ID3 Tags and multiple Libraries

I think I really have 2 separate questions here.
1) I have an external hard drive at work with all my music files on it. I use iTunes to listen to these songs at work. I have spent a lot of time adding song ratings, and album art, and cleaning up some of the album titles, song names, etc. on these songs. I copied all of these music files to my hard drive on my home computer. I don't listen to music on my home computer very often. Is there a way to copy over all of the updated song information to the library on my home computer?
2) I assume that much of the information about a song (artist, album, etc.) is stored in the ID3 tags. Is there any way to write ID3 information to a file from iTunes?

Some, but not all of the information is stored in the ID3 tag. Examples of information not stored included (but are not limited to): ratings, play counts, date added, and last played.
If you want to transfer information about some songs, you can put those songs into a playlist, then export it as a text file (select the playlist, then File..Export). On the other computer, you can then import it. NOTE: if the path (folder) of the song is different on the two computers, you will need to edit the text file before importing it on the second computer.
Also note that the exported playlist still does not contain all of the iTunes information. But it does have the rating, play count, and some other stuff not stored in the ID3 tag.

Similar Messages

  • ID3 tags and Nee

    Sorry if this has been asked before or is really obvious :P
    I have a Zen Neeon and the currently playing song appears on the screen as only a title. There is no artist. All my songs are tagged with ID3 v and 2. The only way I can get the player to scroll Artist - Title is by removing all ID3 tags and having the filename be Artist - Title.mp3 (it does not display the .mp3 extension when playing a track). Is this the way it works? I was under the impression from the FAQs and a little snooping that Zens could read ID3 tags? Obviously they can because it gets the track title information out fine, but not the artist. Is there a simple option I'm missing?
    Edit: .0 firmware and using Winamp to edit my ID3 tags, put the songs on the player by drag and drop in ExplorerMessage Edited by SR on 08-3-2006 03:53 PM

    Hey, first of all, thanks for your help, but I'm still in problems.
    I have noticed that itunes imports the music files before I alter the ID3 tags (from backup files). However, as soon as I try to add the same file to my itunes library after I have edited the ID3 file (via windows itself), itunes does not add the file to its library anymore. This is happening to a considerable amount of my music. When I try to play the same files in windows mediaplayer, they play without a problem, so I guess the problem is with itunes.
    Somebody can please help me out, because I like to be in control of my music, and not itunes,
    adios Gregorius

  • Itunes does not read id3 tags and its a problem

    Ok I have 60 gig of music and all of it is labeled correctly in id3 tags. But when i add them all to itunes some of the songs are blank with no information at all but if i go into "show in explorer" the information in the id3 tags instantly pops up. I'v searched google and found nothing so i hope someone can tell me a fix or another program to use that will organise my music like itunes does and also can put music on my ipod. So please help me with the problem.
    Thanks

    It doesn't work. I'v already tried that. I'v even tried converting the id3 tags and then removing them from the libray and adding them again. Still nothing. It might help if someone could tell me where itunes gets it information for its tags when you add music to its libray seeing as it doesn't use id3 tags for the information like any smart program does.

  • Itunes is messing up ID3 tags and song info.

    I am wondering, why is itunes keeps on changing ID3 tags.
    For example. All my "The Thunderlords" songs have been changed to"thunderlords,the" Which I do not like. AC/DC got changed to DC/ac and the art was gone. Random comment such as "0" have been added to nearly every song. The album "The Wall" has been labled as "Wall, The" I do not like this >_> is THE wall not wall the. What the .... is wall the? It's not like I go around says "what heck the?" or "halo above his head the" I'm not Yoda! I'd just like to know how to stop itunes from editing this without my permission.
    All songs are MP3's. Details:
    96 kpbs (mono)/ 192 kpbs (Stereo), Normal Stereo, optimized for MMX/SSE, using MP
    Message was edited by: iRockers

    Welcome to the world of Gracenotes. This is the database that Itunes reads to name your files. Apple pays a royalty to these clowns and this is what you get; misspellings and just plain wrong info.
    I constantly sort and edit my 1300 CD collection so I would suggest you learn to do the same within iTunes. If the author names are reversed, fix one then copy. Itunes will let you select and change multiple fields once you learn to do multiple selection..not hard but tedious at times.
    Apple needs to threaten to let us use the free CDDB for an alternate look up and a swap button on authors names, and so forth..

