MusicBrainz Picard Installation

Quick Start

The easiest way to install Picard is from the official downloads page.

For development or building from source, follow the instructions below.

Dependencies

Required Dependencies

• Python 3.10 or newer
• PyQt 6.6.1 or newer
• Mutagen 1.45 or newer
• PyYAML 5.1 or newer
• pygit2 1.18.2 or newer - For plugin system
• gettext (msgfmt):
  • Windows: Download from gettext-iconv-windows and add to PATH
  • Linux: sudo apt install gettext (Ubuntu/Debian) or equivalent
  • macOS: Usually included with Xcode Command Line Tools, or brew install gettext

  Note: On macOS, Homebrew installs gettext as keg-only. If you see msgfmt errors, you must link it manually:

  brew link gettext --force
  export PATH="/opt/homebrew/opt/gettext/bin:$PATH"

• A compiler (required for building C extensions):
  • Windows: Visual Studio Community
  • Linux: sudo apt install build-essential (Ubuntu/Debian) or equivalent
  • macOS: Xcode Command Line Tools (xcode-select --install)

Python Version-Specific Dependencies

• tomli 2.3.0 or newer - Required for Python < 3.11 (Python 3.11+ has built-in TOML support)

Optional Dependencies (Recommended)

• discid 1.0 or newer or python-libdiscid - For CD lookups
• Markdown 3.2 or newer - For enhanced internal documentation (scripting, plugins, etc.)
• PyJWT 2.0 or newer - For "add cluster as release" functionality
• charset-normalizer 3.3 or newer - For character encoding detection in CD ripping log files
• tomlkit 0.12.4 or newer - For profile exports
• chromaprint - For audio fingerprinting (AcoustID), allows identifying files by their actual audio content
• PyQt6 multimedia support - For embedded audio player (Linux: python3-pyqt6.qtmultimedia libqt6multimedia6)

Installation Methods

Method 1: Using uv (Recommended)

Quick setup with uv:

# Install uv
curl -LsSf https://astral.sh/uv/install.sh | sh  # macOS/Linux
# powershell -ExecutionPolicy ByPass -c "irm https://astral.sh/uv/install.ps1 | iex"  # Windows
# Set up and install Picard
uv venv
source .venv/bin/activate  # macOS/Linux (.venv\Scripts\activate.bat on Windows)
uv sync  # Automatically installs all dependencies from pyproject.toml
python setup.py build && python setup.py build_ext -i
uv pip install -e .
# Run Picard
picard

For development workflow, testing, code quality tools, and more details, see CONTRIBUTING.md.

Method 2: Using pip

After installing dependencies manually:

pip3 install .  # Installs Picard but not dependencies

To start Picard:

picard

To uninstall:

pip3 uninstall picard

Method 3: Traditional pip setup

# Create virtual environment
python3 -m venv --system-site-packages .venv
source .venv/bin/activate
# Install dependencies manually
pip install -r requirements.txt -r requirements-build.txt -r requirements-dev.txt
# Build and run
python3 setup.py build          # Compiles translations and prepares build files
python3 setup.py build_ext -i   # Builds C extensions in-place for development
python3 tagger.py

Method 4: Legacy setup.py (Not Recommended)

sudo python3 setup.py install  # Installs Picard and attempts to install dependencies

Platform-Specific Notes

System Package Dependencies (Building from Source)

When building from source on Debian-based systems, you may need these system packages:

# Required for development tools and PyQt6 system libraries
apt install python3-venv python3-dev
# Optional: For discid support
apt install libdiscid0
# Optional: For multimedia player support
apt install libqt6multimedia6
# Alternative: Use system PyQt6 instead of pip/uv installation
apt install python3-pyqt6 python3-pyqt6.qtmultimedia

Note:

• Not needed for official binary installations
• When using uv/pip, you may still need some system libraries (like libqt6multimedia6)
• You can use system PyQt6 packages instead of installing via pip/uv

Qt6 via pip Issues

If you get libxcb errors on startup when using Qt6 installed via pip:

sudo apt install libxcb-cursor0

Packaging

To create and upload packages:

python3 setup.py sdist
twine upload dist/*

Code Signatures

Official Picard packages are digitally signed. For packaging, use source archives from the official file server.

Verify signatures with:

gpg --verify picard-x.y.z.tar.gz.asc  # where x.y.z is the version number