# Import cover art from MusicBrainz

**URL:** <https://discourse.beets.io/t/import-cover-art-from-musicbrainz/1096>\
**Category:** Help\
**Created:** [February 4, 2020, 8:58pm UTC](https://discourse.beets.io/t/import-cover-art-from-musicbrainz/1096 "2020-02-04T20:58:11Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 7\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![andreas-h](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex029/user_avatar/discourse.beets.io/andreas-h/32/350_2.png) [@andreas-h](https://discourse.beets.io/u/andreas-h)\
**Post date:** [February 4, 2020, 8:58pm UTC](https://discourse.beets.io/t/import-cover-art-from-musicbrainz/1096/1 "2020-02-04T20:58:11Z")

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I’m rather new to beets, and I’m slowly learning to navigate this wonderful, new world 🙂

Probably I’m missing something, but the fetchart plugin doesn’t list musicbrainz as a potential source.

So how can I use MusicBrainz cover art when importing?

Cheers!

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**Author:** ![adrian](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex029/user_avatar/discourse.beets.io/adrian/32/4_2.png) [@adrian](https://discourse.beets.io/u/adrian)\
**Post date:** [February 4, 2020, 9:18pm UTC](https://discourse.beets.io/t/import-cover-art-from-musicbrainz/1096/2 "2020-02-04T21:18:17Z")

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Hi! Welcome to beets!! 😄

The CoverArtArchive is the source of MB’s cover art. So just use that!

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**Author:** ![andreas-h](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex029/user_avatar/discourse.beets.io/andreas-h/32/350_2.png) [@andreas-h](https://discourse.beets.io/u/andreas-h)\
**Post date:** [February 4, 2020, 9:54pm UTC](https://discourse.beets.io/t/import-cover-art-from-musicbrainz/1096/3 "2020-02-04T21:54:17Z")

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Thanks for the quick reply!

I don’t know much about this, but often when I add a (rather obscure, admittedly) release to MusicBrainz, I have to upload cover art as well (which I then usually manually take from Amazon or Discogs).

So my guess would be that the CoverArtArchive doesn’t always help. Or is the cover art I upload to MB automatically fed back to CAA as well?

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**Author:** ![adrian](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex029/user_avatar/discourse.beets.io/adrian/32/4_2.png) [@adrian](https://discourse.beets.io/u/adrian)\
**Post date:** [February 5, 2020, 1:40am UTC](https://discourse.beets.io/t/import-cover-art-from-musicbrainz/1096/4 "2020-02-05T01:40:51Z")

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Indeed, unless I am mistaken, when you upload art to MB, you are actually uploading it to CAA:  
[https://musicbrainz.org/doc/How\_to\_Add\_Cover\_Art](https://musicbrainz.org/doc/How_to_Add_Cover_Art)

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**Author:** ![dorade](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b3f665/32.png) [@dorade](https://discourse.beets.io/u/dorade)\
**Post date:** [February 5, 2020, 8:22pm UTC](https://discourse.beets.io/t/import-cover-art-from-musicbrainz/1096/5 "2020-02-05T20:22:02Z")

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You aren’t mistaken, Adrian.

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**Author:** ![andreas-h](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex029/user_avatar/discourse.beets.io/andreas-h/32/350_2.png) [@andreas-h](https://discourse.beets.io/u/andreas-h)\
**Post date:** [February 5, 2020, 9:59pm UTC](https://discourse.beets.io/t/import-cover-art-from-musicbrainz/1096/6 "2020-02-05T21:59:16Z")

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I had the situation however that the cover art that was fetched / embedded by beets is not identical to the one that MB Picard embeds. And at least in that case the MB Picard cover art was the correct one (for that release in MB).

So the fetchart plugin using coverart source doesn’t produce the desired results, which is fetching the cover art associated with the musicbrainz release in musicbrainz.

Or does it take more than a day for the cover art to be synced from musicbrainz to the coverartarchive?

Am I missing something here?

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**Author:** ![dorade](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b3f665/32.png) [@dorade](https://discourse.beets.io/u/dorade)\
**Post date:** [February 6, 2020, 5:19pm UTC](https://discourse.beets.io/t/import-cover-art-from-musicbrainz/1096/7 "2020-02-06T17:19:26Z")

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Did you have the Cover Art Archive listed as the first source in the `beets` configuration?

Here’s my config:

```
fetchart:
    sources: itunes filesystem # fanarttv coverart albumart amazon wikipedia google

```

If I place `coverart` at the beginning, `fetchart` grabs the correct cover. I suppose that the image chosen by `beets` may also depend on its place in MusicBrainz or the tag assigned to it (front, spine, back, etc.).