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Cannot remove custom lyrics from MP3 on MacOS

Hello, I am running into a consistent issue with MP3s that have custom lyrics. Whenever I get info on an MP3, click on Lyrics, and uncheck the custom lyrics box, I click accept to remove the lyrics and then ok to close the info window. When I then get info on the same MP3 and navigate to the Lyrics tab, the prior lyrics are still there, as though the change was ignored.


How can I remove custom lyrics from MP3s?

MacBook Pro 13”, macOS 10.14

Posted on Sep 19, 2020 1:52 AM

Reply
7 replies

Sep 20, 2020 10:30 AM in response to Vraxtus

Hi Vraxtus,


That checkbox for "Custom Lyrics" is a new thing, and it is possible it just doesn't work right. But before we give up:

  1. Besides lyrics, do metadata changes made with the Get Info dialog save when you OK, close the file and open it again later? For example if you add "xyz" to the Artist field, does it stick?
  2. If you have custom lyrics that you intentionally put there, do they stick?
  3. If the intentional custom lyrics are blank, does that stick?


Sep 19, 2020 2:01 PM in response to ed2345

That procedure doesn't work in any form. Deleting the lyrics or unchecking the box neither results in the removed / changed lyrics being saved at all. As soon as I perform that operation, and Get Info again, the change has been reverted / hasn't saved, and the old custom lyrics remain. This is a consistent behavior across a number of MP3s where I have tried to remove the lyrics.


I'm also doing this in Catalina, using the Apple Music app that replaced iTunes. I also tried changing permissions on the file itself in Finder, resetting my user to "read and write" and the lyrics removal change still won't stick.

Sep 19, 2020 3:54 PM in response to ed2345

Correct, this is only applicable with MP3s on disk. Only way I've been able to strip out the lyrics is doing a file convert from MP3 -> AIFF / WAV -> MP3 in something like Audacity, which is really terrible for bulk removals of the lyrics metadata.


The reason I'm doing this is that I copy my library to an external drive that another machine then reads from. That machine (Linux based) seems to interpret the lyrics values rather than the Artist values, so sorting / finding the specific song is completely screwed up for these files with custom lyrics.

Cannot remove custom lyrics from MP3 on MacOS

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