tagging mp3 files on mac

By Steve Markham, 8 May, 2014

Forum
macOS and Mac Apps

Hi all. Does anyone know of a decent mp3 tagging software for mac? I know you can tag in iTunes but it doesn't actually tag the file just moves it in the iTunes database.
I have quite a few untagged files and I don't want to import them in to iTunes and have to mess about editing the information for album, artist etc.

Any thoughts would be welcome.

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Comments

By Raul on Wednesday, May 28, 2014 - 14:22

Some people recommend ID3 editor, Tagger or kid3. I have no idea if they are accessible, I use iTunes.
I'm sorry I can't help you more.

iTunes is *not* a tag editor. That edits the xml information in the library itself not the file itself. Rather is a file tagger for around $15 that everyone uses that I can't remember what it is. I have recommended it to as well. lol! I'll dig through my emails and all of that jazz to see if I can find it.

By Steve Markham on Wednesday, May 28, 2014 - 14:22

I pointed out that iTunes doesn't actually save the tag info to the file just to the iTunes database file that is created when you create your library.

By KE7ZUM on Wednesday, May 28, 2014 - 14:22

In reply to by Steve Markham

Ah yeah I missed that. Someone on twitter said just use itunes as it tags the files. I hhad to take an hour to explain it *does not* do this. Now if I can find the name of that ID3 editor. Blah! I'm just getting back after a computer crashed and died with a boom.

Take care.

By dvdmth on Wednesday, May 28, 2014 - 14:22

First, use iTunes to change the song info to what you want. Then, press VO-Shift-M on the song to bring up the contextual menu. One of the options says, Convert ID3 Tags. Select this option, then in the dialog that comes up, choose the latest version available, which I believe is 2.4, then select OK. This will force the new song info to be updated in the tags within the MP3.

Note that iTunes will update the tags in the MP3 automatically, but only if the ID3 tag version used in the file is new enough. If the version is too old, iTunes will not update the MP3 because the tags used in the file might not support the format used for the song information. Converting the ID3 tags avoids this problem.

Also note that this only changes the files in the iTunes media folder. By default, iTunes copies imported files to its own folder, so you end up with two copies of the MP3 on your disk. To find the copy iTunes actually changed, press VO-Shift-M on the song, then select the option to show it in Finder.

By KE7ZUM on Wednesday, May 28, 2014 - 14:22

In reply to by dvdmth

to add to that, you can sourt by date modified by adding that colomn. On the mac the show colomns option is cmd j. then check date modified. Dunno how to do that in windows but I"m sure it's similar.