How to fix no album art in File Explorer on Windows 10
Album art, when included with an MP3 file is added to the metadata of the file. This allows the art work to show up in all media players. Unfortunately, some media players don’t always detect it and sometimes, the information itself is lost when you copy/move your audio files. There’s no shortcut to adding art work back to a file. If you want to do it manually, you can use Windows Media Player though it will take some time. If your audio files have covers but they fail to show in File Explorer, you’re going to need to apply a somewhat lengthy fix. Here’s how you can get album art in File Explorer.
Album art in File Explorer
Album art in File Explorer may not appear regardless of which app you’ve used to add it. This isn’t a problem with the app that you’re using and more a problem with File Explorer. The art is there and you will see it show up in other apps as well like Groove.
To fix the problem for a file, you will need to apply the fix for each file individually. If you have files that all belong to the same album, you can save some time.
First, download the image that you want to use for the file’s cover. Once you have the image, open Windows Media Player and go to your library. In your library, locate the file. Next, drag & drop the cover image onto the song or the album. You must not use any other method to add the cover art. It has to be drag and drop.
Once the cover is updated, visit the file in File Explorer and you will the standard file icon has been replaced with the cover art image.
You can later change the cover art if you want and you don’t necessarily need to use Windows Media Player to do so. The cover art should update in File Explorer once it shows up. If it doesn’t though, you need to apply this same fix.
Windows Media Player is, thankfully, still included in Windows 10 which is the only reason this trick works to begin with. In the event that you don’t have Windows Media Player on your system, or it is eventually deprecated, you can use Groove.
The reason Groove is mentioned as a second choice is that adding album art with it takes more effort than a simple drag and drop. Open the Groove app and go to albums tab. Look for your song file there. Click the Edit Info button. If you don’t see the Edit Info button, you will see a more options button. Click it and the menu that opens will have an Edit Info button.
On the Edit Info screen, click the edit button on the album art and select the image you want to use. Click Save and give it a second or two to update and the art will show up in File Explorer.
