# Padding of ID3v2 Tags

**URL:** https://community.mp3tag.de/t/padding-of-id3v2-tags/15239
**Category:** Support
**Created:** [November 24, 2013, 8:54pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/padding-of-id3v2-tags/15239 "2013-11-24T20:54:17Z")
**Posts on this page:** 1
**Showing post:** 1

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### Author: ![Iggy64](https://community.mp3tag.de/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/i/edb3f5/32.png) [@Iggy64](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/Iggy64)
#### Post date: [November 24, 2013, 8:54pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/padding-of-id3v2-tags/15239/1 "2013-11-24T20:54:17Z")

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I have read in this forum that, by default, Mp3tag pads ID3v2 tags to 2048 bytes.

I wonder if this mean that Mp3tag adds 2048 bytes of padding (extra null bytes), or if it means that it sets the entire tag size (header + frames + padding) to 2048 bytes? I cannot convince myself one way or the other.

Because I had read that Mp3tag pads 2048, I chose that for my LAME encoding, figuring that Florian is pretty wise, so this must be a good padding size. So I have used (in LAME)

V0 --id3v2-only --pad-id3v2-size 2048

After LAME encoding, I check my files with mp3diags, and the ID3v2.3 tag shows padding=2048.

If I subsequently resave my tag in Mp3tag, the padding size reported by mp3diags generally decreases.

So I'm left wondering what Mp3tag is doing with padding.

1. As asked above, is the target 2048 the padding, or is it the entire tag size?

2. Does Mp3tag actually remove padding under certain circumstances? If so, why? And can this be controlled by the user?

3. If Mp3tag is removing padding, could this eventually result in having to rewrite the entire file when I edit the tag in the future? Or can Mp3tag increase the padding again at a later date, to prevent this?

Can someone explain how padding is set when I CREATE a tag in Mp3tag, and how padding is changed when I re-save a tag with Mp3tag?

Many thanks for help on this. My apologies if I have overlooked a write-up on this somewhere. I have done my best to search it out.

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