Forgesmith

A folder-aware FLAC tagger for GNOME. Identifies whole albums at once using MusicBrainz, with built-in synced-lyrics embedding from LRCLIB.

Think Picard + LRCGET + Kid3 in one tool — but designed around the observation that the folder is the unit of information. When a track is on fifty different releases, Forgesmith uses the other files in the same folder as context to figure out which release is actually yours, instead of guessing per file.

Features

• Folder-aware identification. Scores entire releases against entire folders, not single tracks against single recordings. The right release wins because the rest of the folder agrees.
• Synced lyrics. A dedicated mode embeds LRC-format lyrics from LRCLIB (with NetEase as a CJK fallback) into each FLAC's LYRICS Vorbis comment.
• Review before writing. A diff screen shows exactly what each file's tags will become and what files will be renamed, before anything touches disk.
• Field checklist. Choose which Vorbis fields Forgesmith is allowed to write. Unchecked fields are left completely untouched — neither written nor cleared.
• Local cache. Identified releases and searches are cached in SQLite, so re-scanning a library you've seen before is instant and avoids re-querying MusicBrainz.
• Optional fingerprint fallback. For files with no usable tags, Forgesmith can fingerprint the audio via AcoustID (needs a free API key and the chromaprint package).

Installation

Arch Linux (AUR)

yay -S forgesmith

Or with any other AUR helper, or by hand:

git clone https://aur.archlinux.org/forgesmith.git
cd forgesmith
makepkg -si

Building from source

Requires meson, ninja, blueprint-compiler, gtk4, libadwaita, python-gobject, python-mutagen, python-aiohttp. Optional: chromaprint for the AcoustID fingerprint fallback.

meson setup build --prefix=/usr
meson compile -C build
sudo meson install -C build

Usage

Launch forgesmith and pick one of the two tools from the home screen:

• Tag Albums — identifies the FLACs in the folder you pick and proposes new tags (and optionally renames). Review the diff, then confirm.
• Embed Lyrics — walks every FLAC in the folder you pick, fetches synced lyrics, and embeds them. Doesn't touch any other tags.

The intended workflow is tag-first, lyrics-second, in two separate runs. Tagging fixes the title/artist/album fields that the lyrics lookup then needs to be accurate.

License

GPL-3.0-or-later. See LICENSE.