# Ho to shorten date info

**URL:** https://community.mp3tag.de/t/ho-to-shorten-date-info/8843
**Category:** Support
**Created:** [August 25, 2009, 1:43pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/ho-to-shorten-date-info/8843 "2009-08-25T13:43:59Z")
**Posts on this page:** 6
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

### Author: ![bert003](https://community.mp3tag.de/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/b/b5a626/32.png) [@bert003](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/bert003)
#### Post date: [August 25, 2009, 1:43pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/ho-to-shorten-date-info/8843/1 "2009-08-25T13:43:59Z")

</div>

Hi,

First question:  
Does anybody want to help me with a regular expression to shorten the "Year" fiels in my tags.

A lot of my year tags are as: 1998-10-12 or 2008-10.  
But I only want to use the year without month and day info.

I know an action can be created for this but since I don't have any knowledge of regular expressions, I can't figure out how to do this. I did look at the examples in this forum, but I can't translate it to my needs.

So if anyone can give met the right code I would be grateful!.

Second question:  
Is there a function/action to delete/blank all MP3 ID3v1 tags?

I only want to use ID3v2.3.

Great program by the way!

Thanks

---

<div class="post-metadata">

### Author: ![newser](https://community.mp3tag.de/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/n/b9bd4f/32.png) [@newser](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/newser)
#### Post date: [August 25, 2009, 2:13pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/ho-to-shorten-date-info/8843/2 "2009-08-25T14:13:10Z")

</div>

You can try format value

field: YEAR  
Formatstring: $left(%year%,4)

In the mp3tag options you can set deleting ID3v1 only.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

### Author: ![bert003](https://community.mp3tag.de/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/b/b5a626/32.png) [@bert003](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/bert003)
#### Post date: [August 25, 2009, 2:46pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/ho-to-shorten-date-info/8843/3 "2009-08-25T14:46:49Z")

</div>

Thanks! That works fine!

About deleting ID3v1 tags:  
Some files are already saved with v2.4 tags. Opening the files in MP3Tag and just 'Select all' + Ctrl-S does save them changing ID3v2.4 to ID3v2.3.  
But the existing ID3v1's are not removed. When I cut the tags and then paste them back, the ID3v1's are gone.  
But deleting tags on a larger amount of files is a bit dangerous, I guess..

Is there a better way?

---

<div class="post-metadata">

### Author: ![dano](https://community.mp3tag.de/user_avatar/community.mp3tag.de/dano/32/6_2.png) [@dano](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/dano)
#### Post date: [August 26, 2009, 12:16pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/ho-to-shorten-date-info/8843/4 "2009-08-26T12:16:30Z")

</div>

How to delete only ID3v1:  
Go to "File \> Options \> Tags \> Mpeg"  
Set **Remove** to  
[x] ID3v1  
[] APE  
[] ID3v2

Then use "File \> Remove Tag" [Ctrl+R] to remove the ID3v1

---

<div class="post-metadata">

### Author: ![bert003](https://community.mp3tag.de/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/b/b5a626/32.png) [@bert003](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/bert003)
#### Post date: [August 26, 2009, 12:50pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/ho-to-shorten-date-info/8843/5 "2009-08-26T12:50:36Z")

</div>

Thanks!

Very smart solution, and without risk.  
I really learn more and more about this wonderful program.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

### 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, 12:21pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/ho-to-shorten-date-info/8843/6 "2026-02-09T12:21:44Z")

</div>