Explore Metadata

Use metadata exploration before organizing or renaming when titles, authors, series, tracks, discs, or narrators are missing or inconsistent.

Quick Inspection

Text output:

audiobook-organizer metadata --dir=/books/source

JSON output:

audiobook-organizer metadata --dir=/books/source --json

Pretty output:

audiobook-organizer metadata --dir=/books/source --pretty

Interactive exploration:

audiobook-organizer metadata-tui --dir=/books/source

Use --pretty when you want a readable terminal inspection before choosing an organize or rename strategy:

audiobook-organizer metadata --dir=/books/source --pretty

The output shows the metadata source and the fields Audiobook Organizer can read before it plans any filesystem changes.

Use this when a dry-run preview looks wrong, when files do not have metadata.json, or when you need to decide whether field mapping is required.

--verbose is kept as an alias for the same formatter-backed output.

Source	Use When
`metadata.json`	Each book folder already has a `metadata.json` file
Embedded EPUB/MP3/M4B	Files carry useful title, author, series, or track tags
Audiobookshelf	ABS already has cleaner metadata than the filesystem
Field mapping	Metadata exists but uses non-standard field names

Use the normal organize command first when every book directory has a useful metadata.json file:

audiobook-organizer --dir=/books/source --dry-run

Use embedded metadata when there are no metadata.json files but the audio files have EPUB, MP3, or M4B tags:

audiobook-organizer --dir=/books/source --use-embedded-metadata --dry-run

Use flat mode when a folder contains individual audiobook files rather than one directory per book:

audiobook-organizer --dir=/books/source --flat --dry-run

Use field mapping when the preview finds metadata but puts the wrong values in author, title, series, track, or disc fields.

If metadata exists under custom fields, map it instead of editing every file first:

audiobook-organizer \
  --dir=/books/source \
  --title-field=book_title \
  --author-fields=authors,writer \
  --dry-run

See Metadata Sources for extraction details and Metadata Command for command reference.