# Removing ID3v2 tags
**URL:** https://community.mp3tag.de/t/removing-id3v2-tags/1948
**Category:** General Discussion
**Created:** [May 8, 2005, 12:16pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/removing-id3v2-tags/1948 "2005-05-08T12:16:45Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@miky](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/miky)
#### Post date: [May 8, 2005, 12:16pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/removing-id3v2-tags/1948/1 "2005-05-08T12:16:45Z")
I usually remove the ID3v2 from MP3 files, but I do not understand why it is so slow. Winamp removes them about 5 times faster.
Is it possible to increase the memory usage of this operation to make it much faster?
---
### Author:  [@Sebastian\_Mares](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/Sebastian_Mares)
#### Post date: [May 8, 2005, 1:40pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/removing-id3v2-tags/1948/2 "2005-05-08T13:40:55Z")
> [@](#):
>
> I usually remove the ID3v2 from MP3 files, but I do not understand why it is so slow. Winamp removes them about 5 times faster.
> Is it possible to increase the memory usage of this operation to make it much faster?
>
> \<{POST\_SNAPBACK}\>
Memory has nothing to do with it. The problem is that the whole file has to be rewritten and the speed depends on your HDD. Why Winamp is faster? No idea, will have to check that out.
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### Author:  [@miky](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/miky)
#### Post date: [May 8, 2005, 4:26pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/removing-id3v2-tags/1948/3 "2005-05-08T16:26:41Z")
> [@](#):
>
> Memory has nothing to do with it. The problem is that the whole file has to be rewritten and the speed depends on your HDD. Why Winamp is faster? No idea, will have to check that out.
>
> \<{POST\_SNAPBACK}\>
I know that it has to be rewritten. I wanted to said that MP3tag might not use enough memory (buffer) to rewrite the file.
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### Author:  [@sundogv1](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/sundogv1)
#### Post date: [July 12, 2005, 11:25pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/removing-id3v2-tags/1948/4 "2005-07-12T23:25:22Z")
Just bumping this topic for further attention.
I also prefer to remove ID3v2 tags, and I have observed that mp3tag is MUCH slower than other software (winamp, [collectorz.com](http://collectorz.com)'s mp3 collector, etc) in this regard. Indeed the removal is about 5x slower and is an annoyance in an otherwise excellent piece of software.
This lurker will appreciate any attention/fix to this performance issue.
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### Author:  [@beaker](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/beaker)
#### Post date: [July 13, 2005, 4:24pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/removing-id3v2-tags/1948/5 "2005-07-13T16:24:41Z")
I believe it's because apps like WinAmp write the tag only out as a file _filename.mp3.new_ and then do a binary join of the file. I would guess they determine the beginning of the id3v2 frame and inject the data there instead of rewritting the whole file. I've seen the filenename.new being created, but this is only a guess of what the behaviour might be.
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### Author:  [@sundogv1](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/sundogv1)
#### Post date: [July 14, 2005, 12:39am UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/removing-id3v2-tags/1948/6 "2005-07-14T00:39:06Z")
Since ID3v2 tags are at the start of a file, I would guess you'd have to rewrite the file (or most of it) in order to remove the ID3v2 information.
Honestly, I'm not certain if winamp uses some slick logic to accomplish this "rewrite". In any case, mp3tag should implement a similar approach to speed up ID3v2 tag removal. Looking at historical posts, the reason for the slowness was explained as "file has to be rewritten". I think that explanation should be revisited since other software can "rewrite" much faster.
Meanwhile, I'll probably use another tool to do the ID3v2 removal ☹
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### Author:  [@Florian](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/Florian)
#### Post date: [July 14, 2005, 8:01pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/removing-id3v2-tags/1948/7 "2005-07-14T20:01:48Z")
The next version of Mp3tag will speed up things a little bit 🙂
Best regards,
~ Florian
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### Author:  [@sundogv1](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/sundogv1)
#### Post date: [July 15, 2005, 12:26am UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/removing-id3v2-tags/1948/8 "2005-07-15T00:26:19Z")
Sweet!
Thanks in advance for the "fix".
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### Author:  [@miky](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/miky)
#### Post date: [August 21, 2005, 4:03pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/removing-id3v2-tags/1948/9 "2005-08-21T16:03:40Z")
> [@](#):
>
> The next version of Mp3tag will speed up things a little bit 🙂
>
> Best regards,
> ~ Florian
>
> \<{POST\_SNAPBACK}\>
I have tried it and works much faster. Thank you for this improvement.
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### Author:  [@Florian](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/Florian)
#### Post date: [August 22, 2005, 6:43am UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/removing-id3v2-tags/1948/10 "2005-08-22T06:43:09Z")
> [@](#):
>
> I have tried it and works much faster. Thank you for this improvement.
