Exported MP3s missing metadata.

Audacity Help Forum Windows
1

I have used Audacity to batch-process about 1500 MP3s imported from my iTunes library. These files come from a variety of sources (iTunes purchases, CD imports, etc.). Prior to processing I have painstakingly entered metadata into the files in iTunes, and all that data shows up under the file properties detail in Windows Explorer. For most of the songs this data is retained in the Audacity export, but for a significant number of files the metadata is lost and no longer appears in iTunes or WE. Quite a pain to have to type it in all over. I haven’t been able to find a common denominator as to which files lose the data (in terms of their original source or anything else). I don’t know enough about how metadata is coded into files to troubleshoot this.

I am using Audacity 2.3.2 on Windows 7 Professional 64-bit

2

It may be related to ID3v2 and ID3v1 tags. The Audacity User Manual says: “For both MP3 and MP2, only ID3v2.3 tags are exported. ID3v1 can be exported using Cmd-line export.”

I’m pretty sure you’re going to loose any embedded cover art too but iTunes may be able to replace most of it automatically, and/or I think iTunes stores the artwork in a separate database.

3

After following the instructions under “Exporting to an External Program” I get an error message “Cannot export audio to…”

I’m probably entering the wrong thing into the command line–I looked up several explanations of this, but gotta say I didn’t really understand any of them.