections in the hundreds of thousands of files.

What We Don't Like

  • Many features are not available in the free version.

  • May not sort albums correctly.

Helium (from Imploded Software) is another full-featured music library organizer for working with different audio formats in your music collection. It supports an array of audio formats that include MP3, WMA, MP4, FLAC, OGG, and more. Also, you can convert, rip, tag, and sync your music with this program. It's compatible with platforms like iOS, Android, Windows Phone, and others.

One of Helium's features that stands out from the crowd is its MP3 Analyzer. This tool scans your library for broken MP3 files and can be used to repair them. Oh, and do you miss Cover Flow in iTunes? Then you'll be at home with Helium. It's got an album view mode that makes flicking through your collection a breeze.

If you pay for Helium Streamer Premium, you can use a mobile app to stream your music from anywhere.

03
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Customize Playback: MusicBee

MusicBee
What We Like

  • Supports podcasts, web radio stations, audiobooks, and SoundCloud integration.

  • Customizable with beautiful skins.

  • Many ways to organize media.

What We Don't Like

  • Slows down when opening a large number of files.

  • Installs images that are irrelevant to the artist.

MusicBee is another music organizer program with an impressive number of tools for manipulating your music library. As well as the typical tools associated with this type of program, MusicBee has useful features for the web.

For example, the built-in player supports scrobbling to Last.fm, and you can use the Auto-DJ function to discover and create playlists based on your listening preferences. MusicBee supports gapless playback and includes add-ons to make the experience better, like theater mode designs, skins, plugins, visualizers, and more.

04
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Tune in to Internet Radio: Clementine

Clementine on Windows
What We Like

  • Intuitive and fast to set up.

  • Supports internet radio and smart playlists.

  • Supports many online services and cloud storage sites.

What We Don't Like

  • Interface looks outdated.

  • Uses a lot of CPU power.

  • Not a lot of documentation.

The music organizer Clementine is another free tool that's like the others in this list. Use it to create smart playlists, import and export playlist formats like M3U and XSPF, play audio CDs, find lyrics and photos, transcode your audio files into popular file formats, download missing tags, and more.

You can also search and play tunes from your local music library as well as music you saved in cloud storage places like Box, Google Drive, Dropbox, or OneDrive. In addition, Clementine lets you listen to internet radio from places like SoundCloud, Spotify, Magnatune, SomaFM, Grooveshark, Icecast, and others.

Clementine works on Windows, macOS, and Linux, and it can be controlled remotely through the Android app.

Do You Need a Music File Organizer?

You might think that using your favorite software media player is good enough, but most of the popular ones only offer basic tools. For example, media players like iTunes, Winamp, and Windows Media Player have built-in features such as music tag editing, CD ripping, audio format conversion, and managing album art. However, those programs are limited in what they can do and are more geared toward playing media files than organizing and managing them.

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