# iTunes metadata
**URL:** https://community.mp3tag.de/t/itunes-metadata/9596
**Category:** Support
**Created:** [December 28, 2009, 12:09pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/itunes-metadata/9596 "2009-12-28T12:09:03Z")
**Posts on this page:** 17
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@derpavian](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/derpavian)
#### Post date: [December 28, 2009, 12:09pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/itunes-metadata/9596/1 "2009-12-28T12:09:03Z")
Hey folks,
is there anybody, maybe Florian, who can list **all** possible iTunes tags **including** its possible values (if necessary)?
I already know:
- ITUNESCOMPILATION: 1 = enable, 0 or empty = disable
- ITUNESMEDIATYPE: Movie, Normal, Audiobook, Music Video, Short Film, TV Show, Ringtone
- ARTISTSORTORDER, ALBUMSORTORDER
Cheers :slight\_smile:
---
### Author:  [@Florian](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/Florian)
#### Post date: [February 1, 2010, 8:47pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/itunes-metadata/9596/2 "2010-02-01T20:47:02Z")
These are the fields available in Mp3tag that are also supported by iTunes:
**Standard fields**
- ALBUM
- ALBUMARTIST
- ARTIST
- BPM: numeric
- COMMENT
- COMPILATION: 1 = enable, 0 or empty = disable
- COMPOSER
- CONTENTGROUP
- COPYRIGHT
- DISC n/nn
- GENRE
- TITLE
- TRACK: n/nn
- UNSYNCEDLYRICS
- YEAR
**Sorting fields**
- ALBUMSORT
- ALBUMARTISTSORT
- ARTISTSORT
- COMPOSERSORT
- TITLESORT
**Podcast fields**
- PODCAST: 1 = enable, 0 or empty = disable
- PODCASTCATEGORY
- PODCASTDESC
- PODCASTID
- PODCASTURL
**TV Show/Video fields**
- TVEPISODE: numeric
- TVEPISODEID
- TVNETWORK
- TVSEASON: numeric
- TVSHOW
- TVSHOWSORT
- ITUNESHDVIDEO: 1 = enable, 0 or empty = disable
**Other fields**
- ITUNESADVISORY: 0 = none, 2 = clean, 4 = explicit
- ITUNESCATALOGID: iTunes Catalog ID
- ITUNESCOMPILATION: 1 = enable, 0 or empty = disable
- ITUNESGAPLESS: 1 = yes, 0 or empty = no
- ITUNESMEDIATYPE: Normal, Audiobook, Music Video, Movie, TV Show, Booklet, Ringtone
Edit 2011-11-21: Updated list to reflect latest changes.
---
### Author:  [@yindesu](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/yindesu)
#### Post date: [November 21, 2011, 8:42am UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/itunes-metadata/9596/3 "2011-11-21T08:42:00Z")
> [@Florian](#):
>
> **Other fields**
>
> - ITUNESADVISORY: 0 = none, 2 = clean, 4 = explicit
This is a really old post, but it's a top Google result so I wanted to say that in my experience, "explicit" is indicated by a "1", not a "4".
---
### Author:  [@mjcm](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/mjcm)
#### Post date: [November 21, 2011, 10:26am UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/itunes-metadata/9596/4 "2011-11-21T10:26:04Z")
A little bit offtopic, but maybe still worth your while to read this article
"Don't Rely on the iTunes Advisory Ratings for Children"
Source: [http://www.ivillage.com/dont-rely-itunes-a...dren/1-a-125377](http://www.ivillage.com/dont-rely-itunes-advisory-ratings-children/1-a-125377)
> [@](#):
>
> The iTunes advisory rating system (explicit, clean, no-rating) is their way of informing listeners and parent’s of listeners about the suggestive content in each song. Unfortunately, this gauge can’t be completely relied upon; many non rated songs have some explicit terms and insinuations.
>
> My five year old daughter walked into my room this morning to and woke me with the phrase, “Mom, I’m a little drunk and I need you now.” Just what every mom wants to hear as she starts her day. One might initially wonder if someone in my family often utters that phrase around the house. Well, the answer is no. So, before making her a bloody Mary, (you know, a “hair of the dog” hang over remedy) I delved a bit further. “What do you mean by drunk?” She took a second and replied, “You know like Lady Antebellum says in her song. After she has drank a lot of water and her belly is drunk.” Phew, therapy averted.
>
> This reminded me of the time she asked, “Why does Fergie have so much junk and why does everyone want to touch it?” I explained that the junk in her trunk was regular trash that people wanted to help her clean up. Of course, my daughter went on to complain about the lack of people offering to help clean her room, but my diversion worked.
