Music Metadata

Digital music contains metadata that stores information in the music file including the artist, album, year recorded, genre, and more. Almost all music purchased over the internet will have the metadata already embedded and if you import music from CDs, Banshee will include the metadata when ripping the CD if available. For more information on ripping CDs and including the metadata see the Import music & videos.

Popular metadata formats are ID3v1 and ID3v2 for MP3 files and Vorbis comments for OGG Vorbis files.

If you have imported songs that do not contain metadata, Banshee will display Unknown for most fields in the library.

You can change and edit the metadata of your songs. Select the song or songs you want to update and hit the E, choose Edit ▸ Edit Track Information from the menu, or use your mouse and right click on the files and select Edit Track Information.

A dialog box will appear that shows the song's metadata and allow you to change or update it. The default fields displayed include:

Update the song's information. If you have selected multiple songs to edit press the right arrow icon to the right of the Track Title field or press the Forward button at the bottom of the dialog when finished with each song. When you have completed editing all metadata, press Save.