  • Changing ID3 tags and replacing tra

    I'm playing with my new Xtra and enjoying it. I will want to jigger many of the tags to organize the genres and artists better.
    ) The software stored the albums (as I requested) under Artist/Album. If I shift an album under a different artist name, I assume it will not automatically change the tags for the artist. (For instance, I have a few "Elvis Costello" and a few "Elvis Costello and the Imposters"... I want them all under the same artist name).
    2) Can I change the basic tags (Artist, Album, Genre and even Track #) using Create MediaSource Organizer, or should I download a decent/free ID3 tag program recommended on various guru FAQs?
    3) Here's my real question: Once I alter the tag on a track I've already loaded onto the player, I will want to replace it with the updated tags. If I re-transfer, will it overlay the tracks with the updated ones -- or will it create duplicates? Do I need to delete the album or tracks from my player before sending them back over?
    Thanks
    Michael

    zmulls wrote:I figured the PC was easier to change tags. Just for the typing (!)
    Well you can only edit tags using the PC. I meant with respect to which data source you use, the player itself (when connected to the PC) or the files on the PC's hard dri've.
    The "move" would be just taking a subfolder ("album") and moving under a different "artist" folder -- in Explorer. I figured also that I'd still have to change the tags (the ripping program reads the tags and creates the directories, but I assumed the intelligence doesn't go another way).
    Ah right. Yes, you have to change the tags themselves. It doesn't automatically realise the folder has changed, although you can get many programs which will use folder and filename data to generate the tag.
    So I should grab a tagging program, and plan to "Delete From Player" and "Re-Transfer From PC." Not as bad as it sounds, as I can delete whole albums at once from the Player.
    It's certainly the method I use. It really depends on what approach suits you.
    I saw the list of tag programs on your FAQ -- are the "free" ones good enough? Is there a real advantage in the shareware or paid programs (other than the one you cite on Nomadsync).
    I've never bought a tag editing program, and have used 2 or 3. I prefer overall though, but some don't like the UI. Best to check some out.
    Nomadsync is listed in the programs to copy files. Remember that Nomadsync is not a tag editor, it's a program for copying files.

  • ITunes, ID3 Tags, and Metadata

    Oh hai der!
    I'm new and I'm so sorry if this questioned has been answered before. But I've done some research on the web and I've got some questions about iTunes and what it does to my music.
    First, here's my situation. I love iTunes, it's awesome, helps me edit my library beautifully. But that's only when all the songs, movies, videos, and so on have their information. Otherwise it's a huge mess. Which is what I'm dealing with.
    I like to use XBMC. I own a Samsung Galaxy S2, and an iPod Touch. The files I've edited and whose data I've put in manually, show up wonderfully on my iPod. But not my Samsung and media library software, or other device. I was wondering if iTunes actually edits the metadata and ID3 tags of the actual file in my computer. Not just in the iTunes program. See, let's say I have a song titled "Track 01 ", and in iTunes I change the name of the track to "Yesterday". Will iTunes actually edit the title of the song WITHIN the file itself? Or just in iTunes itself? So that after I edit the title within iTunes, it shows up in other software, such as XBMC, and devices like my Galaxy S2 as "Yesterday" and not "Track 01"?
    I don't get my music from iTunes. I've only got a few albums from iTunes, that's it. But for the rest, they're not from iTunes. It may not sound like a lot to most of you. But I've got a library that's over 50GB's large in music. That's over 8,000 songs. Only about 1,000 of those songs have their data such as lyrics, artwork, artist, album,  and so on. But for the rest of the 7,000 songs, it's just a mess. I've looked up many programs that edit my library for me. But I'm in a situation where I can't spend much money. So I'm looking for freeware. But that's not all.
    I'm looking for a piece of software that'll implement lyrics, artwork, album, artist, etc, into the song file itself. Or just in iTunes? I know of TuneUp, and Rinse My Music. I was wondering if there was other software out there? I've also heard of Beets, but it seems way too complicated for me to install properly.
    So to summarize, what I want to know is:
    1) Is there some freeware out there that'll help me edit my iTunes library?
    2) Does editing song info within iTunes actually do anything to the song file itself?
    3) Will I have to use some other software that organizes my media and actually edits a file's properties to display proper data?

