Question about iTunes song metadata

[toninikkanen]

Hello,

I have an iTunes library that I've been collecting and taking care of for, well, almost as long as there's been an iTunes. I've got lots of songs (though not as many as some others might have), and I've got everything very well organized - albums, album art, artist, composer etc. there are no loose "uncategorized" / "unalbumed" etc. songs at all. That's great. But....

When I copy a bunch of individual song files from my Mac to somewhere else, like a smartphone that is not an iPhone, or to my work PC, some songs retain the metadata and some do not - for example Artist or Album name might be missing. [<-- yes I know how to properly copy an entire iTunes library from Mac to PC, that's a separate topic that I am not asking about now.]

So I've figured out that for my songs, some of them have the metadata in the file itself, and for others, it is only in the iTunes library file. This could be the problem.

So my question is.... is there a way to make "The Truth is in the File" become true, in other words, sync the metadata contained in the Itunes library file into the .mp3 files? For at least the most elementary fields such as Artist, Composer and Album?

 

[Partron22]

Have you tried taking one of the offending albums out of iTunes. (I just delete them so they get sent to the trash.) Quit and restart iTunes. then add the tracks back into iTunes? You'll lose playcount, and have to re-add to playlists but it might fix your metadata issue.

 

[tjwilliams25]

Hello,

I have an iTunes library that I've been collecting and taking care of for, well, almost as long as there's been an iTunes. I've got lots of songs (though not as many as some others might have), and I've got everything very well organized - albums, album art, artist, composer etc. there are no loose "uncategorized" / "unalbumed" etc. songs at all. That's great. But....

When I copy a bunch of individual song files from my Mac to somewhere else, like a smartphone that is not an iPhone, or to my work PC, some songs retain the metadata and some do not - for example Artist or Album name might be missing. [<-- yes I know how to properly copy an entire iTunes library from Mac to PC, that's a separate topic that I am not asking about now.]

So I've figured out that for my songs, some of them have the metadata in the file itself, and for others, it is only in the iTunes library file. This could be the problem.

So my question is.... is there a way to make "The Truth is in the File" become true, in other words, sync the metadata contained in the Itunes library file into the .mp3 files? For at least the most elementary fields such as Artist, Composer and Album?

I'm not sure of a way to get everything done in iTunes, but when I've had this problem in the past I've used a Mac app called Tagalicious. I think it was discontinued, but the last time I used it, it was still working without any issues. Basically it's an automated ID3 tag editor that you can use to make batch edits to song files. You can use it to find missing tags, or you can use it to copy tags between song files (i.e. if they are a part of the same album). Best of all, the tags are all hardcoded to the music files, not just added to iTunes' library XML file, so the tags follow wherever you go. Hopefully this is helpful.