Introduction

Palm converts audio files between formats and edits their tags (metadata) in bulk. Drag in a single track or a whole folder tree, choose an output format, and convert — then jump straight into the Tag Editor to polish titles, artists, album art and more.

Palm has two modes that share the same file list but never run at the same time:

• Conversion — transcode files to MP3, FLAC, WAV, AAC, Opus and more, with control over sample rate, bit depth, bitrate and channel layout.
• Tag Editor — read and write the title, artist, album, year, genre, track numbers, cover art and other tags embedded in your files.

You switch between them with the Conversion / Tag Editor toggle at the top of the window. The two are mutually exclusive — the toggle is locked while a conversion is running.

Activation

Palm runs as a fully-functional 3-day free trial, then must be activated with the licence you receive when you buy it. One licence activates Palm on up to 2 machines. Activation is done in the Registration section of the Settings panel.

How to activate

1. Make sure you’re connected to the internet — activation is verified online with the Attack Ratio Digital licence server. (There is no offline activation.)
2. Open Settings from the top bar and choose the Registration section in the left-hand nav.
3. In the Email: field, enter the email address you used to purchase Palm.
4. In the Serial: field, paste your licence serial. Palm serials look like PALM-XXXXXX-XXXXXX-XXXXXX.
5. Click Activate.

On success the status line turns to “✓ ACTIVATED”, an “Activated on …” date appears, and a confirmation dialog titled Activated! reads “Palm is now activated. Thank you for your purchase!” — click OK. The Activate button is replaced by a Deactivate button.

Moving Palm to another computer (Deactivate)

Because a licence covers 2 machines, you may need to free a slot — for example before reinstalling, or to use Palm on a different computer. In the Registration section of an activated copy, click Deactivate. The status briefly shows “Deactivating…”, then the seat is returned to your licence and the Email: / Serial: fields become editable again so you can activate elsewhere.

Quick Start

The fastest path from raw files to converted, tagged output:

1. Drop files in. Drag audio files — or an entire folder — onto the drop zone at the top of the window.
2. Pick a format. Click Format Settings and choose your output format, e.g. FLAC, 16-bit.
3. Choose where output goes. Click the folder field to pick a destination, or tick Keep at existing location to write next to each source.
4. Convert. Click Convert…. Watch the progress bars in the Status column.
5. Tag (optional). Click Move All to Tag Editor to clean up metadata, then Commit Changes.

The Interface

Whichever mode you are in, the window is laid out the same way, top to bottom:

• Top bar — the Conversion / Tag Editor mode toggle, the Undo / Redo buttons (Tag Editor only), Settings, Clear All and (in Conversion) Reset.
• Drop zone — the drag-and-drop target. It pulses gently when empty and lights up green while you drag files over it.
• File list — the central table. Every file you add gets a row.
• Bottom bar — context-sensitive controls. In Conversion this is the format / output / convert controls; in the Tag Editor it is the Commit Changes bar.

The top bar buttons

The Conversion Window

The conversion window is where you load files, inspect them, and transcode them. The central table has one row per file (or per CUE track — see CUE Sheets).

Adding files

There are two ways to add audio:

• Drag and drop files or folders onto the drop zone. Folders are scanned recursively — every audio file inside, at any depth, is added.
• Dropping a large number of files shows a progress dialog while Palm enumerates and probes them on a background thread. You can cancel mid-import.

Palm reads almost any common audio file — MP3, WAV, AIFF, FLAC, Ogg Vorbis, AAC, M4A, Opus, CAF and more — and can even pull audio out of video files. CUE sheets are recognised and expanded into their individual tracks.

The file list columns

Each row describes one file. The columns are:

Click any sortable column header to sort by it. Drag a header edge to resize a column; the layout is remembered between sessions.

The Status column

• Before conversion it reads “Convert to [FORMAT]” — clicking it opens Format Settings.
• During conversion it shows a live progress bar with a percentage.
• After success it reads Converted, and a Play Converted button appears so you can audition the result.
• On failure it shows the error message.

Selecting rows

Selection controls whether actions apply to everything or just the chosen files:

• Click a row to select just it.
• ⇧ Shift+click to select a range.
• ⌘/Ctrl+click to toggle individual rows.
• Right-click for a context menu (e.g. delete the selected rows, reveal in Finder/Explorer).

Renaming and playback

Double-click the Title cell to rename the underlying source file on disk. Use the ▶ button to play the source; once a file has been converted, Play Converted in the Status column plays the output instead.

Formats & Output Options

Format Settings

Click Format Settings in the bottom bar to open the format panel. Everything here applies to the whole batch. Close it with the × in the corner.

