How to Embed Metadata in Your Audio Files

You filled in every field when you uploaded your music. But once a music supervisor downloads your track, that platform metadata stays behind. The only information that travels with the file is what is embedded inside it. Here is how embedded metadata works, which fields matter, and how to add them.

Platform Metadata vs. Embedded Metadata

Platform metadata lives in a website's database. It powers search results, filters, and your track page. Embedded metadata, often called tags, is stored inside the audio file itself, so it goes wherever the file goes: into a supervisor's download folder, an editor's timeline, an email attachment, or a shared drive.

Picture a supervisor who downloaded twenty tracks for a project, then comes back to them three months later when the show gets picked up. If your file only says "track_final.wav" and has no tags, they may not remember where it came from or who to contact. If it carries your title, composer, publisher, and a licensing contact, you are one email away from a placement.

Both kinds of metadata matter. For the platform side, see how to write metadata that gets your music licensed. This guide covers the file side.

Where Metadata Lives in Each Format

Every audio format stores tags differently, and this is where most confusion comes from. A tag that shows up in one app can be invisible in another, because the two apps are reading different parts of the file.

The Fields That Matter Most

You do not need to fill in every field a tag editor offers. Focus on the ones that identify your track and make it easy to license:

• Title: the official song title. No file names, version numbers, or "final mix."
• Artist: your artist or band name, spelled the same way everywhere.
• Composer: every writer, ideally with their PRO and share, such as Jane Smith (BMI) 50%.
• Publisher: your publishing entity and its PRO. If you self-publish, use your own publishing name.
• ISRC: the unique code for this specific recording. Your distributor can assign one.
• Copyright: the year and owner, such as 2026 Your Name.
• Genre, BPM, and key: quick context for anyone browsing their downloads.
• Comments: a short description, plus a licensing contact such as "For licensing, contact [email protected]."
• Artwork: a square image, ideally 3000 x 3000 pixels.

One common mistake: an instrumental, clean, or alternate version is a different recording, so it needs its own ISRC. The composer and publisher information stays the same.

Tools for Adding Tags

Mp3tag

A popular tag editor for Windows, with a paid version for Mac. Despite the name, it handles WAV, AIFF, and FLAC as well as MP3, and it can edit many files at once, which saves time when you are tagging an album or a folder of versions.

Kid3

A free tag editor for Mac, Windows, and Linux. It supports MP3, WAV, AIFF, and FLAC, and shows the different tag systems inside a file side by side, which is useful for seeing what a WAV actually contains.

Apple Music or iTunes

Good for MP3 and AIFF files through the "Get Info" window. It is not reliable for WAV tags, so use a dedicated tag editor for those.

Your DAW

Many DAWs can write basic tags or broadcast information when you bounce or export. Check your export settings, but expect to fill in composer, publisher, and ISRC separately, since few DAWs support them.

Professional library software

Music libraries and sound designers often use tools like Soundminer, which write metadata into several tag systems at once, including XMP and iXML. These are powerful but priced for professional catalogs. For most independent artists, a free or low-cost tag editor does the job.

A Simple Workflow

• Finish and export your masters, including instrumental and alternate versions.
• Open them in your tag editor and select all versions of the same song together.
• Fill in the shared fields once: artist, composer, publisher, copyright, genre, and artwork.
• Fill in the fields that differ per file: title (add "Instrumental" where needed) and ISRC.
• Add your licensing contact to the comments field and save.
• Check the result in a second app or a scanner to confirm everything shows up.

Check What Your Files Are Carrying

Our free Music Health Scan reads every major tag system, including ID3, RIFF INFO, BWF, XMP, iXML, and Vorbis comments, so you can see exactly what your file contains, no matter which app wrote the tags. It scores your metadata, flags missing fields like ISRC and publisher, and checks your loudness while it is at it.