# Choosing an appropriate tagging format
**URL:** https://community.mp3tag.de/t/choosing-an-appropriate-tagging-format/9990
**Category:** Support
**Created:** [February 28, 2010, 3:40am UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/choosing-an-appropriate-tagging-format/9990 "2010-02-28T03:40:38Z")
**Posts on this page:** 6
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@iGotQuestion](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/iGotQuestion)
#### Post date: [February 28, 2010, 3:40am UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/choosing-an-appropriate-tagging-format/9990/1 "2010-02-28T03:40:38Z")
I have a lot of mp3 files which i play on my iPod and home pc via iTunes. Which tagging format, _ **ID3v2.4 UTF-8** _ or _ **ID3v2.3 UTF-16** _, should i use?
[This forum post](http://forums.mp3tag.de/lofiversion/index.php/t3587.html) says that ID3v2.4 UTF-8 has problems with iTunes (read the 3rd last post). However, it was written in 2006 so i was wondering if this is still true for the latest iTunes.
Essentially I want the tagging format to have full compatibility with iTunes and iPods. Some of my music has non-english characters. I also want the format to be efficient meaning that it takes up the least amount of space for text, album art, etc.
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### Author:  [@ohrenkino](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/ohrenkino)
#### Post date: [February 28, 2010, 8:25am UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/choosing-an-appropriate-tagging-format/9990/2 "2010-02-28T08:25:50Z")
> [@iGotQuestion](#):
>
> _ **ID3v2.3 UTF-16** _
is still the format with the best support as V2.4 has not been adopted by all players and stuff.
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### Author:  [@iGotQuestion](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/iGotQuestion)
#### Post date: [February 28, 2010, 1:33pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/choosing-an-appropriate-tagging-format/9990/3 "2010-02-28T13:33:54Z")
How about the file size of ID3v2.4 UTF-8 and ID3v2.3 UTF-16, which produces the smaller size?
Do you know if iTunes still has problems with ID3v2.4?
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### Author:  [@ohrenkino](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/ohrenkino)
#### Post date: [February 28, 2010, 1:52pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/choosing-an-appropriate-tagging-format/9990/4 "2010-02-28T13:52:01Z")
I do not know whether and which version of iTunes has which problems with v2.4. I only see that this forum frequently features questions about v2.4 and that the general notion is "leave it alone".
Talking about sizes: we are talking about a couple kbytes if at all. Any savings there would probably eaten up by the cluster size of your hard disc of by leaving out a duplicate track. Or by reverting to v2 which leaves out such space consuming tags like albumart.
So: stay with v2.3 utf-16 and you are fine.
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### Author:  [@garym](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/garym)
#### Post date: [February 28, 2010, 2:32pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/choosing-an-appropriate-tagging-format/9990/5 "2010-02-28T14:32:57Z")
I can say that I use "ID3v2.3 utf-16" for all my mp3 files and they work perfectly in ITUNES (latest verison), foobar2000, winamp, WMP, and SqueezeboxServer. I actually only use ITUNES (for portables), foobar2000 (on computer) and SqueezeboxServer (for serving my squeezeboxes at home). But again, no issues with tags.
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### Author:  [@system](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/system)
#### Post date: [February 9, 2026, 12:22pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/choosing-an-appropriate-tagging-format/9990/6 "2026-02-09T12:22:13Z")