Choosing a format

Output location & folder structure

Two controls in the bottom bar decide where converted files land:

• The folder field — click once to browse for a destination folder, or double-click to type a path directly. Defaults to your Desktop and is remembered between sessions.
• Keep at existing location — when ticked, each output is written next to its source and the folder field is ignored (and greyed out).

When you drop a folder tree, Palm preserves the hierarchy under your chosen output folder, creating sub-folders as needed:

If an output file with the same name already exists, Palm appends (2), (3) and so on rather than overwriting. (When Delete originals is on, the suffix is tidied back to the natural name after the source is removed.)

Delete originals

Tick Delete originals to move each successfully converted source file to the Trash/Recycle Bin after conversion. Palm asks you to confirm before the batch starts (dismissible with “Don’t ask again”).

Batch Processing

Palm is built for bulk work. Add as many files as you like; the same format settings and output rules apply to the entire batch. While a batch runs:

• Each row shows its own progress bar.
• The Convert… button becomes Stop — click it to halt the run. Files already finished keep their output.
• Rows are read-only — you cannot rename, delete or re-order during a run.
• The mode toggle is locked, so you cannot switch to the Tag Editor until the batch ends.

Parallel conversion & speed

By default Palm converts one file at a time, which keeps your machine responsive. To go faster on large batches, open Settings → Threading and turn on Convert files in parallel, then pick how many Threads to use. See Settings for the full rundown, including True Multicore Mode.

Re-converting

Converted rows are marked Done and are skipped if you convert again. To run them through a second time (say, to try a different format), click Reset in the top bar to clear their Done / Error status, then convert as usual.

CUE Sheets

A CUE sheet describes how an album is split into tracks. Palm understands them in both common layouts and expands each CUE into one row per track.

Single-file CUE

One big audio file (often a FLAC or WAV rip of a whole CD) plus a .cue sheet that lists the track boundaries. Drop either file and Palm shows a row for each track. Converting extracts and encodes each track as its own file.

Multi-file CUE

A .cue sheet alongside several already-split audio files (one per track). Palm matches each track to its file. Any audio files in the same folder that the CUE references are auto-claimed — they are handled by the CUE rather than appearing as duplicate rows.

FLAC + CUE (merge mode)

Selecting FLAC + CUE as the output format does the opposite of splitting: it merges several tracks into a single FLAC file with a matching CUE sheet — the classic “one file per album” archive layout.

1. Add at least two tracks (in the order you want them joined).
2. Choose FLAC + CUE in Format Settings. The convert button reads Merge to FLAC+CUE.
3. Click it. Palm concatenates the tracks into one FLAC and writes a CUE with the track boundaries.
4. Afterwards the Tag Editor opens in merge mode so you can set per-track titles and album-level tags; the commit button becomes Write CUE + Tags.

Move to Tag Editor

“Move to Tag Editor” bridges the two modes — it hands files from the conversion list over to the Tag Editor. It works in two ways.

Manual mode

The Move All to Tag Editor button sits in the conversion bottom bar. As with the convert button, it follows your selection:

• Nothing selected → Move All to Tag Editor sends every file.
• Rows selected → Move Selected to Tag Editor sends just those.

For each file Palm prefers the converted output if one exists, otherwise it sends the original source. Files in a format that can’t hold tags (e.g. CAF) are filtered out:

• If every file supports tags, it switches to the Tag Editor silently.
• If some don’t, it warns you which will be skipped before continuing.
• If none do, it explains that there’s nothing to tag.

Automatic mode (auto-handoff)

Palm can move files to the Tag Editor for you automatically as soon as a conversion finishes. This happens when:

• “Copy tags from source to converted output” was enabled for the run, and
• at least one file converted successfully.

When those conditions are met, Palm:

1. Removes the originals first if Delete originals was on (tidying any “(2)” name suffixes).
2. Hands the converted files (not the sources) to the Tag Editor.
3. Switches into Tag Editor mode so you can review the copied tags right away.

Only successfully-converted rows are sent — failures and un-converted rows are left behind. A folder tree is rebuilt around the converted outputs, pruning any folders that produced nothing.

The Tag Editor

Tags are the metadata stored inside an audio file — title, artist, album, year, genre, track number, cover art and more. Players read them to organise and display your library. The Tag Editor lets you read and rewrite these fields across many files at once.

Switch to it with the Tag Editor toggle, or send files straight from Conversion with Move to Tag Editor. The window has three parts:

• Global Tags panel (left) — type values once and apply them to many files. See Global Tags.
• Tag table (centre) — one row per file with editable columns for each tag.
• Commit bar (bottom) — the Commit Changes button and a status read-out.

Editing tags directly

• Double-click a cell to edit that one tag for that one file.
• Editable columns include Title, Artist, Album Artist, Album, Disc #, Total Discs, Year, Genre, Composer, Comment, BPM and Track Number, plus a Cover Art thumbnail.
• Every edit is undoable — use Undo ↩ / Redo ↪ in the top bar (up to five steps).

