Metatag Mapping

The words metadata/tag/field may be used intermittently on this page to mean the same thing. This page is also far from complete and may never be.

Standard Tags

The following tables just map tags in one format/standard to another. Each format may have limitations, like not being able to handle UTF8 for example, or limitations as to the length of the content of a tag, some might have a non-textual tag like ID3v1 has for the Genre tag. These format limitations may or may not be mentioned on this page, so please keep that in mind. If you see a question mark inside the tables then that just means somebody haven't filled/researched anything about that part yet, if you see n/a in the table that means this tag does not exist and will most likely never exist for that format/standard (mostly this applies to ID3 v1 and v1.1). The grouping of the tags may also change from time to time as this page is improved.

Primary

These are the core meta-tags and supported/defined in all major tagging standards or file formats one way or another.

Tag	ID3 v1/v1.1	FLAC/Vorbis/Ogg	ID3 v2.3 / ID3 v2.4	APEv2	Matroska	WMA	MP4/iTunes
Album	Album	ALBUM	TALB	Album	TITLE ^[1]	WM/AlbumTitle	©alb
Artist	Artist	ARTIST	TPE1	Artist	ARTIST	Author	©art
Comment	Comment	DESCRIPTION	COMM	Comment	COMMENT	Description	©cmt
Date	Year	DATE ^[2]	TDRC ^[3]	Year	DATE_RELEASE	WM/Year	©day
Genre	Genre ^[4]	GENRE	TCON	Genre	GENRE	WM/Genre	©gen
Title	Title	TITLE	TIT2	Title	TITLE ^[1]	Title	©nam
Track ^[5]	Album track ^[6]	TRACKNUMBER	TRCK	Track	TRACK	TRACKNUMBER	trkn

Secondary

These meta-tags provide information that a user or software may expect. Not all formats or software may support these tags though.

Tag	ID3 v1/v1.1	FLAC/Vorbis/Ogg	ID3 v2.3/v2.4	APEv2	Matroska	WMA	MP4/iTunes
Composer	n/a	COMPOSER	TCOM	Composer	COMPOSER	WM/Composer	©wrt
Copyright	n/a	COPYRIGHT	TCOP	?	?	?	cprt
Disc	n/a	DISCNUMBER	TPOS	?	PART_OFFSET	?	disk
ISRC	n/a	ISRC	TSRC	ISRC	ISRC	WM/ISRC	?
Location	n/a	LOCATION	?	?	RECORDING_LOCATION	?	?
Publisher	n/a	ORGANIZATION	TPUB	Publisher	PUBLISHER	WM/Publisher	?
ReplayGain Gain	n/a	REPLAYGAIN_TRACK_GAIN	TXXX=REPLAYGAIN_TRACK_GAIN ^[7]	?	REPLAYGAIN_GAIN ^[1]	?	?
ReplayGain Peak	n/a	REPLAYGAIN_TRACK_PEAK	TXXX=REPLAYGAIN_TRACK_PEAK ^[7]	?	REPLAYGAIN_PEAK ^[1]	?	?
ReplayGain Album Gain	n/a	REPLAYGAIN_ALBUM_GAIN	TXXX=REPLAYGAIN_ALBUM_GAIN ^[7]	?	REPLAYGAIN_GAIN ^[1]	?	?
ReplayGain Album Peak	n/a	REPLAYGAIN_ALBUM_PEAK	TXXX=REPLAYGAIN_ALBUM_PEAK ^[7]	?	REPLAYGAIN_PEAK ^[1]	?	?
Subtitle	n/a	VERSION	TSST	?	SUBTITLE	?	?
Remixed By	n/a	REMIXEDBY	TPE4	?	REMIXED_BY	?	?

Tertiary

These meta-tags while considered standard may have uneven support across various software or formats. They should otherwise be rather well specified though.

Tag	ID3 v1/v1.1	FLAC/Vorbis/Ogg	ID3 v2.3/v2.4	APEv2	Matroska	WMA	MP4/iTunes
Performer	n/a	PERFORMER	?	?	?	?	?
Total Discs	n/a	TOTALDISCS	?	?	?	?	?
Total Tracks	n/a	TOTALTRACKS	?	?	TOTAL_PARTS	TRACKTOTAL	?
Album Artist	n/a	?	TPE2	?	ACCOMPANIMENT	WM/AlbumArtist	?
Artist Sort	n/a	?	TSOP	?	SORT_WITH	?	?
Contact	n/a	CONTACT	?	?	?	?	?

Quaternary

These meta-tags are the more rare ones. They may also be ambiguous on how the content of a tag is to be treated/parsed. Some of these may have been proprietary at some point in the past. While others may be falling into obscurity.

Tag	ID3 v1/v1.1	FLAC/Vorbis/Ogg	ID3 v2.3/v2.4	APEv2	Matroska	WMA	MP4
License	n/a	LICENSE	?	?	?	?	?

