# save md5 checksum
**URL:** https://community.mp3tag.de/t/save-md5-checksum/5291
**Category:** General Discussion
**Created:** [August 10, 2007, 8:55am UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/save-md5-checksum/5291 "2007-08-10T08:55:09Z")
**Posts on this page:** 6
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@olk](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/olk)
#### Post date: [August 10, 2007, 8:55am UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/save-md5-checksum/5291/1 "2007-08-10T08:55:09Z")
I wish MP3tag could calculate md5 checksum and save it as MP3 tags
- there could be two modes:
1. MP3 family mode %\_md5datetime%, %\_md5audio%, and %\_md5other%
2. File mode: %\_md5datetime%, %\_md5%
Export could compare %\_md5datetime% vs. %\_file\_mod\_datetime% to determine if md5 checksum has to be re-calculated or can be re-used from saved MP3 tags.
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### Author:  [@LyricsLover](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/LyricsLover)
#### Post date: [August 10, 2007, 1:00pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/save-md5-checksum/5291/2 "2007-08-10T13:00:03Z")
What is your goal? Are you looking for something against your duplicated mp3?
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### Author:  [@olk](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/olk)
#### Post date: [August 13, 2007, 4:33am UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/save-md5-checksum/5291/3 "2007-08-13T04:33:22Z")
yes, I want to verify that my MP3 collection on a networked PC is equal to what I have on my local PC. I have recently changed ID3 standard using MP3tag with "keep old date"-option, so file date and size are the same, and music is the same, but ID3 are different.
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### Author:  [@LyricsLover](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/LyricsLover)
#### Post date: [August 13, 2007, 6:47am UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/save-md5-checksum/5291/4 "2007-08-13T06:47:43Z")
Are you sure, that all 3 date/times of the windows-files are identical? I assume, that the "last accessed"-date should be different and could be helpfull for synch-tools like ROBOCOPY.
Or you could use an external md5-tool like "md5sum-win" or "winMd5Sum".
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### Author:  [@olk](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/olk)
#### Post date: [August 13, 2007, 12:00pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/save-md5-checksum/5291/5 "2007-08-13T12:00:35Z")
last accessed dates can be different, because the files are accessed by other family members. It is a redundant archive, not a backup archive. The local archive on my laptop is deliberately also not complete.
Created date can also be different, f.ex. if a file has been copied via my USB drive, which always resets create-date to "now".
So, only changed-date is equal, and that's also not good enough, because MP3tag deliberately maintains that date just like I want it.
will "md5sum-win" or "winMd5Sum" save their results as unique ID3 tags in MP3 file?
will they recognise just the audio part of MP3 file?
I am not happy to use an external file, because it has to be maintained and tends to get out of step with the content just a few of its listed files.
Is there a command line tool that will let me create new ID3 v2.3 tags with tagnames and values of my own choice?
Then I could...
1. calculate md5-audio checksum using MP3tag's export function
2. run the command line tool for each MP3 file, and add the calculated md5audio values as custom ID3 tags to my MP3 files.
3. add/update md5-audio checksums in future by looking at
.. a) blank/missing tags (new files?)
.. 🕶 changed values (old files where md5date \<\> file-change-date)
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### Author:  [@b0d1satva](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/b0d1satva)
#### Post date: [February 16, 2014, 10:58am UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/save-md5-checksum/5291/6 "2014-02-16T10:58:31Z")
Here is a very late reply for your question:
[http://eyed3.nicfit.net/](http://eyed3.nicfit.net/) && [http://snipplr.com/view.php?codeview&id=4025](http://snipplr.com/view.php?codeview&id=4025)
Works in Ubuntu 12.04
Did the following: (you can also apt-get install instead of apt-fast)
sudo apt-fast -y install python-pip
apt-fast -y install python-eyed3
saved the python source for mp3md5.py fromhttp://snipplr.com/view.php?codeview&id=4025
in /usr/local/bin && chmod +x !$
running mp3md5 --help gives:
===
mp3md5: MP3 checksums stored in ID3v2
mp3md5 calculates MD5 checksums for all MP3's on the command line
(either individual files, or directories which are recursively
processed).
Checksums are calculated by skipping the ID3v2 tag at the start of the
file and any ID3v1 tag at the end (does not however know about APEv2
tags). The checksum is stored in an ID3v2 UFID (Unique File ID) frame
with owner 'md5' (the ID3v2 tag is created if necessary).
Usage: mp3md5.py [options] [files or directories]
-h/--help
Output this message and exit.
-l/--license
Output license terms for mp3md5 and exit.
-n/--nocheck
Do not check existing checksums (so no CONFIRMED or CHANGED lines
will be output). Causes --update to be ignored.
-r/--remove
Remove checksums, outputting REMOVED lines (outputs NOCHECKSUM for
files already without them). Ignores --nocheck and --update.
-u/--update
Instead of printing changes, update the checksum aand output UPDATED
lines.
Depends on the eyeD3 module ([http://eyeD3.nicfit.net](http://eyeD3.nicfit.net))
# Copyright 2007 G raham P oulter
when the mp3md5 is run of a mp3 file with -u option, it adds some stuff to the ID3 V2 headers which is not visible to the apps like mpg123 or vlc, except that Tagging Time (the time of runnig mp3md5.py) is embedded as metadata in UTC format!
Not sure how to use this md5sum to manage the music collection in a database or some other way?