# Editing hidden metadata in iTunes M4A purchases?

**URL:** <https://community.mp3tag.de/t/editing-hidden-metadata-in-itunes-m4a-purchases/15597>\
**Category:** Support\
**Created:** [March 17, 2014, 8:28pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/editing-hidden-metadata-in-itunes-m4a-purchases/15597 "2014-03-17T20:28:33Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Fascion](https://community.mp3tag.de/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/f/71e660/32.png) [@Fascion](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/Fascion)\
**Post date:** [March 17, 2014, 8:28pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/editing-hidden-metadata-in-itunes-m4a-purchases/15597/1 "2014-03-17T20:28:33Z")

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Recently I decided to sit down and organize my music collection in a way that would make accessing it on my iPod touch much easier. Well, I've encountered a bit of a problem along the way... it would appear that M4A files, purchased direct from iTunes, have embedded metadata that I can't seem to edit in iTunes, WinAmp, or MP3Tag. These tags are problematic for how I am trying to organize my collection, as the iPod grabs them when no other data is present.

In opening these files Notepad++ confirms the existence of these tags, but after a good 2 hours of searching for a way to edit them, I am officially spent.

Example (sans characters that don't show up)

... the only way I've found to correct this is to convert the files over to MP3. Needless to say, though, converting from lossy to lossy is not an ideal situation.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

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**Author:** ![chrishirst](https://community.mp3tag.de/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/c/4af34b/32.png) [@chrishirst](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/chrishirst)\
**Post date:** [March 17, 2014, 10:06pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/editing-hidden-metadata-in-itunes-m4a-purchases/15597/2 "2014-03-17T22:06:05Z")

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It is because of the DRM protection.

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**Author:** ![DazBYorks](https://community.mp3tag.de/user_avatar/community.mp3tag.de/dazbyorks/32/4904_2.png) [@DazBYorks](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/DazBYorks)\
**Post date:** [March 21, 2014, 2:05am UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/editing-hidden-metadata-in-itunes-m4a-purchases/15597/3 "2014-03-21T02:05:33Z")

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Hi,

AtomicParsley should take care of that for you.

Daz

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**Author:** ![system](https://community.mp3tag.de/uploads/default/original/2X/c/ce7035d426cb755a7916793326d23b465222a407.png) [@system](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/system)\
**Post date:** [February 9, 2026, 12:24pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/editing-hidden-metadata-in-itunes-m4a-purchases/15597/4 "2026-02-09T12:24:58Z")

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Closed on February 9, 2026, 12:24pm UTC