# Files and titles are different
**URL:** https://community.mp3tag.de/t/files-and-titles-are-different/71985
**Category:** Support
**Created:** [October 20, 2026, 4:39pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/files-and-titles-are-different/71985 "2026-10-20T16:39:49Z")
**Posts on this page:** 9
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@rvz1](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/rvz1)
#### Post date: [October 20, 2026, 4:39pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/files-and-titles-are-different/71985/1 "2026-10-20T16:39:49Z")
why are files and titles different sometimes?
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### Author:  [@LyricsLover](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/LyricsLover)
#### Post date: [October 20, 2026, 4:57pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/files-and-titles-are-different/71985/2 "2026-10-20T16:57:58Z")
These are two completely different things.
The file name is what you see in Windows Explorer.
Titles are embedded inside the files as metadata.
Mp3tag can help you rename your filenames or update your embedded tags.
Which do you prefer?
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### Author:  [@squonk57](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/squonk57)
#### Post date: [October 20, 2026, 5:13pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/files-and-titles-are-different/71985/3 "2026-10-20T17:13:06Z")
Why should they be the same? They are two different things – file names reside in the directory, titles reside in the tags.
You can name a file whatever you want. Back in the day when I burned MP3 CDs, and CDFS was limited to 8.3 filenames, my naming scheme was _2 digit track number + first 3 characters of the artist name + first 3 characters from the song title_. So for example "Cowboy Junkies - Anniversary Song" would be stored as `10COWANN.MP3`, but that does not affect metadata.
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### Author:  [@rvz1](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/rvz1)
#### Post date: [October 20, 2026, 6:06pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/files-and-titles-are-different/71985/4 "2026-10-20T18:06:32Z")
On some albums tracks don't correspond with their title or filename.
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### Author:  [@MotleyG](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/MotleyG)
#### Post date: [October 20, 2026, 7:53pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/files-and-titles-are-different/71985/5 "2026-10-20T19:53:42Z")
A screenshot and examples would be helpful here. Details are needed if you want more support.
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### Author:  [@LyricsLover](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/LyricsLover)
#### Post date: [October 20, 2026, 8:29pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/files-and-titles-are-different/71985/6 "2026-10-20T20:29:22Z")
> [@rvz1](#):
>
> On some albums tracks don't correspond with their title or filename.
As @MotleyG wrote, please follow these instructions, including how to add screenshots:
> [@Hints for asking Support Requests](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/hints-for-asking-support-requests/56190):
>
> If you need support using Mp3tag, you can help the community members that are about to support you in finding a solution or workaround to your problem, by following these simple guidelines. Be descriptive, also in what you’ve already tried Please give a short explanation what’s not working as expected or what you’re trying to achieve. It’s best to know any details about the problem at hand and especially, what steps you’ve already tried to solve it by yourself. Helpful information also includ…
Also, please tell us which of the following is the correct information:
a) The file names
or
b) The embedded metadata (`TITLE`? `ALBUM`? `ARTIST`? `TRACK`?)
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### Author:  [@squonk57](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/squonk57)
#### Post date: [October 20, 2026, 9:37pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/files-and-titles-are-different/71985/7 "2026-10-20T21:37:10Z")
> [@rvz1](#):
>
> On some albums tracks don't correspond with their title or filename.
Then it is very likely that either the title or the filename is wrong. It would be up to you to research and find out which, and then correct it.
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### Author:  [@ohrenkino](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/ohrenkino)
#### Post date: [October 21, 2026, 7:13am UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/files-and-titles-are-different/71985/8 "2026-10-21T07:13:35Z")
> [@rvz1](#):
>
> why are files and titles different sometimes?
Perhaps because the filesystem has a number of invalid characters for filenames so that these could not be used for the filename?
In general: there is no automatism to set the file property filename to equal the data in the metadata field TITLE and vice versa.
This would be an extra step. Always.
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### Author:  [@spdking01](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/spdking01)
#### Post date: [October 22, 2026, 1:30am UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/files-and-titles-are-different/71985/9 "2026-10-22T01:30:25Z")
Once you didn't provide more info, I will try to help you with some possibilities:
1. Filenames and Char Strings inside each music file are completely two different worlds, not even remotely related to.
You can have the Metadata of a Metallica song music file with **TITLE** : Enter Sandman, **ARTIST** : Metallica, **ALBUM** : Metallica, **YEAR** : 1991, **TRACK** : 01/12, **GENRE** : Heavy Metal, but at the same time the name of the file being "WdsfrtdlnRdEEd.mp3", so things are not directly related;
1. If you are using the MP3Tag internal tool for renaming files based upon the content of the song saved metadata, check if you are not using exotic/strange characters for the strings within the fields in the metadata of an audio file and Windows is having a hard time using these characters, once NTFS file system sometimes have some trouble for high extended UTF-8 characters, or languages which use non-standard latin alphabet;
2. The strings you insert in a song metadata does not automatically rename files on-the-fly, as you type and hit [Enter]. If you thought this MP3Tag does not work that way. You have to manually click the File Renaming Icon Tool, and once done you must set the template rules for naming files, according to your taste, based upon variables MP3Tag provides you for this task;
3. If you wish such a tool for automatically renaming files upon metadata updates/when typing modifications are completed, as far as I know MP3Tag does not do this, it does not work this way. The only tool I know does this is Apple iTunes Music Player. Maybe other music players can do this, but I am not aware of (maybe Foobar 2000 and MusicBee?). iTunes, for sure, rename files and folders containing music files based on the ARTIST, ALBUM and TITLE strings you type directly in these fields. More than that, if you completely change the strings inside a music file listed in iTunes music library, it even moves these files among folders, in case they already exist, or create completely new folders, in case you never had these artists before in your iTunes music library;
4. The File Renaming tool inside MP3Tag does work both ways: you have a tool to rename files names saved in your system based upon filled metadata strings, but also the other way around, you can fill in the metadata of a music file based on whatever file name scheme a song was previously saved. Both ways work based on the Variables you choose to perform naming schemes.