>
> \<{POST\_SNAPBACK}\>
Thanks for your reply. I'm glad that my tunings are noticeable 🙂
Best regards,
~ Florian
---
### Author:  [@sundogv1](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/sundogv1)
#### Post date: [August 23, 2005, 11:43pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/removing-id3v2-tags/1948/11 "2005-08-23T23:43:59Z")
Another confirmation that the ID3v2 tag removal is faster in the latest beta. Thanks again for the tuning enhancement.
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### Author:  [@Florian](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/Florian)
#### Post date: [August 24, 2005, 9:05am UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/removing-id3v2-tags/1948/12 "2005-08-24T09:05:45Z")
> [@](#):
>
> Another confirmation that the ID3v2 tag removal is faster in the latest beta. Thanks again for the tuning enhancement.
>
> \<{POST\_SNAPBACK}\>
Great 🙂 Thanks for your reply!
---
### Author:  [@miky](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/miky)
#### Post date: [September 19, 2005, 3:26pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/removing-id3v2-tags/1948/13 "2005-09-19T15:26:28Z")
Generally I am satisfied with this improvement and I do not want to complain just add a note. I think it could be even faster because the Task manager can show how many bytes have been written to the disk and it shows always double than the size of the file which I removed the ID3v2 TAG from. So I think the speed could be doubled. Maybe it is a bug that the program writes the data twice but it shoud not.
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### Author:  [@Florian](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/Florian)
#### Post date: [September 20, 2005, 6:18am UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/removing-id3v2-tags/1948/14 "2005-09-20T06:18:56Z")
> [@](#):
>
> Generally I am satisfied with this improvement and I do not want to complain just add a note. I think it could be even faster because the Task manager can show how many bytes have been written to the disk and it shows always double than the size of the file which I removed the ID3v2 TAG from. So I think the speed could be doubled. Maybe it is a bug that the program writes the data twice but it shoud not.
>
> \<{POST\_SNAPBACK}\>
Mp3tag creates a temporary file, copies the new tag and the audio data to that file (or to memory if file is smaller than 16MB) and retransfers the new data back to the original file.
This is done this way, because you can't remove something from the beginning of a file.
---
### Author:  [@miky](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/miky)
#### Post date: [September 23, 2005, 12:01pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/removing-id3v2-tags/1948/15 "2005-09-23T12:01:12Z")
> [@](#):
>
> Mp3tag creates a temporary file, copies the new tag and the audio data to that file (or to memory if file is smaller than 16MB) and retransfers the new data back to the original file.
>
> This is done this way, because you can't remove something from the beginning of a file.
>
> \<{POST\_SNAPBACK}\>
After the temporary file is done it should delete the original file and rename the temp file to the original name instead of retransfer the data back. Double speed. 🙂
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### Author:  [@Florian](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/Florian)
#### Post date: [September 26, 2005, 6:45am UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/removing-id3v2-tags/1948/16 "2005-09-26T06:45:13Z")
> [@](#):
>
> After the temporary file is done it should delete the original file and rename the temp file to the original name instead of retransfer the data back. Double speed. 🙂
>
> \<{POST\_SNAPBACK}\>
Renaming memory areas to filenames is not possible. The temporary file is created in memory in most cases 🙂
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### Author:  [@miky](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/miky)
#### Post date: [September 27, 2005, 2:53am UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/removing-id3v2-tags/1948/17 "2005-09-27T02:53:24Z")
> [@](#):
>
> Renaming memory areas to filenames is not possible. The temporary file is created in memory in most cases 🙂
>
> \<{POST\_SNAPBACK}\>
You said that the temporary file is created on the disk if it is bigger than 16MB. If it is true you can rename it. I'm talking about files with the size between 50 and 150MBs.
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### Author:  [@miky](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/miky)
#### Post date: [March 16, 2006, 5:29pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/removing-id3v2-tags/1948/18 "2006-03-16T17:29:22Z")
A have tried the latest version of MP3TAG and it works like the same way. Please consider my advice, because it would be very easy to implement this behavior and it would significantly increase the speed of this process.
Thanks in advance!
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### Author:  [@Florian](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/Florian)
#### Post date: [March 16, 2006, 7:47pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/removing-id3v2-tags/1948/19 "2006-03-16T19:47:46Z")
Hi miky,
please try [this inofficial](http://anytag.de/downloads/nonpublic/mp3tagv235k7setup.exe) [Beta version](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beta_version#Beta) 🙂
Best regards,
~ Florian
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### Author:  [@miky](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/miky)
#### Post date: [March 16, 2006, 8:54pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/removing-id3v2-tags/1948/20 "2006-03-16T20:54:13Z")
Wow! Amazing! It works like I imagined! 🕶
Thank you Florian for this improvement!!!
[Next page](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/removing-id3v2-tags/1948.md?page=2)