How do I overwrite ID3 tags with iTunes data?

Are you using MP3 or AAC format? If so, the information such as Artist, Album, etc that you see displyed in iTunes is the ID3 tag data. If you change it in iTunes, the new data is written to the tags, and if another program uses the same file it will see the new tag data.

WAV files are handled differently, since they do not natively have tag data, and iTunes stores the info itself. Does that relate to your issue?

Hi,

I'd like to pick this thread up again since I have the same problem.

I have quite a pile of MP3s in my iTunes media library that I recorded from my CDs before I got iTunes (and lateron imported into iTunes).

Within the iTunes library 99% of my album and track info is neatly looked after 😉 But when I play these MP3-tracks on a device other than my iPod they do not seem to have the information in the ID3-tags.

Using the "Convert ID3 tags" did me a disservice as it overwrote my iTunes-info with the contents of the ID3 tags, so I had to repair almost half of my tracks, which were now either lacking the complete album info, carrying clipped names or other false info.

So I need a function that writes the info FROM the iTunes media library TO the MP3's ID3 tags (because that's where I am sure that everything is correct).

Any help is appreciated. I googled for hours but can't seem to find a tool that does exactly this. There are hundreds of ID3-tag-editors out there, but that's not what I need.

Thanks,
Sascha

InTheY2K wrote:


So I need a function that writes the info FROM the iTunes media library TO the MP3's ID3 tags (because that's where I am sure that everything is correct).

Sascha, iTunes does that! If you use "Get Info" in iTunes to change the artist/album/title information, the data is written to the file when you click OK.

The only cases where this doesn't work are:
1. if you don't have write permission on the file (in which case Get Info will be all gray)
2. if it is a WAV file, since they do not have tags
3. If you have multiple copies of the file and are looking at a different one than the one iTunes changed
4. if you changed a piece of data that iTunes stores in its library rather than in the song tags, such as Rating

Hi ed2345,

thanks for your reply. Sorry for getting back to you so late.

As to your ideas:

1) I do have write permission on all files since I imported them myself from my CDs (before the iTunes era)
2) The files are all in MP3-format, not WAV, I am pretty sure of that 😉
3) I only have one instance of my iTunes library and each file in there is unique.
4) What I am missing in the ID3-tags is the standard information such as album title, artist, song title, year. I do not make use of any iTunes-specific information such as stars or the like.

Hm, so there must be some other reason why I can't see the info 😟

What I was thinking of in my previous post, is a tool that does a batch processing of all the media files at once so it writes the info from the iTunes library to the respective ID3-tags.

Cheers,
Sascha

+1) I do have write permission on all files since I imported them myself from my CDs (before the iTunes era)+

Ha ha. You only think you do!

I don't only think I do, I know I do 😉 And even though I knew I double-checked and found I wasn't wrong.

I DO have write permission on my MP3s.

Now you! 😉

To bring this to an end on my part: What didn't work with all tracks at once worked with selecting each track individually and using "Convert ID3 tags" with version 2.3.

In step 2 I used the tool "The Godfather" to batch-copy all v2.3-tags to v1.1.

Now I got my metadata as I wanted it 😉

Thank you!

Sascha