The right-click menu

Right-click any row for quick actions:

Auto Number

Auto Number assigns sequential track numbers. Numbering restarts at 1 for each parent folder, so a multi-disc set or a tree of albums numbers each disc/album correctly rather than counting straight through. It applies to all rows or just your selection, and is a single undoable step.

Committing changes

Edits are held in memory until you click Commit Changes at the bottom. The button pulses while you have unsaved changes, and tints to the selection colour when rows are selected. On commit, Palm writes every changed file and reports how many succeeded and how many failed in the status line beside the button.

Global Tags

The Global Tags panel down the left side is how you tag many files at once. Type a value once and stamp it across every row (or just the selected rows).

The panel has fields for:

• Title · Artist · Album Artist · Album
• Disc # and “of” (total discs) — applied independently of each other
• Year · Genre · Composer
• Cover Art (see Cover Art)

Apply to All vs Apply to Selection

The apply button tracks your selection, exactly like the convert button:

• Nothing selected → Apply to All stamps the fields onto every file.
• Rows selected → Apply to N file(s) stamps them onto just those rows (and tints to the selection colour).

Only non-empty fields are applied — a blank field is left untouched on each file, so you can fill in just the album and artist without wiping existing titles. The button pulses while you have fields entered that haven’t been applied yet.

The <BLANK> toggle — clearing a tag on purpose

Because empty fields are skipped, you need a way to say “actually, erase this tag.” That is the <BLANK> toggle (the ⊘ glyph) beside each field. Switch it on and applying will clearthat tag on the target files rather than skipping it. The Cover Art well has its own <BLANK> toggle to remove all artwork.

Clear All (panel)

The Clear All button at the bottom of the Global Tags panel empties every field and removes any pending cover images from the well. (It does not touch your files — it just resets the panel.)

Cover Art

The Cover Art well in the Global Tags panel manages embedded artwork:

• Add — drag image files (JPG, PNG, TIFF) onto the well.
• Reorder — drag thumbnails within the well to change their order.
• View — double-click a thumbnail to see it full size.
• Remove all — turn on the well’s <BLANK> toggle and apply to strip artwork from the target files.

Like the text fields, cover art is applied with Apply to All / Apply to Selection and written to disk on Commit Changes.

Fetch Tags From Web

Don’t want to type tags by hand? Right-click a row and choose Fetch tags from web…. Palm queries online music databases for releases that match and offers the metadata it finds.

You choose which databases to query in Settings → Tag Identification:

• MusicBrainz — on by default and needs no setup.
• Discogs — optional, and needs a free personal access token (so each user has their own rate-limit allowance). Paste the token into Settings; there’s a direct link to generate one.

Settings

Open Settings from the top bar. The panel is organised into sections down a left-hand nav.

Registration

This is where you activate Palm and manage your licence. For the full step-by-step, see Activation.

General

Threading

Performance

Tag Identification

Controls the Fetch tags from web feature.

Worked Examples

Three jobs of increasing size, start to finish.

Small — convert one track to MP3

1. Drag a single WAV onto the drop zone.
2. Open Format Settings, choose MP3, 320 kbps, CBR, leave Resample and Channels at their defaults; close the panel.
3. Tick Keep at existing location so the MP3 lands beside the WAV.
4. Click Convert…. When the row reads Converted, hit Play Converted to check it. Done.

Medium — an album to FLAC, then tag it

1. Drag the album’s folder onto the drop zone. Every track appears as a row.
2. In Format Settings choose FLAC, 16-bit. Set the output folder to a new ~/Music/FLAC folder.
3. Click Convert…. The folder structure is recreated under the output folder.
4. Click Move All to Tag Editor.
5. In the Global Tags panel type the shared Album, Album Artist, Year and Genre; drag the cover image into the art well. Click Apply to All.
6. Right-click → Auto Number to fill track numbers, fix any individual titles by double-clicking cells, then click Commit Changes.

Large — a whole library to Opus, in parallel

1. Open Settings → Threading, turn on Convert files in parallel and set Threads to use to your core count. Close Settings.
2. Drag your top-level music folder onto the drop zone. Confirm the import progress dialog; let background probing run.
3. In Format Settings choose Opus, 128 kbps, Channels: Match Source. Set an output folder on a drive with room.
4. Optionally tick Delete originals (confirm the prompt) to reclaim space as you go.
5. Click Convert… and let it run — rows convert several at a time. Use Stop if you need to pause; Reset later to resume the unfinished ones.

Quick Reference

Buttons at a glance

Supported formats

Need help?

Visit the Support page for activation help and contact details, or return to the products page.