[General Topics] Menneisyys:
Now, right-click the empty disc image in MP3Tag and select Paste Cover:

And, to save the image, select File / Save Tags:

It’ll save the images as an inline one in each of the selected files. Note that it won’t create a directory-level one; if you don’t want to download the image and rename it to Folder.jpg, you’ll want to play at least one of the converted files in WMP. It’ll create this file, along with AlbumArtSmall.jpg, automatically.

(You may want to check out THIS for additional, related tips; note that this tutorial no longer has the inline images.)

1.3.1.2 Other tools

In addition, there are a lot more utilities; some automatized, some not. The automatized ones are mostly commercial but, if you have hundreds or thousands of albums to quickly download album arts for, may still be purchasing – you save a LOT of time if you use them (no manual searching, file downloading and dragging will be necessary – everything is done automatically, you only need to issue 1-2 clicks per album to accept an automatic album art selection or select another one). The best list of these tools is HERE.

1.3.1.2.1 Strictly iTunes-only plugins

Most of these tools are for iTunes only; for example, iArt, TuneSleeve and iAutoArtwork. The first also downloads lyrics (more on lyrics in my dedicated Lyrics Bible). Note that some of the links are dead; for example, iTunes Art Importer, which is no longer available (the old link doesn’t work).

1.3.1.2.2 Standalone

As far as standalone (that is, non-iTunes plug-in) products are concerned, I recommend two of them (in addition to the akready-shown MP3Tag, of course).

1.3.1.2.2.1 Album Art Downloader

Album Art Downloader is a free, self-contained app and searches everything (not just Amazon); however, it doesn’t parse sound files (Artist and/or Album name must be manually entered) and you can’t easily paste the resulting image into WMP either (need to save it first to the file system and paste from there). This can be pretty awkward with several albums (but is still definitely better than the fully-manual way). And, again, it’s free!

1.3.1.2.2.2 MuvUnder Cover

MuvUnder Cover is, as opposed to Album Art Downloader, commercial; the trial version supports saving up to 15 albums. It’s REALLY easy to use and saves album art right inside files. It can’t be instructed to save dir-level thumbnails instead, though (which isn’t a problem because, if you really need them, you can still load your songs into WMP; it’ll make sure it creates the necessary Folder.jpg files based on the inline images).

Note that, by default, it doesn’t search Google Images and, as it doesn’t search for example amazon.de, it won’t find many European non-English titles (like Finnish ones). Fortunately, you can easily make it search Google Images too by enabling "Automatically search for Google Images for artwork if not found from default source" in Options / Artwork. After this, about 70% of my Finnish album art images were found (while only one or two, out of the 30-40 tested albums, before enabling this). Note that it restricts the number of hits to 5. This can be a problem in many cases (Google Images, in general, has far more hits; some of the real hits ranked lower than the fifth). In this regard, some other solutions (even LCG Jukebox) is much better.

Note that, in cases, with images (only) available at Google Image, Album Art Downloader (see above) didn’t find anything, while MuvUnder Cover did. An example of this is Vesa-Matti Loiri - Eino Leino (Google Images link). This may signal a problem with Album Art Downloader’s Google Images search module.

Finally: another famous title, Album Cover Art Downloader 1.6.0 (ex-home) doesn’t exist any more. The Romanian server linked from HERE hosts a version with a CRC error. I could only find it HERE. Unfortunately, I continuously had problems with all the files I’ve thrown it at – it complained about "junk" in the album art. It seems it’s useless.

1.3.2 LCG Jukebox

LCG Jukebox (available on WM and Symbian) is famous for its built-in capabilities of album art searching capabilities over several album art sources, including Google Image (and several others). Fortunately, it doesn't limit the number of hits, unlike the desktop MuvUnder Cover (see section 1.3.1.2.2.2), as can be seen in the following screenshots: