Supported ID3 fields

The ID3 tag is constructed as a container for several information blocks. The ID3 tag described here is mainly targeted at files encoded with MPEG-1/2 layer I, MPEG-1/2 layer II, MPEG-1/2 layer III, MPEG-2.5 and AIFF.
Please note: Some of the supported fields are not part of the ISO standard such as Podcast and Compilation.

Track and tracks

The track number/position in a set contains the order number of the audio-file on its original recording and the total number number of tracks/elements on the original recording.

Title

The title/song name/content description of the piece (e.g. "Happiness", "Adagio", "Hurricane Donna" etc.).

Artist

The lead artist/lead performer/soloist/performing group is used for the main artist.

Album

The album field is intended for the title of the recording (or source of sound) from which the audio in the file is taken.

Year

The year of the recording. This frames is always four characters long (until the year 10000). Note: This has been superceded by 'recording time' in ID3 V2.4.

Genre

The content type as either a pre-defined item (e.g. "Classic Rock") or a user-defined string. The pre-defined genre list is based on the list provided by ID3 V1 (see below).

Comments

The comments field is intended for any kind of full text information that does not fit in any other field. New line characters are allowed in the comment text string.

Composer

This field is intended for the name of the music composer.

Copyright

The copyright message field, which should begin with a year and a space character (making five characters) and is intended for the copyright holder of the original sound, not the audio file itself. The absence of this frame means only that the copyright information is unavailable or has been removed, and must not be interpreted to mean that the audio is public domain. Most players will preceded this field with "Copyright © " e.g. if the copyright field contained "Music Inc." the player would show "Copyright © 2011 Music Inc.".

Original artist

The original artist/performer field is intended for the performer of the original recording, if for example the music in the file should be a cover of a previously released song.

Encoded by

The encoded by field contains the name of the person or organisation that encoded the audio file. This field may contain a copyright message, if the audio file also is copyrighted by the encoder.

URL

This field is intended for URL links concerning the audio file. The URL is always encoded with ISO-8859-1.

Artist URL

The official artist/performer's web page field is a URL pointing at the artists official web page.

Attached picture

This field contains a picture directly related to the audio file. PNG or JPEG picture formats should be used when interoperability is wanted. There may be several pictures attached to one file.

Lyrics

This field contains the lyrics of the song or a text transcription of other vocal activities. New line characters are allowed in the text.

Conductor

The conductor field is used for the name of the conductor.

Lyricist

The lyricist/text writer field is intended for the writer of the text or lyrics in the recording.

Publisher

The publisher field simply contains the name of the label or publisher.

Orchestra (Album Artist' in iTunes)

The band/orchestra/accompaniment field is used for additional information about the performers in the recording.

Content

The content group description field is used if the sound belongs to a larger category of sounds/music. For example, classical music is often sorted in different musical sections (e.g. "Piano Concerto", "Weather - Hurricane").

Subtitle

The subtitle/description refinement field is used for information directly related to the contents title (e.g. "Op. 16" or "Performed live at Wembley"). New line characters are allowed in the text.

Encoder settings (CLI only)

The software/hardware and settings used for encoding field includes the audio encoder used and its settings when the file was encoded. Hardware refers to hardware encoders, not the computer on which a program was run.

Part of set (Disc of Discs in iTunes)

The part of a set field is a number that describes which part of a set and optionally the number of sets the audio came from. This field is used if the source described in the album frame is divided into several mediums, e.g. a double CD e.g. "1/2".

ISRC

The ISRC field should be used to contain the International Standard Recording Code [ISRC] (12 characters).

BPM

The BPM field contains the number of beats per minute in the main part of the audio.

Initial key

The initial key field contains the musical key in which the sound starts. It is represented by a maximum length of three characters. The ground keys are represented with "A","B","C","D","E", "F" and "G" and half keys represented with "b" and "#". Minor is represented as "m", e.g. "Dbm". Off key is represented with an "o" only.

Record time (ID3 v2.4 only)

This field (which replaces year in ID3 v2.4) contains a timestamp describing when the audio was recorded. Timestamp format is YYYY, YYYY-MM, YYYY-MM-DD, YYYY-MM-DD HH, YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM or YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS.

Release time (ID3 v2.4 only)

This field contains a timestamp describing when the audio was first released. Timestamp format is YYYY, YYYY-MM, YYYY-MM-DD, YYYY-MM-DD HH, YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM or YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS.

Compilation

The purpose of the part of a compilation field is to flag a given track as belonging to a compilation album rather than a traditional album. This is normally used for albums that contain multiple artists, and can also be used for albums with featured artists. Tracks marked as part of a compilation can be grouped separately and omitted from the normal artist listings. This can be used, for instance, to prevent one-hit wonders from appearing in your artists list simply because they have a single track that is part of a soundtrack album, or happen to have been featured on another artist’s album.

Podcast

This field is used to mark a track as a podcast.

Podcast identifier

The podcast identifier field can be any text identifier but is usually a URL to the actual track e.g. http://www.pa-software.com/podcasts/track.mp3.

Podcast feed

Podcast RSS feed URL e.g. http://www.pa-software.com/podcasts/rss.xml.

Podcast description

This field describes the podcast and should contain a long description of what the podcast is about. It should also contain the details of the people involved. New line characters are allowed in the text.