How To Permanently Change ID3 Tags With iTunes

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How To Permanently Change ID3 Tags With iTunes

Okay, so here's the deal. I've seen this question in several places, but I can't find a working answer, so I decided to give it a shot.

My goal: change ID3 tag info with my song collection in iTunes so that my changes stick permanently.

Now let me explain. I am picky about what info I want for a song. Anytime I add a song to my collection, I am specific about what info I want to keep and what I want to get rid of. What I keep: Song title, Artist info, album info and genre. I get rid of everything else, like track/disc number, year, comments, and etc.

To further my point, I'll explain how I go about what brings me to the problem. After I have an album with all songs I want from it, I add the folder to the iTunes library but I don't make any changes yet (I don't have the option checked for iTunes to add copies of the songs to the iTunes folder). Then I select all songs and convert them to 128kbs mp3s with v2.3 ID3 tags. Then I edit all the song info to what I mentioned before in the Get Info box. After a few plays, the track/disc numbers, years, and comments come back, but song title/artist info/album info don't change and the album artwork I added remains. I tried the opposite, editing all the info after adding the songs to the library THEN converting...same problem. I tried a third-party program, MP3tag, before and after converting, both with the same result. I even tried adding something to all comment boxes in iTunes to sync the libraries...that didn't work either. I also tried with that option of adding copies to the library checked and it still didn't work.

I want a solution to where my changes in iTunes of removing the track/disc numbers, years, and comments from songs will be permanent and not come back.

Also, this problem has remained through every new version of iTunes released up to the current version as of the time I am typing this.

iTunes-OTHER, Windows 7

Posted on Jun 4, 2012 2:35 AM

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Answer 1

turingtest2

Level 10

272,737 points

Jun 4, 2012 4:44 AM in response to Kodash

There may be a number of things going on. iTunes has a problem updating files with multiple tags, e.g. both id3v1 and id3v2.x. Sometimes it seems it can update one copy of the tag, but then read back data from the other. It may also have problems if file security settings are incorrect, in which case it will appear to make a change, but then reveal the original data next time it accesses the track in some way. WMP may also be involved in magially restoring data that you've deleted. Getting iTunes & Windows Media Player to play nicely.

As to the issue with comments, are these general things or strings of digits like this? 00000000 00000210 00000770 0000000000103000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000. I've a feeling that patterns of digits such as these are in some way connected to gapless playback and are supposed to be hidden from view, but that may be wild speculation. Again it is even possible that WMP rather than iTunes creates them.

One way that might work is, having edited tracks to the values you want, use the option Convert id3 tags > None a few times, then Convert id3 tags > v2.3.

While I'm all for people having things the way they want them I really can't see how your library could be improved by not having track, disc, or year values. Without disc and track numbers albums will play out of sequence. Why not just turn off the columns that hold no interest for you?

tt2

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Answer 2

Apr 9, 2013 1:06 PM in response to Kodash

Correct me if I'm wrong, but shouldn't you be converting the id3 tags after you update the song info in iTunes? At least, that's how I run it and it seems to save the info just fine. Also, if you're keen, you might want to take a look at MusicBrainz Picard. Great database for renaming audio files before adding them to iTunes.

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