>
> In light of my daughter’s recent confession, I decided to have a listen to her iPod and see what other terms and concepts she was being exposed to. Holy %^#@, there were quite a bit of expletives, not to mention the “N” word, as well as some seriously suggestive innuendo. How could that be? When I downloaded these songs for her, I was careful to choose the “Clean” option, if there was one or an option that had no rating at all. (When there’s no rating, it’s implied that the song was never dirty enough to "clean up" in the first place.) I expected some suggestive language, not unlike what you would find on FM radio, but the cursing was a bit of a surprise. After erasing about 10 songs from her play list, I realized I couldn’t rely on iTunes to determine what’s appropriate for my children. Though their advisory system is a good start, nothing can replace hearing the tunes for yourself.
---
### Author:  [@Florian](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/Florian)
#### Post date: [November 21, 2011, 6:57pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/itunes-metadata/9596/5 "2011-11-21T18:57:03Z")
> [@yindesuu](#):
>
> This is a really old post, but it's a top Google result so I wanted to say that in my experience, "explicit" is indicated by a "1", not a "4".
Is your observation based on files that are downloaded from the iTunes Store? I did some tests and it seems that iTunes treats everything as "Explicit" except 0 (which is no rating) and 2 (which is rated as "Clean").
---
### Author:  [@emJay](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/emJay)
#### Post date: [March 26, 2012, 9:05pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/itunes-metadata/9596/6 "2012-03-26T21:05:57Z")
Has the ITUNESADVISORY Tag been removed? 😲
I can't find it anymore ☹
---
### Author:  [@ohrenkino](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/ohrenkino)
#### Post date: [March 27, 2012, 3:04am UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/itunes-metadata/9596/7 "2012-03-27T03:04:24Z")
Where did you look?
Did you reset the fields list?
Also: search for a file that has such a tag and pretend to edit it, then you will get it back into the list of fields.
---
### Author:  [@Bomgar](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/Bomgar)
#### Post date: [April 22, 2012, 4:56pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/itunes-metadata/9596/8 "2012-04-22T16:56:29Z")
> [@Florian](#):
>
> These are the fields available in Mp3tag that are also supported by iTunes:
>
> **Standard fields**
>
> - ALBUM
> - ALBUMARTIST
> - ARTIST
> - BPM: numeric
> - COMMENT
> - COMPILATION: 1 = enable, 0 or empty = disable
> - COMPOSER
> - CONTENTGROUP
> - COPYRIGHT
> - DISC n/nn
> - GENRE
> - TITLE
> - TRACK: n/nn
> - UNSYNCEDLYRICS
> - YEAR
>
> **Sorting fields**
> - ALBUMSORT
> - ALBUMARTISTSORT
> - ARTISTSORT
> - COMPOSERSORT
> - TITLESORT
>
> **Podcast fields**
> - PODCAST: 1 = enable, 0 or empty = disable
> - PODCASTCATEGORY
> - PODCASTDESC
> - PODCASTID
> - PODCASTURL
>
> **TV Show/Video fields**
> - TVEPISODE: numeric
> - TVEPISODEID
> - TVNETWORK
> - TVSEASON: numeric
> - TVSHOW
> - TVSHOWSORT
> - ITUNESHDVIDEO: 1 = enable, 0 or empty = disable
>
> **Other fields**
> - ITUNESADVISORY: 0 = none, 2 = clean, 4 = explicit
> - ITUNESCATALOGID: iTunes Catalog ID
> - ITUNESCOMPILATION: 1 = enable, 0 or empty = disable
> - ITUNESGAPLESS: 1 = yes, 0 or empty = no
> - ITUNESMEDIATYPE: Normal, Audiobook, Music Video, Movie, TV Show, Booklet, Ringtone
>
> Edit 2011-11-21: Updated list to reflect latest changes.
I was really excited when I found this information and added the "itunesadvisory" to several tracks and it seemed to work like a champ. Later I found it seems iTunes wipes this tag out, is there a way to make it "stick"?
---
### Author:  [@ohrenkino](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/ohrenkino)
#### Post date: [April 22, 2012, 5:25pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/itunes-metadata/9596/9 "2012-04-22T17:25:31Z")
> [@Bomgar](#):
>
> ... Later I found it seems iTunes wipes this tag out, is there a way to make it "stick"?
How did you find that out?
What do you do to get iTunes to update its information in the database after you have modified the tracks?
(My hypothesis is that as iTunes is very reluctant to read updated information, you either do not see the edits in iTunes or other actions in iTunes write the attributes as stored in the database. So if you apply an update script (or open the Information dialogue in iTunes for a single file) then the information gets updated and so becomes "sticky").
---
### Author:  [@Bomgar](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/Bomgar)
#### Post date: [April 24, 2012, 1:36am UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/itunes-metadata/9596/10 "2012-04-24T01:36:24Z")
> [@ohrenkino](#):
>
> How did you find that out?
> What do you do to get iTunes to update its information in the database after you have modified the tracks?
> (My hypothesis is that as iTunes is very reluctant to read updated information, you either do not see the edits in iTunes or other actions in iTunes write the attributes as stored in the database. So if you apply an update script (or open the Information dialogue in iTunes for a single file) then the information gets updated and so becomes "sticky").
