Old Wiki "Tags used by iTunes"

[caldwell]

This page from the old project had some really good info, but doesn't even render correctly any more. I think it would be useful to move over here somewhere. I'm not sure if it would be better as a github wiki or as some sort of appendix in the docs in the sources.

It might be more useful in the sources as it would show up in the rendered docs along with releases (maybe even as a man page if it's packaged into a distro).

On the other hand a Wiki lowers the bar for editing and adding new tags that iTunes might use.

(apologies if it's here already—I looked around but didn't find it anywhere)

[caldwell]

I was able to reconstruct the markdown, FWIW:

Introduction

Description of currently known iTunes tags.

Please Note: This document currently only describes the new, unfinished, metadata convenience API. Information about the old API will be back later

Tags used by iTunes

Element	Tag	Data Type	Comment	mp4v2 Name
Name	©nam	UTF-8 string		name
Artist	©ART	UTF-8 string		artist
Album Artist	aART	UTF-8 string		albumArtist
Album	©alb	UTF-8 string		album
Grouping	©grp	UTF-8 string	like TIT1 in ID3	grouping
Composer	©wrt	UTF-8 string		composer
Comment	©cmt	UTF-8 string		comments
Genre, Pre-defined	gnre	enum	Standard Genres according to ID3, the iTunes tag is one greater the the corresponding ID3 tag	genre
Genre, User defined	©gen	UTF-8 string		genre
Release Date	©day	UTF-8 string	YYYY-MM-DD format, may be incomplete (e.g. just the year)	releaseDate
Track Number	trkn	binary		track (read only)
Disc Number	disk	binary		disk (read only)
Tempo	tmpo	16-bit integer	in beats per minute	tempo
Compilation	cpil	8-bit integer (boolean)		compilation
TV Show Name	tvsh	UTF-8 string		tvShow
TV Episode ID	tven	UTF-8 string		tvEpisodeID
TV Season	tvsn	32-bit integer		tvSeason
TV Episode	tves	32-bit integer		tvEpisode
TV Network	tvnn	UTF-8 string		tvNetwork
Description	desc	UTF-8 string	Short description	description
Long description	ldes	UTF-8 string	Not limited to 255 bytes.	longDescription
Lyrics	©lyr	UTF-8 string	Not limited to 255 bytes.	lyrics
Sort Name	sonm	UTF-8 string		sortName
Sort Artist	soar	UTF-8 string		sortArtist
Sort Album Artist	soaa	UTF-8 string		sortAlbumArtist
Sort Album	soal	UTF-8 string		sortAlbum
Sort Composer	soco	UTF-8 string		sortComposer
Sort Show	sosn	UTF-8 string		sortTVShow
Cover Art	covr	JPEG/PNG/BMP	May have multiple data atoms	artwork
Copyright	cprt	UTF-8 string	Only ISO standard tag	copyright
Encoding Tool	©too	UTF-8 string	Software used for encoding	encodingTool
Encoded By	©enc	UTF-8 string	Person/company who encoded the file	encodedBy
Purchase Date	purd	UTF-8 string		purchaseDate
Podcast	pcst	8-bit integer (boolean)		podcast (read only)
Podcast URL	purl
Keywords	keyw	UTF-8 string	Used for Podcasts	keywords (read only)
Category	catg	UTF-8 string	Used for Podcasts	category (read only)
HD Video	hdvd	8-bit integer (boolean)		hdVideo
Media Type	stik	8-bit integer (enum)		mediaType
Content Rating	rtng	8-bit integer	Explicit/Clean label	contentRating
Gapless Playback	pgap	8-bit integer (boolean)		gapless
Purchase Account	apID	UTF-8 string		iTunesAccount (read only)
Account Type	akID	8-bit integer	Identifies the iTunes Store account type	iTunesAccountType (read only)
	cnID	32-bit integer	iTunes Catalog ID, used for combing SD and HD encodes in iTunes	cnID
Country Code	sfID	32-bit integer	Identifies in which iTunes Store a file was bought	iTunesCountry (read only)
	atID	32-bit integer	Use?	atID
	plID	64-bit integer	Use?
	geID	32-bit integer	Use?	geID
	©st3	UTF-8 string	Use?

A blank field means that this tag is currently not supported by libmp4v2
Only one gerne tag (gnre or ©gen) is permitted at a time.

The MP4GetMetadataGerne functions will read whichever is there.
The MP4SetMetadataGerne trys to set the grne tag if its a match to an ID3V1 genre, else it sets the ©gen tag.

Media Type (stik)

Media Type	stik
Movie (is now 9)	0
Normal (Music)	1
Audiobook	2
Music Video	6
Movie	9
TV Show	10
Booklet	11
Ringtone	14

Content Rating (rtng)

Rating	rtng
None	0
Clean	2
Explicit	4

iTunes Store Account Type (akID)

Account Type	akID
iTunes	0
AOL	1

iTunes Store Country Codes (sfID)

Country	ISO 3166-1 alpha-3 Code	sfID
Australia	AUS	143460
Austria	AUT	143445
Belgium	BEL	143446
Canada	CAN	143455
Denmark	DNK	143458
Finland	FIN	143447
France	FRA	143442
Germany	DEU	143443
Greece	GRC	143448
Ireland	IRL	143449
Italy	ITA	143450
Japan	JPN	143462
Luxembourg	LUX	143451
Netherlands	NLD	143452
New Zealand	NZL	143461
Norway	NOR	143457
Portugal	PRT	143453
Spain	ESP	143454
Sweden	SWE	143456
Switzerland	CHE	143459
United Kingdom	GBR	143444
United States	USA	143441

Sources

• AtomicParsley documentation
• Apple iTunes Metadata Format Specification