Welcome

ID3 tags provide the Title, Artist, Year, Genre and other great information when you're listening to music. Here you will find the current standards documents; pointers to software libraries in just about every language and other information you can use to enhance your MP3 audio library.

ID3 tags are the audio file data standard for MP3 files in active use by software and hardware developers around the world. ID3 tags are supported in software such as iTunes, Windows Media Player, Winamp, VLC, and hardware players like the iPod, Creative Zen, Samsung Galaxy, and Sony Walkman.

An ID3 tag is a data container within an MP3 audio file stored in a prescribed format. This data commonly contains the Artist name, Song title, Year and Genre of the current audio file. This website contains the format standards information for the ID3 tagging data container. If you've read this far and are confused, check the ID3v2Easy page for a short, low-tech introduction.

While there are legacy and future standards for ID3 tags, the most popular version implemented today is ID3 version 2.3. A follow on version, 2.4, is documented on this website but has not achieved popular status due to some disagreements on some of the revisions and the tremendous inertia present in the software and hardware marketplace.

Consumers should read the Introduction where the basics of the ID3 tagging format and its history are covered. On that page are links to basic technical information about how ID3 tags work. The Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) page contains some additional items of interest.

Developers who are new to the ID3 tag format may want to jump directly to the ID3v2 made easy page for quick low tech introduction. Those interested in getting right into the thick of the standard should check out the Developer Information page. Software developers will find ID3 tag manipulation libraries under Implementations.

The technical aspects of ID3 tagging are discussed on the ID3v2 Developers Mailing List.

News

2013-11-17 New server. User account creation is disabled due to incredible amounts of spam, contact me directly if you want an account.
2012-10-08 Unexpected server move and upgrade was forced upon this site. The existing theme was not compatible with MoinMoin 1.9.3 so we're using a new theme that just works. The mailing list will be up in a few days.
2012-06-13 http://twitter.com/id3 ID3 on twitter
2009-01-12 Microsoft Windows 7 Beta may damage MP3 files
2008-04-23 Sony Corporation of America to Acquire Gracenote
2007-02-03 IdSharp .NET 2.0 tag library alpha release - see Developer Information Work In Progress
2006-10-22 ID3 Accessibily Tags, 1.0 final is available
2006-10-01 ID3 Accessiblity Tags, 1.0 draft 3 is available
2006-01-01 ID3 Chapter frame Tags (think podcast)
2005-12-18 A list of applications that don't comply exactly to the tag specification.