Yate
Mac-only audio tag editor with scripted actions and online metadata lookups.
Updated · AppBreakup editorial · macOS
Is Yate free?
No, it's a paid product
- Price:
- $20 USD one-time licence
- Free trial:
- 14 days, no feature limits
Checked on Yate's site Nov 8, 2026
4 alternatives with a free option Full Yate pricing and plansSwitch from Yate to
All 4
MusicBrainz PicardOpen source
Kid3Open source
puddletagOpen source
- Verified facts
- 5 of 5
- Alternatives ranked
- 4
- Approved reviews
- 0
- Visits sent from here
- 0
About Yate
Yate is a metadata editor for music and audio files, built only for the Mac by the one-person studio 2ManyRobots. It reads and writes tags in MP3, AAC and ALAC (M4A), FLAC, AIFF, WAV, Ogg, DSF and DFF, WavPack and Monkey's Audio, and uses its own tagging library rather than relying on Apple's. Its standout feature is actions: user-built scripts that chain steps like cleaning titles, renaming files and folders, fetching artwork and filling fields, so a messy library can be fixed in repeatable passes. It can look up data from MusicBrainz, Discogs, Beatport, last.fm, AcoustID and The Movie Database, and it handles artwork in detail (crop, scale, convert, save to folder). The interface is dense and takes time to learn, which suits collectors with large libraries more than someone fixing a few songs. Yate is sold as a one-time licence with free updates, after a full-featured trial, and runs on macOS only.
Best for: Mac users with large music libraries who want scripted, repeatable tag clean-up.
Yate pricing (checked Nov 8, 2026)
Each line is quoted from Yate's own site, with the page it came from.
| Plan or term | What it says | Checked | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Price | $20 USD one-time licence | Nov 8, 2026 | 2manyrobots.com |
| Free trial | 14 days, no feature limits | Nov 8, 2026 | 2manyrobots.com |
Pros and cons
What works
- Actions let you script multi-step tag and rename jobs
- Wide format support, including FLAC, DSF and WavPack
- Pulls data from MusicBrainz, Discogs, Beatport and more
- One-time licence with free updates
Why people leave
- macOS only; the site says it does not run on Windows
- Dense interface with a steep learning curve
- No free tier beyond the trial period
Yate vs MusicBrainz Picard, Kid3 and puddletag
From each app's listing and the prices verified on its own site. A dash means we haven't verified it yet.
| Attribute | Yate | MusicBrainz Picard | Kid3 | puddletag |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pricing | Paid | Open source | Open source | Open source |
| Verified price | $20 USD one-time licence | — | — | — |
| Free plan | No | Free app | Free app | Free app |
| Open source | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Self-hostable | No | No | No | No |
| Platforms | macOS | Windows, macOS, Linux | Linux, Windows, macOS, Android | Linux |
Top Yate alternatives
See all 4- 1MusicBrainz Picard68.8
Free, open source and cross-platform, with acoustic fingerprinting to match files to MusicBrainz releases.
- 2Kid364.8
Free and open-source tag editor that also runs on Mac, Windows and Linux, with a simpler interface.
- 3puddletag61.8
Free spreadsheet-style tagger for people who prefer editing many files in a grid.
- 4
TagScanner59.4Free Windows tagger with renaming and online lookups, for people leaving the Mac.
Why people left Yate
In reviewers' own words, from reviews of the apps they moved to. These are their opinions, not ours.
No switching stories yet. If you moved away from Yate, review the app you switched to and tell us why.
Reviews
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Yate: common questions
What is Yate?
Yate: Mac-only audio tag editor with scripted actions and online metadata lookups. Best for mac users with large music libraries who want scripted, repeatable tag clean-up. Available for macOS.
Is Yate free?
No, Yate is a paid product. Price: $20 USD one-time licence (checked on Yate's own site).
How much does Yate cost?
Yate is a paid product. Price: $20 USD one-time licence; Free trial: 14 days, no feature limits. Checked on Yate's own site, November 2026.
Does Yate have a free trial or refund?
Free trial: 14 days, no feature limits. Source: Yate's own site.
Is Yate open source?
No, Yate is not open source. Open-source alternatives include MusicBrainz Picard, Kid3 and puddletag.
What platforms does Yate run on?
Yate is available for macOS.
What are the best alternatives to Yate?
The highest-ranked Yate alternatives right now are MusicBrainz Picard, Kid3 and puddletag. See the full ranked list for pricing, platforms and verified facts.
Yate vs MusicBrainz Picard: what's the difference?
Yate is a paid product; MusicBrainz Picard is free and open source. MusicBrainz Picard is open source and Yate is not. Only MusicBrainz Picard runs on Windows and Linux.