    Oh hai der!
    I'm new and I'm so sorry if this questioned has been answered before. But I've done some research on the web and I've got some questions about iTunes and what it does to my music.
    First, here's my situation. I love iTunes, it's awesome, helps me edit my library beautifully. But that's only when all the songs, movies, videos, and so on have their information. Otherwise it's a huge mess. Which is what I'm dealing with.
    I like to use XBMC. I own a Samsung Galaxy S2, and an iPod Touch. The files I've edited and whose data I've put in manually, show up wonderfully on my iPod. But not my Samsung and media library software, or other device. I was wondering if iTunes actually edits the metadata and ID3 tags of the actual file in my computer. Not just in the iTunes program. See, let's say I have a song titled "Track 01 ", and in iTunes I change the name of the track to "Yesterday". Will iTunes actually edit the title of the song WITHIN the file itself? Or just in iTunes itself? So that after I edit the title within iTunes, it shows up in other software, such as XBMC, and devices like my Galaxy S2 as "Yesterday" and not "Track 01"?
    I don't get my music from iTunes. I've only got a few albums from iTunes, that's it. But for the rest, they're not from iTunes. It may not sound like a lot to most of you. But I've got a library that's over 50GB's large in music. That's over 8,000 songs. Only about 1,000 of those songs have their data such as lyrics, artwork, artist, album,  and so on. But for the rest of the 7,000 songs, it's just a mess. I've looked up many programs that edit my library for me. But I'm in a situation where I can't spend much money. So I'm looking for freeware. But that's not all.
    I'm looking for a piece of software that'll implement lyrics, artwork, album, artist, etc, into the song file itself. Or just in iTunes? I know of TuneUp, and Rinse My Music. I was wondering if there was other software out there? I've also heard of Beets, but it seems way too complicated for me to install properly.
    So to summarize, what I want to know is:
    1) Is there some freeware out there that'll help me edit my iTunes library?
    2) Does editing song info within iTunes actually do anything to the song file itself?
    3) Will I have to use some other software that organizes my media and actually edits a file's properties to display proper data?

  • ID3 tags and song order

    I recently got a new car with a hard drive to store music on. I've imported several gigs of music, but on some of the albums the tracks are listed in alphabetical order. I've gone in to make sure all the information is correct in the tags, including the track order. I've also made sure the actual filenames are in order, i.e. "01 - song 1", "02 - song 2" and so forth, but they still show up alphabetically. It seems to be random, but occurs more often on .m4a files. It happens on some of the music I've purchased from the iTunes store, but not all. Is there something I'm missing?

    Ok, I think I found the problem. It's not with how either of the devices are sorting the music. On the albums that show up in alphabetical order, there are no actual ID3 tags. When I right click on any of the songs, there is no option to "Convert ID3 tags" like there is on the music that shows up in the correct order. This even includes music I purchased directly from iTunes. However, iTunes is still displaying the track order, album info, etc. How can I fix this?

  • ID3 tags and itunes refusing to add music to library

    As my music collection is growing, I decided to organize it a bit more and fill in the different ID3 tags in windows.
    I have emptied my itunes library before I did all this, and after changing the ID3 tags I added the different albums back to itunes.
    However, for some reason itunes does not want to import several albums anymore, while they do play in windows media player. Furthermore, itunes refuses in many cases to make use of the new ID3 tags I made. Even after uninstalling and reinstalling itunes, itunes seems to remember my settings and the ID3 tags the different MP3s had before.
    Anyone a clue what is happening here? Has it someting to do with the new version of itunes, or is it something else?
    ciao, Gregorius

    Hey, first of all, thanks for your help, but I'm still in problems.
    I have noticed that itunes imports the music files before I alter the ID3 tags (from backup files). However, as soon as I try to add the same file to my itunes library after I have edited the ID3 file (via windows itself), itunes does not add the file to its library anymore. This is happening to a considerable amount of my music. When I try to play the same files in windows mediaplayer, they play without a problem, so I guess the problem is with itunes.
    Somebody can please help me out, because I like to be in control of my music, and not itunes,
    adios Gregorius

  • ID3 Tags and Music Sort

    My mp3 ID3 tags are all messed up here and there. As I fix them in MediaSOurce, the "file" stays where it is and cannot be moved to where it belongs (in the appropriate folder). Any idea on how to move files around that are on the player?