(Unsorted/Incomplete)

Tag	ID3 v1/v1.1	FLAC/Vorbis/Ogg	ID3 v2.3/v2.4	APEv2	Matroska	WMA
Album Sort	n/a	?	TSOA	?	?	?
Album Artist Sort	n/a	?	TSO2	?	?	?
BPM	n/a	?	TBPM	?	?	?
Compilation	n/a	?	TCMP	?	?	?
Composer Sort	n/a	?	TSOC	?	?	?
Conductor	n/a	?	TPE3	?	?	?
Content Group	n/a	?	TIT1	?	?	?
Encoded By	n/a	ENCODEDBY	TENC	?	?	?
Encoding Settings	n/a	?	TSSE	?	?	?
Encoding Time	n/a	?	TDEN ^[8]	?	?	?
File Owner	n/a	?	TOWN	?	?	?
File Type	n/a	?	TFLT	?	?	?
Initial Key	n/a	?	TKEY	?	?	?
Involved People	n/a	?	IPLS / TIPL	?	?	?
Language	n/a	?	TLAN	?	?	?
Length	n/a	?	TLEN	?	?	?
Lyricist	n/a	?	TEXT	?	?	?
Media Type	n/a	?	TMED	?	?	?
Mood	n/a	?	TMOO ^[8]	?	?	?
Musician Credits	n/a	?	TMCL ^[8]	?	?	?
Net Radio Owner	n/a	?	TRSO	?	?	?
Net Radio Station	n/a	?	TRSN	?	?	?
Original Album	n/a	?	TOAL	?	?	?
Original Filename	n/a	?	TOFN	?	?	?
Original Lyricist	n/a	?	TOLY	?	?	?
Podcast	n/a	?	PCST	?	?	?
Podcast Category	n/a	?	TCAT	?	?	?
Podcast Description	n/a	?	TDES	?	?	?
Podcast ID	n/a	?	TGID	?	?	?
Podcast URL	n/a	?	WFED	?	?	?
Rating	n/a	?	POPM	?	?	?
Release Time	n/a	?	TDRL	?	?	?
Set Subtitle	n/a	?	TSST ^[8]	?	?	?
Tagging Time	n/a	?	TDTG ^[8]	?	?	?
Lyrics	n/a	?	USLT	?	?	?
URL	n/a	?	WXXX	?	?	?
Author URL	n/a	?	WOAR	?	?	?
Audio File URL	n/a	?	WOAF	?	?	?
Audio Source URL	n/a	?	WOAS	?	?	?
Promotion URL	n/a	?	WCOM	?	?	?
Copyright URL	n/a	?	WCOP	?	?	?
Payment URL	n/a	?	WPAY	?	?	?
Publisher URL	n/a	?	WPUB	?	?	?
Radio URL	n/a	?	WORS	?	?	?
Original Artist	n/a	ORIGARTIST	TOPE	?	?	?

Non-standard Tags

Proprietary

These meta-tags are used in proprietary software, and is rarely of use outside that particular software.

Tag	ID3 v1/v1.1	FLAC/Vorbis/Ogg	ID3 v2.3/v2.4	APEv2	Matroska	WMA	MP4/iTunes
fieldname	n/a	?	?	?	?	?	?
fieldname	n/a	?	?	?	?	?	?

Proposed

These meta-tags are suggestions for new standards, some of these may also have previously been experimental or proprietary in nature. While they may be proposed this does not guarantee they will become standard. It just means that someone (and hopefully more than one individual) would like to see it standardized. Any tags listed here should be properly documented someplace and specified in detail.

Tag	ID3 v1/v1.1	FLAC/Vorbis/Ogg	ID3 v2.3/v2.4	APEv2	Matroska	WMA	MP4/iTunes
fieldname	n/a	?	?	?	?	?	?
fieldname	n/a	?	?	?	?	?	?

Experimental

These meta-tags are experimental in nature and should not be encountered normally, but in case they are they are listed here for completeness sake. These tags may appear and vanish at any time or may have their meaning or use changed at any time.

Tag	ID3 v1/v1.1	FLAC/Vorbis/Ogg	ID3 v2.3/v2.4	APEv2	Matroska	WMA	MP4/iTunes
Custom	n/a	?	TXXX	?	?	?	?

Additional Information

Notes

↑ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f In Matroska it matters where the tags are used. So a ReplayGain tag for Track and Album are named the same just as an example.
↑ ISO 8601 date used/highly advised, see Vorbis Comment and ISO 8601 Wikipedia article for more.
↑ The ID3 v2.3 tags TYER & TDAT & TIME & TRDA are replaced by TDRC in ID3 v2.4, see ID3 Wikipedia article for more.
↑ The ID3 v1 and v1.1 Genre tag is a number referencing a pre-defined list, this brings it own huge genre mapping issue that is not covered in this Wiki page.
↑ Some Track meta tags may have both the current track and total tracks stored, using a / to separate the two values. While others do not.
↑ Difference between ID3 v1 and v1.1 is the addition of Album track, see ID3v1 specs for more.
↑ ^a ^b ^c ^d Cite error: Invalid <ref> tag; no text was provided for refs named TXXX
↑ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e Some tags are only in ID3 v2.4 and there exists no equivalent in ID3 v2.3.

Links

[Matroska-1] ↑ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f In Matroska it matters where the tags are used. So a ReplayGain tag for Track and Album are named the same just as an example.

[ISO8601-2] ISO 8601 date used/highly advised, see Vorbis Comment and ISO 8601 Wikipedia article for more.

[TDRC-3] The ID3 v2.3 tags TYER & TDAT & TIME & TRDA are replaced by TDRC in ID3 v2.4, see ID3 Wikipedia article for more.

[ID3v1Genre-4] The ID3 v1 and v1.1 Genre tag is a number referencing a pre-defined list, this brings it own huge genre mapping issue that is not covered in this Wiki page.

[Track-5] Some Track meta tags may have both the current track and total tracks stored, using a / to separate the two values. While others do not.

[ID3v1-6] Difference between ID3 v1 and v1.1 is the addition of Album track, see ID3v1 specs for more.

[TXXX-7] Cite error: Invalid <ref> tag; no text was provided for refs named TXXX

[ID3v2.4-8] Some tags are only in ID3 v2.4 and there exists no equivalent in ID3 v2.3.

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