Anyone know how to do this? I'm here trying to organize a friends computer and she doesn't let me move her music unless I figure out how to preserve the custom tagging she's done. The metadata is saved only in the library and not in the files themselves, so if I move the files and re-import them she'll lose it. If I can apply the metadata as ID3 tags or something similar, I'll be able to reimport the music from a different location along with her tags.

I hate iTunes.

Can you use winamp to tag all the MP3s, or are they all DRM'd?

They're ripped from CDs so I guess they're not DRM'd. Actually most are m4a files.

I don't know what an m4a file is, but I believe Winamp will autotag MP3s..so maybe it would work?

Musicbrainz Picard.

No, see, I want the tagging to read the iTunes metadata library and apply it to the files themselves. It has to be through iTunes itself or through a program that reads the iTunes library file.

You can't let Winamp scan the file and tag it with the CDDB result?

No, I need to preserve custom tagging like genres and stuff that my friend added manually.

By the way, this thread is exclusively for members with obnoxious custom titles

Can I ask what sort of custom tags they are?

I mean are they tagless and she's entered data herself or are they in some weird format?

No it's custom values. Values that are not embedded in the ID3 tags and will most definitely not be retrieved from CDDB. Standard fields (artist/title/genre/etc), but custom values.

Umm, iTunes writes tag info to MP3 and AAC files you edit in it... Library.xml is just a data file that iTunes uses that also has the metadata in it, as well as a few extra organizational things like playlists. You may not see AAC tags in something like Windows explorer cause it's not a format that Windows natively supports, but they're there, and iTunes will recognize them.

Also, "ID3" tags is a specific metadata format just for MP3. m4a uses its own format, which iTunes should do automatically as Darth said.

Hmm, it's possible I missed them because I was looking in Windows Explorer, but keep in mind that iTunes isn't managing the music folder (the option is off) so it might not be updating the files. Can foobar read m4a tags? My main concern is that I'll wipe her library clean saying "don't worry I'll import it right back" and then the music will be imported all wrong and I'll lose a testicle or two.

I would be surprised if foobar couldn't, but I know Winamp can.

I miss foobar

/me looks to see if it's on OSX....

Martyn, foobar runs well under Wine, have you tried it?