# How does Mp3tag update files?

**URL:** https://community.mp3tag.de/t/how-does-mp3tag-update-files/4213
**Category:** Support
**Created:** [December 20, 2006, 9:23pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/how-does-mp3tag-update-files/4213 "2006-12-20T21:23:05Z")
**Posts on this page:** 3
**Page:** 1

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### Author: ![JJ\_Johnson](https://community.mp3tag.de/user_avatar/community.mp3tag.de/jj_johnson/32/67_2.png) [@JJ\_Johnson](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/JJ_Johnson)
#### Post date: [December 20, 2006, 9:23pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/how-does-mp3tag-update-files/4213/1 "2006-12-20T21:23:05Z")

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When Mp3tag is updating tags within a file, does it directly overwrite the file, which (potentially) could damage the file if Mp3tag crashes during the write? Or, does it write out a temporary file, then delete the old file and rename the new one, which would protect the file in case of a crash during an update operation?

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### Author: ![Sebastian\_Mares](https://community.mp3tag.de/user_avatar/community.mp3tag.de/sebastian_mares/32/9285_2.png) [@Sebastian\_Mares](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/Sebastian_Mares)
#### Post date: [December 20, 2006, 10:19pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/how-does-mp3tag-update-files/4213/2 "2006-12-20T22:19:04Z")

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If the tag is appended to the file (ID3v1 and APEv2), it simply writes after EOF. If the tag is prepended like ID3v2, it creates a new file containing the tag, then appends the content of the original file, deletes the original file and finally renames the new file.

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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, 12:20pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/how-does-mp3tag-update-files/4213/3 "2026-02-09T12:20:03Z")

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