# Preserve all existing tags

**URL:** https://community.mp3tag.de/t/preserve-all-existing-tags/49571
**Category:** Support
**Created:** [July 8, 2020, 10:49pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/preserve-all-existing-tags/49571 "2020-07-08T22:49:54Z")
**Posts on this page:** 1
**Showing post:** 10

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### Author: ![poster](https://community.mp3tag.de/user_avatar/community.mp3tag.de/poster/32/4881_2.png) [@poster](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/poster)
#### Post date: [July 10, 2020, 5:00am UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/preserve-all-existing-tags/49571/10 "2020-07-10T05:00:26Z")

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> [@meeotch](#):
>
> - COMM language codes were changed to "eng" for tags that were previously "xxx".
> - In a couple cases, COMM language was changed from "spa" to "eng". This seems to be the only available choice under Options-\>Tags-Advanced, and I guess it forces the change rather than preserving the original language.

You can write any language code in this field. You are not restricted to eng.  
The language code you write there ist written to all files if you save files again.  
In former times there was no option in MP3Tag to write this code. The code was retained from the language-version of MP3Tag.

> [@\[X\] Setting comment field](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/x-setting-comment-field/14283/3):
>
> Sounds like the problem with the language descriptor. Win Explorer only displays comments with the same language as your Windows system. Read [/t/11025/1](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/11025/1) and set \_M\_STR\_ID3V2LANG to whatever language code your Windows is using.

> [@meeotch](#):
>
> (poster: I also confirmed that turning off everything but Read ID3v2.3 and Write ID3v2.3 indeed preserves existing ID3v1 tags, but doesn't any new ones. Thanks.)

If you want to get rid of ID3v1-tags and you are sure that there is no information stored that you have not preserved in an equivalent ID3v2-tag just mark only ID3v1 in options to delete and say Mp3Tag to delete tags (Red cross or `edit->delete`).

> [@meeotch](#):
>
> I did that same test on a file with multiple Style tags, and mp3tag does indeed show that the extra values are being preserved, as you suggested. Using Beyond Compare, however, shows that the tags are being combined into a single one. (I confirmed this change by using a hex editor.)

Did you check if the original file really showed multi-value-tags in the extended tag-view (ALT-t) of Mp3Tag?

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