    Not sure if this is the same thing the OP is talking about, but I have a similar problem with my Zen Xtra. Mediasource doesn't seem to want to let me edit tag info (except track number) for music that's on the player- which gets annoying if I'm trying to correct the genre for something or combine entries for "Smashing Pumpkins" and "The Smashing Pumpkins." The only workaround I've found is to edit the tags for the files on my hard dri've, then re-transfer them to the player, which I'm usually too lazy to do. Is there some more efficient way to do this?

  • Question about Id3-tags and song managem

    Hello, I am getting ready to buy a Zen Touch 20GB in a couple of weeks and I have a few questions about the management software.
    (Correct me if I am wrong about something)
    ) Are songs organized into groups by Genre instead of just folders like on the Ipod?
    2) Are Id3-tags used instead of filename for identification?
    3) What parts of the tag are needed besides title and artist?
    4) Which version of tags does the Zen Touch recognize: Version or Version 2?
    5) If I edit my tags using an external program such as Id3-TagIT, will the tags carry over to the Creative software and to the player?
    Thanks a lot for your help. I want to make sure I have my music collection in order before I get my Zen Touch.

    euph_jay wrote:Ok, so lets say I have all my music in folders right now seperated into different categories on my hard dri've. Some folders denote the artist, some the album, and some a genre. Example: Folder: Chicago Contents: Chicago .mp3 files Folder: Techno Contents: various Techno artist's songs What is the best way of organizing my folder system, so that the transition will be easy to the player?
    Folders are pretty much irrelevant. What the software will do is look at the *tags* in the files and then use these to build the player's library.
    Will imbedded folders work on the player? (like Techno->Crystal Method->Cystal Method .mp3's)
    Again the player has no concept of folders, although if you set Techno as a Genre tag you will be able to view via this in the Music Library.
    Or, am I misunderstanding how music is stored into the mp3 player. Instead of storing music in a "folder like" system (like the Chicago folder or Techno folder), does it store all the songs individually on the device? Then you have to sort it by artist, album, or genre?
    Using your example, in the Music Library you have essentially three categories: Album, Artist, and Genre. So under Album you would see "Vegas" (the Crystal Method's album), under Artist you would see "The Crystal Method", and under Genre you would see "Techno" (and then either the album or artist under this... I forget which it is offhand).
    Make sense?

  • ITunes "grouping" tag - ID3 tags and file rewriting

    From Wikipedia's entry about ID3 tags:
    "ID3v2.2 and 2.3 require that the tag data precede the file. Whilst for streaming data this is absolutely required, for static data it means that the entire audio file must be updated to insert data at the front of the file. For initial tagging this incurs a large penalty as every file must be re-written."
    So what I'm wondering, essentially, is whether the "grouping" tag in iTunes is a part of the ID3 tag information, which would mean that altering this tag necessitates re-writing the entire file. I don't like the idea of this, because I'd be paranoid/anal about the possibility of introducing errors in the process. However, I'd love to use the "grouping" tag for creating smart playlists. So does anyone have any more information about this tag? Thanks.

    iTunes uses the TPE2 frame tag for grouping. This is also known as the 'Band/Orchestra/Accompaniment' frame which is included in the list you linked to. This isn't a guess - I've been playing about with dnuos and querying id3 tags in mp3 files. I can confirm it is a id3v2 frame.
    As to having to re-write the entire file. Yes this is likely but the id3v2 standard also covers padding which can be used to avoid a complete re-write in these situations. Whether or not this happens in the case of iTunes I couldn't tell you.
    As far as worring about quality or reliability when performing this... If a player (in this case iTunes) can't even write some tags you probably need to be worrying about using it full stop. Damage could also happen if the storage device itself is dying but again you don't want to be using it full stop.

  • Aperture and multiple libraries.

    Dear members:
    I currently have a few libraries I have created with Aperture but don't keep them all in my pictures folder as I am afraid it may cause a conflict when launching the application.
    Is there a way or an application that will allow me to keep my Aperture libraries in the pictures folder and ask me what library I wish to use when launching Aperture ? Also, in your opinion what is the easiest or simplest way to manage multiple libraries ?
    Thank you in advance for your help,
    Joseph Chamberlain

