How to filter and search MP3 files according to bitrate in Windows Explorer


Windows Explorer 10 (perhaps older versions too) lets you search inside folders using a massive collection of operators. One of the most useful is the bitrate operator, in case you need to locate quickly mp3 files of a particular quality.

For example, if you want to search for all your mp3 files in a folder that are encoded in a bitrate higher than 192 kbps, you would write at the search box of Windows Explorer

bitrate:>192 kbps

To search for mp3 files of a quality lower than 192 kbps, perhaps to delete them, you would write

bitrate:<191 kbps

Notice that I don’t have any space between the operator and the number. Notice also that I write 191, since I’d like to keep this quality and delete whatever else I find: <192 means lower or equal with 192, therefore search results would include all 192 bitrate files.

Finally, do not neglect to write the kbps specification. E.g. writing bitrate:<191 will not give you any results at all, while writing >191 will give you wrong results! Note also that these tags seems to work only if you use the English interface of Windows. You can change the language of Windows easily by going to Settings > Language > Windows display language.