How to install MusicBrainz Picard on Ubuntu 20.04

MusicBrainz Picard is not a music player, It’s an open-source music tagger. If you have tons of local music files, Picard allows you to automatically update the music files with correct tracks, album, artist info and album cover art.

It has the ability to identify audio files even without any existing metadata. It allows you to clean your local music by automatically updating artist, album, track information and album art cover for each song. Picard is a cross-platform application available for Microsoft Windows, Linux, macOS and FreeBSD.

MusicBrainz Picard helps you organize your music collection by renaming your music files and sorting them into a directory structure exactly the way you want it. Picard supports a wide range of audio formats including MP3, FLAC, OGG, M4A, WMA, WAV and can also lookup an entire CD for you.

A variety of plugins are available and you can even write your own. A flexible but easy to learn scripting language allows you to exactly specify how your music files will be named and how the tags will look like.

Key Features of MusicBrainz Picard

  • Open Source
  • Cross Platform application: Windows, Linux, macOS and FreeBSD
  • Supports various popular music formats including WAV, MP3, FLAC, M4A, OGG, WMA, and more.
  • This application uses the open and community maintained MusicBrainz database to provide accurate information about millions of music releases.
  • Supports several plugins
  • can find and download the correct cover art for your albums

This article explains two methods of installing Picard on Ubuntu 20.04.

Choose the installation method that is most appropriate for your environment.

Method 1: Installing MusicBrainz Picard as a Snap Package

The easiest way to install MusicBrainz Picard on Ubuntu 20.04 is by using the snap packaging system.

A snap package is a type of universal Linux package that you can enjoy irrespective of the distro. Its an self-contained software packages that include the binary all dependencies needed to run the application.

All you need is the snap service pre-configured, In the case of Ubuntu 20.04, it comes with snap pre-installed.

If snapd package is not already installed then you can install it by running following command.

$ sudo apt install snapd

Note: Snap packages can be installed from either the command-line or via the Ubuntu Software application.

This is actually the Snap version of the Picard. It can be used on any Linux distribution that has Snap support.

Open your terminal (Ctrl+Alt+T) and type the following command to install the Picard package.

$ sudo snap install picard

At this step, you have successfully installed Picard on Ubuntu 20.04 system.

If you are not comfortable with the command line, open Ubuntu Software, search for “Picard” and install the application.

Type the following command to update Picard package.

$ sudo snap refresh picard

Method 2: Installing Picard via PPA Repository

If you want to install the most recent version of MusicBrainz Picard, you can use the PPA repository.

Personal Package Archives (PPA) are software repositories designed for Ubuntu users and are easier to install than other third-party repositories. PPAs are often used to distribute pre-release software so that it can be tested.

Step #1

First of all open the terminal from system application launcher and type the following command to add the Picard PPA to your system.

$ sudo add-apt-repository ppa:musicbrainz-developers/stable

Step #2

Then, execute the following commands to install MusicBrainz Picard package on your Ubuntu system.

$ sudo apt-get update && sudo apt install picard

Once installed, launch it from your system application menu.

Starting MusicBrainz Picard

Picard can be launched from the command line by typing picard or In the Activities search bar type “Picard” and click on the icon.

Picard User Interface:

How to Uninstall Picard from Ubuntu 20.04

For some reason, If you want to uninstall Picard, refer following methods.

Method #1

If you have installed Picard via Snap type the following command:

$ sudo snap remove picard

Method #2

If you have installed the application through PPA then uninstall it by following one of the below procedures.

Procedure #1

It’s most likely that you added the PPA using add-apt-repository command. You can use the same command to remove the PPA as well. Just give it --remove option in the command.

$ sudo add-apt-repository --remove ppa:musicbrainz-developers/stable

Note: Use this procedure only if you need to remove the PPA and not the applications installed by it.

Procedure #2

You must have noticed that in the above procedure we only talked about deleting or removing a PPA. What about the applications installed using these PPAs? Will they be removed as a result of removing the PPA? The answer is NO.

So this is when ppa-purge comes in picture. It not only disables the PPA but also uninstalls all the programs installed by the PPA or revert them to original version provided by your distribution.

So type the following command to install the ppa-purge package and uninstall the MusicBrainz Picard package.

$ sudo apt install ppa-purge && sudo ppa-purge ppa:musicbrainz-developers/stable

Conclusion

I hope that now you have a good understanding of How to install MusicBrainz Picard on Ubuntu 20.04 LTS Focal Fossa.

If anyone does have any questions about what we covered in this guide then feel free to ask in the comment section below and I will do my best to answer those.

If you like our content, please consider buying us a coffee.

Buy Me A Coffee

We are thankful for your never ending support.

Leave a Comment

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.