The tags inside an MP3 file are called ID3 tags. They hold the title, artist, album, year, genre, track number, comments and usually a cover picture. They also record which software wrote them, and some download sites add their own name in the comment. None of it is needed to play the sound.
Two kinds of tags
- ID3v2 sits at the start of the file and can hold a lot, including pictures and lyrics.
- ID3v1 is a fixed 128-byte block at the end of the file with the title, artist, album, year and a short comment.
A file can have both, and tools that only clear one leave the other behind. That is why a track sometimes keeps its title after you cleared it in one program.
See what is inside
Right-click the file in Windows, choose Properties, then Details, for the common fields. For every tag, including the ones the file manager hides, use the File Metadata Viewer.
Remove the tags
- Online: the MP3 Metadata Remover deletes both tag types, the cover art and the encoder tags, and copies the sound frames unchanged.
- Windows: in Properties, Details, the link Remove Properties and Personal Information clears what Windows can edit. It does not remove everything.
- Command line: ffmpeg -i in.mp3 -map 0:a -map_metadata -1 -c copy -fflags +bitexact out.mp3
- Tag editors such as Mp3tag and Kid3 let you delete each field and the picture by hand.
Does it change the sound?
No, if the tool copies the audio frames, as the methods above do. Nothing is decoded or encoded again, so the quality is identical. Avoid tools that re-encode the file to remove the tags, because each re-encode loses quality.