mid3v2 - Man Page

• List all supported ID3v2.3 or ID3v2.4 frames and their meanings: id3v2 --list-frames path/to/file1.mp3 path/to/file2.mp3 ...
• List all supported ID3v1 numeric genres: id3v2 --list-genres path/to/file1.mp3 path/to/file2.mp3 ...
• List all tags in specific files: id3v2 --list path/to/file1.mp3 path/to/file2.mp3 ...
• Set specific artist, album, or song information: id3v2 --artist|--album|--song=string path/to/file1.mp3 path/to/file2.mp3 ...
• Set specific picture information: id3v2 --picture=filename:description:image_type:mime_type path/to/file1.mp3 path/to/file2.mp3 ...
• Set specific year information: id3v2 --year=YYYY path/to/file1.mp3 path/to/file2.mp3 ...
• Set specific date information: id3v2 --date=YYYY-MM-DD path/to/file1.mp3 path/to/file2.mp3 ...

tldr.sh

mid3v2 [options] filename ...

mid3v2 is a Mutagen-based replacement for id3lib's id3v2. It supports ID3v2.4 and more frames; it also does not have the numerous bugs that plague id3v2.

This program exists mostly for compatibility with programs that want to tag files using id3v2. For a more usable interface, we recommend Ex Falso.

-q,  --quiet

Be quiet: do not mention file operations that perform the user's request. Warnings will still be printed.

-v,  --verbose

Be verbose: state all operations performed. This is the opposite of --quiet. This is the default.

-e,  --escape

Enable interpretation of backslash escapes for tag values. Makes it possible to escape the colon-separator in TXXX, WXXX, COMM values like '\:' and insert escape sequences like '\n', '\t' etc.

-f,  --list-frames

Display all supported ID3v2.3/2.4 frames and their meanings.

-L,  --list-genres

List all ID3v1 numeric genres. These can be used to set TCON frames, but it is not recommended.

-l,  --list

List all tags in the files. The output format is not the same as id3v2's; instead, it is easily parsable and readable. Some tags may not have human-readable representations.

--list-raw

List all tags in the files, in raw format. Although this format is nominally human-readable, it may be very long if the tag contains embedded binary data.

-d,  --delete-v2

Delete ID3v2 tags.

-s,  --delete-v1

Delete ID3v1 tags.

-D,  --delete-all

Delete all ID3 tags.

--delete-frames=FRAMES

Delete specific ID3v2 frames (or groups of frames) from the files. FRAMES is a "," separated list of frame names e.g. "TPE1,TALB"

-C,  --convert

Convert ID3v1 tags to ID3v2 tags. This  will also happen automatically during any editing.

-a,--artist=ARTIST

Set the artist information (TPE1).

-A,--album=ALBUM

Set the album information (TALB).

-t,--song=TITLE

Set the title information (TIT2).

-c,--comment=<DESCRIPTION:COMMENT:LANGUAGE>

Set a comment (COMM). The language and description may be omitted, in which case the language defaults to English, and the description to an empty string.

-p,--picture=<FILENAME:DESCRIPTION:IMAGE-TYPE:MIME-TYPE>

Set the attached picture (APIC). Everything except the filename can be omitted in which case default values will be used.

-g,--genre=GENRE

Set the genre information (TCON).

-y,--year=<YYYY>, --date=<YYYY-[MM-DD]>

Set the year/date information (TDRC).

-T,--track=<NUM/NUM>

Set the track number (TRCK).

Any text or URL frame (those beginning with T or W) can be modified or added by prefixing the name of the frame with "--". For example, --TIT3 "Monkey!" will set the TIT3 (subtitle) frame to Monkey!.

The TXXX frame has the format <Description:TEXT>; many TXXX frames may be set in the file as long as they have different keys. To set this key, just separate the text with a colon, e.g. --TXXX "ALBUMARTISTSORT:Examples, The". The description can be omitted in which case it defaults to an empty string.

The WXXX frame has the same format as TXXX but since URLs usually contain a ":" you have provide a description or enable escaping (-e): --WXXX "desc:http://foo.bar" or -e --WXXX "http\\://foo.bar"

The USLT frame has the format <Description:TEXT:LANGUAGE>. The language and description may be omitted, in which case the language defaults to English, and the description to an empty string.

The special POPM frame can be set in a similar way: --POPM "bob@example.com:128:2" to set Bob's rating to 128/255 with 2 plays.

No sanity checking is done on the editing operations you perform, so mid3v2 will happily accept --TSIZ when editing an ID3v2.4 frame. However, it will also automatically throw it out during the next edit operation.

Joe Wreschnig is the author of mid3v2, but he doesn't like to admit it.

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