Open iTunes
Filter so I only see the album I'm tagging
Open Mp3tag 2.5
Select all songs
Right click
Extended tags
Click add field
Add the tag 13 songs
Click OK
Get saved tag 13 of 13 files confirmation
Click OK
Switch back to iTunes
Right click and get info on track 1 of 13
Click next so tags refresh and EXPLICIT icon appears
Wait a few minutes
Return to the album I just edited and the EXPLICIT icon is gone
Look at the M4A files in mp3tag and the field is gone
I guess I could try and make the files read only and see what that does.
---
### Author:  [@MP3Tag\_hpk](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/MP3Tag_hpk)
#### Post date: [May 1, 2012, 2:24pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/itunes-metadata/9596/11 "2012-05-01T14:24:01Z")
I cannot find out, how to correctly enter the total number of tracks and the total number of disks in MP3tag.
In Itunes (and fre:ac) there are separate entry fields for these tags, and changes in these fields are reflected by both programs vice versa.
However, in MP3 I habe only one field. According to the MP3TAG documentation, I have to use the format n/nn to enter both values in this single field, however this does not work out.
In addition, MP3TAG will not display the values entered and displayed by Itunes / fre:ac (e.g. track 9 of 20 (Itunes) will display in MP3TAG as track 9, not 9/20).
Am I missing something?
---
### Author:  [@ohrenkino](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/ohrenkino)
#### Post date: [May 1, 2012, 2:32pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/itunes-metadata/9596/12 "2012-05-01T14:32:28Z")
> [@MP3Tag\_](#):
>
> However, in MP3 I habe only one field. According to the MP3TAG documentation, I have to use the format n/nn to enter both values in this single field, however this does not work out.
Where doesn't work out? In Mp3tag? Could you then check the definition of the value for the column that displays TRACK?
The value and field should only bei %track% and nothing fancy like $num(%track%,2).
Then: if you enter modifications in iTunes - how do you know that iTunes actually writes these values into the file and not only stores the modifications in its database (which I suspect).
What have you done to make iTunes update its information?
---
### Author:  [@dano](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/dano)
#### Post date: [May 1, 2012, 3:44pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/itunes-metadata/9596/13 "2012-05-01T15:44:09Z")
> [@MP3Tag\_](#):
>
> I cannot find out, how to correctly enter the total number of tracks and the total number of disks in MP3tag.
You must be referring to AAC files. It's different in Mp3tag to mp3 files.
The total amount of tracks gets split to separate fields (see View \> Extended Tags)
TOTALTRACKS and TOTALDISCS
---
### Author:  [@MP3Tag\_hpk](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/MP3Tag_hpk)
#### Post date: [May 1, 2012, 4:21pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/itunes-metadata/9596/14 "2012-05-01T16:21:40Z")
> [@ohrenkino](#):
>
> Where doesn't work out? In Mp3tag? Could you then check the definition of the value for the column that displays TRACK?
> The value and field should only bei %track% and nothing fancy like $num(%track%,2).
The definition for the column track was %track%.
I have included some screenshots to demonstrate the process.
First, the track 19 was entered as 19/19 in MP3TAG. --\>
However. in FREA:AC the information on the number of tracks is already lost. --\> 
The FLAC file is converted by FRE:AC into m4a and read into Itunes. As you can see, Itunes will display 65535 as number of tracks --\> 
The number of tracks is manually edited into 19 --\> 
Itunes will reflect this for all all items
.. continued ...
---
### Author:  [@MP3Tag\_hpk](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/MP3Tag_hpk)
#### Post date: [May 1, 2012, 4:26pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/itunes-metadata/9596/15 "2012-05-01T16:26:29Z")
Itunes will reflect this for all all items --\>
> [@ohrenkino](#):
>
> Then: if you enter modifications in iTunes - how do you know that iTunes actually writes these values into the file and not only stores the modifications in its database (which I suspect).
> What have you done to make iTunes update its information?
FRE:AC is able to read and display the edited value from the m4a file --\>
This proves that the information is not merely stored in the Itunes DB.
MP3TAG, however, does not display the number of tracks. --\> 
---
### Author:  [@MP3Tag\_hpk](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/MP3Tag_hpk)
#### Post date: [May 1, 2012, 4:59pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/itunes-metadata/9596/16 "2012-05-01T16:59:56Z")
> [@dano](#):
>
> You must be referring to AAC files. It's different in Mp3tag to mp3 files.
> The total amount of tracks gets split to separate fields (see View \> Extended Tags)
> TOTALTRACKS and TOTALDISCS
Vielen Dank, der Post war sehr hilfreich.
Speichern dieser Tags mit MP3TAG in FLAC-Dateien funktioniert ja auch.
Jetzt muß ich nur noch FRE:AC davon überzeugen, auch die für ihn unbekannten Tags von FLAC nach AAC zu übernehmen.
Oder gibt es hier einen besser geeigneten Encoder?
---
### Author:  [@system](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/system)
#### Post date: [November 10, 2025, 10:44am UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/itunes-metadata/9596/17 "2025-11-10T10:44:46Z")
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