Any way to edit metadata of MKV files (without re-encoding)?

Question

When watching a MKV file from the web in VLC, the title bar (see "#1" in image below) seems to be pulled from metadata, not the filename.

If you open the “Get Info” panel in VLC, you can change the title (“#2”) and then click “Save Metadata” (“#3”), but when the file is re-opened, the old information is shown.

I have not found any other Mac apps which can edit MKV metadata. Several offer to edit mp4 metadata, but that isn’t what I need.

Answer 1

I have found a way to do this using mkvpropedit which is part of mkvtoolnix.

mkvpropedit "foo.mkv" -e info -s title="This Is The Title"

There is a GUI wrapper for this app and other Mac installation instructions available at the official website.

Answer 2

The MKVToolNix GUI way:

1. From the menu choose header editor.

2. Open the mkv file.

3. Under segment information there is a title item, change title as you wish.

4. There is not a save button, use the main menu to save changes.

macOS Version Support

Current versions of MKVToolNix require macOS Mojave (10.14) or newer, but earlier versions of MKVToolNix might work for previous versions of macOS/OS X.

As of v42.0.0, MKVToolNix uses std::optional,^a which requires macOS 10.14.^b

macOS High Sierra (10.13) and Sierra (10.12) should run up to v41.0.0 "Smarra" (2019-Dec-06).

As of v30.0.0, MKVToolNix uses Qt 5.12,^c which requires macOS 10.12.^d

OS X El Capitan (10.11) should run up to v29.0.0 "Like It Or Not" (2018-Dec-01).

As of v26.0.0, the "README.macOS.txt" file states that it works only with macOS 10.11 "El Capitan" or newer^e (although MACOSX_DEPLOYMENT_TARGET and LSMinimumSystemVersion are still at 10.9, so it might run in Yosemite 10.10 or Mavericks 10.9).

OS X Yosemite (10.10) and Mavericks (10.9) should run up to v25.0.0 "Prog Noir" (2018-July-12).

As of v9.7.1-build4, MACOSX_DEPLOYMENT_TARGET and LSMinimumSystemVersion are set to 10.9.^f

OS X Mountain Lion (10.8) might run up to v9.7.1-build2 "Pandemonium" (2016-Dec-27).

As of v8.2.0, the "README.macOS.txt" file states that it works only with Mac OS X 10.9 and higher, although LSMinimumSystemVersion is still at 10.8.0, so it might run in Mountain Lion 10.8.

Furthermore, MACOSX_DEPLOYMENT_TARGET is not set, so it should target whatever OS version it was built in.^g As v9.7.0-build2 and v9.7.1-build2 were built in Sierra 10.12, they won't run in Yosemite 10.10 nor El Capitan 10.11 (although they will run in Mavericks 10.9 and Mountain Lion 10.8, which appear to ignore that restriction). See the relevant discussion here.

Answer 3

As an addition one could use mkvpropedit in a bash script to set the title of all mkv files in a directory. (Given the filename is the desired title.)

#!/bin/bash
This script takes all mkv files in the current directory and sets the filename
(without .mkv) as its title in metadata
for mkvfile in *.mkv; do
    mkvpropedit "$mkvfile" -e info -s title="${mkvfile%.mkv}"
done

Answer 4

Just open the file in VLC player, Ctrl+I, choose the desired Metadata, title etc, change and then in the bottom, click 'Save Data'. That's all.

No other external editor is needed.

Answer 5

Downloaded a looot of files, many of which had some *** in it's title, as an extension of another answer made my own script.

It changes title for all .mkv files in directory (and it's subdirectories) while asking for an appropriate action. Actions are "Keep the name?[ 1] / Type a new name?[ 2] / Use the filename as a movie name?[ 3]".

Might update it later on github, here's what there is for now:

#!/bin/sh

# This script takes all mkv files in the (sub)directory and sets it's Movie name/Title
# Requires mkvtools (mkvpropedit) and mediainfo installed
#
# param1 Starting directory (defaults to current)
# param2 Default action to do with files
# (Keep the name?[1] / Type a new name?[2] / Use the filename as a movie name?[3])
# Be carefaul with param2 since this script doesn't (atm) back up the existing movie names.

IFS=$'\n'; set -f

updateTitle() {
    mkvpropedit "${1}" -e info -s title="${2}"
    echo "✅ Updated to \"${2}\"";
}

getMovieTitle() {
    echo "$(mediainfo ${1} | grep "Movie name" | sed 's/^.*: //')";
}

parseFilename() {
    filename=${1##*/}
    filename=${filename%.*}
    echo ${filename}
}

chooseAction() {
    f="${1}"
    curFilename="${2}"
    defaultAction="${3}"

    if [[ -n "${defaultAction}" ]]; then
        ans="${defaultAction}"
    else
        read -p "Keep the name?[1] / Type a new name?[2] / Use the filename as a movie name?[3] : " -n 1 ans
        echo
    fi

    case "${ans}" in

    1)
        echo "Keeping the old name"
        ;;
    2)
        read -p "New movie name: " newName
        updateTitle ${f} ${newName}
        ;;
    3)
        updateTitle ${f} ${curFilename}
        ;;
    *)
        echo "Invalid char \"${ans}\""
        chooseAction $@
        ;;
    esac
    echo
}

renameMovies() {
    for f in $(find ${1} -name '*.mkv'); do
        curTitle="$(getMovieTitle ${f})"
        curFilename="$(parseFilename ${f})"

        echo "File location - ${f}"
        echo "File name     - ${curFilename}"
        echo "Movie name    - ${curTitle}"

        chooseAction ${f} ${curFilename} ${2}
    done
    echo "Done"

}

renameMovies ${1:-$(pwd)} ${2}

unset IFS; set +f

Answer 6

For those using windows I made a command prompt alternative that changes the titles of all Matroska videos to the filename.

REM This batch script changes the title segment information to the name of the file. 
REM The script only selects mkv files in the current directory
for /f "delims=" %%a in ('dir /b /s *.mkv') do (mkvpropedit.exe "%%~nxa" -e info -s title="%%~na")