Download & Install Picard

MusicBrainz Picard is available for all major desktop operating systems (e.g. Windows, Linux and macOS), and in multiple forms (directly downloadable formal release executables, package manager versions of these, daily build executables, Python source code that you can execute with your own Python environment, etc.)

It is expected that most users will run formal release executables or package manager equivalents as these are easy to install, and are stable versions which are less likely to have bugs in experimental or new functionality.

However, any users wishing to contribute to the development of Picard or its Plugins may want to run from source code, downloading it from GitHub using a version of Git on their own computer. If you want to contribute to the Picard code but you don’t understand what the previous sentence said, then you have a bit of a learning curve. :-)

The latest version of MusicBrainz Picard is always available for download from the Picard Website. This includes installers for all supported platforms as well as release source code. The very latest source code is also available at the GitHub repository.

Installing Picard on Linux

Installing with Flatpak

Picard is available on Flathub. This version should work on all modern Linux distributions, as long as Flatpak is installed (see Flatpak Quick Setup).

First enable the Flathub repository:

flatpak remote-add --if-not-exists flathub https://flathub.org/repo/flathub.flatpakrepo

You can now install Picard:

flatpak install flathub org.musicbrainz.Picard

Installing with Snap

Picard is available as a Snap from the Snap Store. This version should work on all modern Linux distributions, as long as Snap is installed (see Installing Snap).

The Snap Store page of Picard gives detailed instructions on how to install Picard on various Linux distributions. If your Linux distributions supports it you can install Picard from your distribution’s software center, e.g. Ubuntu Software or KDE Discover. You can also install Picard from the terminal:

snap install picard

Note

Picard installed as a Snap is running inside a sandbox and thus it does not have full access to all files and folders on your system. By default Picard has access to your home folder. You can additionally give it access to removable media by running the following command on a terminal:

snap connect picard:removable-media

Installing from your distribution’s package repository

Picard is available in the package repositories of most distributions. The download page provides links to the packages for common Linux distributions. Please refer to your distribution’s documentation for how to install software packages.

Please note that most distributions usually ship older versions of Picard. If you want to use the latest available version, as is recommended, install Picard as Flatpak or Snap as described above.