    Depending on the precise model of your MacBook Pro, you can likely use a narrow PCI ExpressCard, not the wider ExpressCards.
    The following link has some eSATA ExpressCards from a favorite vendor of mine:
    http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=2000260421+120842026 9&Configurator=&Subcategory=421&description=&Ntk=&SpeTabStoreType=&srchInDesc=
    ...not sure of good parts vendors in your country.
    eSATA will be the fastest way to access additional storage on your MacBook Pro except for accessing storage via the gigabit ethernet, which brings additional headaches for portable solutions and is less viable.
    If you don't really need a Mac Pro, then I agree the price can be a waste if you nor anyone else is really using it - besides being a shame to have such good equipment not being used. This is an ideal case for a less expensive file server, and where I use OpenSolaris and ZFS quite often; however, such systems require more technical expertise to build and setup properly.
    eSATA will certainly help your disk access speeds, however, you should use the Activity Monitor application to monitor your exports and imports of projects to monitor if your CPU cores are maxing out. If your CPU is already at maximum speed during the export/import, moving to eSATA may not bring much performance improvement.
    Further, your 3GB of RAM certainly isn't bad, but I know you can go to 4GB of RAM, and on some models, I'm hearing on the internet of success running 6GB of RAM on MacBook Pros. A RAM upgrade is probably the best dollar,....er.... pound-for-pound upgrade you can do.

  • Songs cut off. someting to do with id3 tags and how they are encoded?

    Something very disconcerting is happening; tracks are being cut off before they should. Slowly more and more songs are being 'eaten'.
    One correlation does seem to be that they are all encoded with iTunes v4.0.1 and have id3 tag: v2.2. Unfortunately I have no idea what, if anything, this means or what to do about it.
    The 'time' display of the song is changed to the point where it cuts off rather than it's true length. I have tried changing the stop time (song info, options tab) but it does not allow me to make it longer.
    Currently iTunes 9.0.2 (25) is being used. This problem spans over several updates.

    Thanks Mike,
    Usually I do get info on a whole album, but I found that doing this for individual songs allows you to view the sorting info, and it was this that was causing the problem - All the sorting info has to be exactly the same for each song within an album for it to sort properly on an ipod. It's weird that the sorting was fine within Itunes, but not on the ipod, but anyway this seemed to solve the problem.

  • HT204406 ID3 Tags and iMatch

    How do I update ID3 tags for songs, such that they are listed correctly through iMatch and my linked computers?

    Hi jcuticchia,
    Here are instructions on editing song information depending on your OS:
    iTunes 11 for Windows: Edit song and CD information
    http://support.apple.com/kb/PH12360
    iTunes 11 for Mac: Edit song and CD information
    http://support.apple.com/kb/PH12160
    Cheers!
    - Ari

  • Spotlight and multiple libraries

    I am using iphoto library manager to run several libaries. I would like to use spotlight to search all of them for keywords. It does this very well with the library that is currently in use, but it does not seem to search multiple libraries, which would be very useful for me. Does anyone know how to get around this problem?

    garinh wrote:
    I have two boot partitions -- "Leopard" for a 10.5 boot, and "SnowLeopard" for a 10.6 boot. They both boot fine, and the boot drive shows up as the "root" (/) drive as expected, with the non-boot drive also available (under /Volumes).
    I noticed that Spotlight was picking up "duplicates" for various app searches. Oops -- that makes sense -- Spotlight was seeing both drives. I figured I'd fix the problem by setting "SnowLeopard" as inaccessible through the Privacy pane on the Spotlight control panel for the 10.5 boot, and "Leopard" as inaccessible on the 10.6 boot.
    Here's where things get weird, IMHO. If I add "SnowLeopard" under "Privacy" on the 10.5 side, a re-boot to 10.6 will show "SnowLeopard" on that side as well (which isn't what I want), and setting on the 10.6 side will likewise affect the 10.5 side after a reboot.
    this is normal and there is no way around that. spotlight exclusion data for a drive is stored on that drive in .spotlight-V100 directory at the top level of the drive. so the exclusion data is shared across different systems because it reads the same exclusion file. as i said, no way around this. if you don't need 10.5 partition while booted into 10.6 you can set it not to mount automatically when you boot in snow leopard by modifying /etc/fstab. you can do the same when booting in 10.5 that's the only thing I can think of that could somewhat address the issue.
    What the $%(#& is going on, and can it be fixed without me disabling Spotlight on one of my boots? I guess OS X is saving its Spotlight "Privacy" settings in some location other than "local" to the boot volume?
    Thanks,
    Garin

Maybe you are looking for