Fix Unknown Artist and Split Albums in Offline Music Player

You import an album, open the Albums tab, and something looks off. Some tracks sit under "Unknown Artist", the album appears twice with the same name, or one artist is split across two spellings. None of this means your music is damaged. It almost always comes down to the track information stored inside the files, and you can fix it directly in Offline Music Player. Here's what causes each problem and how to sort it out.

How Offline Music Player Builds Your Albums

Albums and artists aren't created by hand in Offline Music Player. They're built automatically from each track's details, also called metadata: the title, artist, album name, and genre stored inside the file. When you import new tracks, the Albums section updates on its own.

That's convenient when the information is tidy. But it also means the app groups tracks exactly as their details say. If two tracks from the same album carry slightly different album names, the app treats them as two different albums.

Problem 1: Tracks Under "Unknown Artist" or "Unknown Album"

This happens when a track's artist or album information is missing or incomplete. It's common with files that were converted, ripped without album lookup, or passed between devices over the years.

The fix: edit the track's details and fill in what's missing. Open the track's 3-dot menu, choose Edit, and enter the correct artist and album name. Once saved, the track moves out of "Unknown" and into the right album.

Problem 2: The Same Album Appears More Than Once

Seeing the same album listed two or three times usually means the album details aren't identical across its tracks. A small difference is enough to split it, for example:

• "Greatest Hits" on some tracks and "Greatest Hits (Remastered)" on others.

• The artist is written as "The Band" on some tracks and "Band" on others.

• A spelling or spacing difference you'd never notice at a glance.

The fix: make the details match. Open one of the duplicate albums, use the Edit option, and change the album name and artist so they're exactly the same as the other version. You can select up to 10 tracks at a time to update their album information together, which is much quicker than editing each one separately.

When album details match exactly, including spelling, spacing, and punctuation, the tracks come together as one album automatically.

Problem 3: One Artist Shows Up Under Two Names

If an artist's tracks are scattered across two entries, such as "Beyonce" and "Beyoncé", the cause is the same: inconsistent metadata. The app can't tell that two spellings mean the same person.

The fix: choose one spelling and edit the artist name on the tracks that use the other. There's no merge button for artists or albums, so editing the details to match is the way to combine them.

Grouping Tracks Into Your Own Album

You can also use the same approach on purpose. If you have loose tracks that belong together, such as a live recording split into parts or a set of tracks with no album information at all, give them the same album name and artist. Select up to 10 tracks, open the Edit option, and enter matching details, and they'll appear together as one album.

Before You Delete Anything

If an album looks wrong, edit it rather than deleting it. Deleting an album removes all of its tracks from the app, and a deleted album can't be restored without importing those tracks again. Your original files on your device aren't affected, but you'd lose any organising you've done in the app.

For a bigger clean-up across a large collection, our guide on organising a large music library covers a system for tagging and sorting thousands of tracks, and The Best App for a Music Collection That's a Mess explains how Offline Music Player handles mixed-up libraries.

Frequently Asked Questions

Are my changes saved permanently? Yes. Changes you make to track details in the app are saved, unless the app is deleted or its data is reset.

Can I create a new album from scratch? Not directly. Albums are created automatically from track details, but you can group tracks into an album by giving them the same album name and artist.

Why didn't my tracks have this information in the first place? The details come from inside each file. Tracks that were converted, ripped without looking up album information, or shared between devices are more likely to be missing some of it.

A Tidy Library Is a Few Edits Away

"Unknown Artist" and split albums look messy, but they're rarely a big job to fix. Once you know the app groups tracks by their details, the solution is always the same: make the details complete and consistent, and your albums and artists fall into place.

Download Offline Music Player on the App Store or get it on Google Play, check our FAQ for more on organising your library, and see what other listeners say about using it day to day.