ID3 Tag Remover

Martin Brinkmann
Dec 21, 2008
Updated • Dec 4, 2012
Music, Music and Video
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29

There is usually no need to remove the so called ID3 tags of audio files. Actually there are only two scenarios that do make sense. The first is if you encounter lots of audio files with wrong ID3 tags and the second if you want to remove either ID3v1 or ID3v2 tags from the audio files to ensure that all use the same tagging method. ID3 tags make it possible to store meta data in audio files. Meta data includes the song title, the album and artist among other information.

ID3 Kill is a free Windows software that can recursively scan through directories and perform file operations on audio files.

Usage is pretty straightforward. You point it at a directory and check a few boxes to configure the options. It is possible to include subdirectories in the scan. The main options are to remove ID3v1 and / or ID3v2 tags from all audio files that you throw at the program.

Other options include to clean m3u and pls playlists, to ignore file attributes or to display a message after the run is finished.

Update: ID3 Kill has been discontinued. You can download the last version of ID3Kill directly from our servers: ID3 Kill

Update 2: An alternative to ID3 Kill is ID3 Tag Remover which you can also use to bulk remove mp3 tags from selected mp3 files. Once you have started the program you can drag and drop mp3s that you want to remove tags from.

You can select to remove ID3v1, ID3v2 or both ID3 tags from all selected audio files. Once you have added the files, and made the selection, you can click on the remove button to have all files processed by the application automatically. The open source program works fine on all recent versions of the Microsoft Windows operating system.

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Comments

  1. zudrick said on December 20, 2020 at 6:15 am
    Reply

    Have just stumbled onto this program and so far it has worked ok but, i keep getting error codes coming up, the main ones that seem to be coming up are ERROR #2 and been as thou there isn;t a list of these’s codes to fall back on can anybody enlighten me and other people who might have the same error come up, what the error means or a list of the errors would be great.

  2. red slider said on January 29, 2020 at 8:17 pm
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    There is another very good scenario which makes perfect sense for changing, removing or altering standard metadata tags and adding other tags. Simply put, ‘they are not the tags or tag order I want.’ That should be sufficient reason to give users of metadata for their own files and uses to include or exclude tags for whatever reasons and preferences they may have. Standard tags may be necessary when one’s files are used by others or in other systems. But for ourselves, our own preferences of what tags appear in our metadata should be an option in any program (Audacity for example) that employs or edits them. Why shouldn’t users have the choice?

  3. jodemeil said on March 25, 2017 at 8:28 pm
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    Is there something like that on android?
    I use ID3Kill and is very useful.

  4. Bobby said on September 23, 2016 at 3:24 am
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    it didn’t do anything. file names are unchanged.

  5. Bobby said on September 23, 2016 at 3:19 am
    Reply

    it didn’t do anything. file names are unchanged.

  6. LubaCZ4 said on June 26, 2016 at 9:53 pm
    Reply

    Thx!!!
    Works, I needed this a lot :D.
    Now my 400+ songs library is not full of tags from windows media player.

    Thanks a lot :)

  7. Ger said on March 20, 2016 at 8:56 pm
    Reply

    I’ve been using ID3 Kill for a while now and i’m sorry to say that too many times it left my mp3 files damaged and unplayable. I would not reccomend it.

  8. Dodos said on November 10, 2014 at 10:24 pm
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    Thanks man!

  9. Kawaljeet said on February 24, 2014 at 9:55 am
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    Hi Martin,
    Thank you very much for the software, it works like “spreading soft butter on a bread”, 1200+ tag cleared in few minutes on my Windows 7 64 bit OS.
    gracias, danke, merci, obrigado, dhanyavad
    Kawaljeet

  10. Gustavo said on September 13, 2013 at 4:41 am
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    Will this work to remove the hidden google play tag that prevents you from uploading mp3’s purchased with one google account into another google account? The message I get is “Song was purchased with another Google Play account.” and Google Uploader won’t import.

    1. Martin Brinkmann said on September 13, 2013 at 8:22 am
      Reply

      I do not know to be honest. Converting should do the trick though I guess.

  11. Mehrdad Nabaie said on December 8, 2012 at 2:17 am
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    Thanx a lot 4 your useful software
    U saved me from doing remove a 487 mp3 listed for my ipad
    cheers

  12. dubuk said on April 26, 2012 at 10:08 am
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    Works like a charm. Completed in few minutes. Thanks very much

  13. Gordo said on February 18, 2012 at 10:58 pm
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    ok cool this works but just one problem! i just want the album art gone. not the album name, or artist/artists, or track number etc. just the album art. i really dont wanna have to got through all my songs filling in the blanks. i tested it on one track and it removed everything.. making it show up as unknown on my players.

  14. Carlos said on January 13, 2012 at 9:01 pm
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    Great! Cheers from Portugal

  15. SriLankan Black guy said on March 16, 2011 at 7:50 pm
    Reply

    Thank you so much I love you bro YouTube block my Videos because of copyright Problems Now I can trick YouTube :D

  16. Astrosomi said on May 22, 2010 at 10:51 pm
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    Here is the Download link “ID3 Kill”

    http://www.headstrong.de/files/id3kll14.zip

  17. xabhijitx said on March 12, 2010 at 10:41 pm
    Reply

    Where to download this from ?
    I need this, i have used it earlier, but i am not getting a download link for this.
    Google is giving worst search results ever!

  18. mahmoudhaddad said on December 24, 2008 at 9:28 am
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    Thanks is not enough

  19. Transcontinental said on December 21, 2008 at 11:45 pm
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    For tagging mp3s I use another German software, ID3-TagIT, excellent, which handles everything including ID removal. But ID3KILL will come in handy immediately here since I know I have some mp3s still tagged ID3v1 as well, whilst I wish to have them all only ID3v2 tagged, and that batch processing will be the best solution.

  20. zondron said on December 21, 2008 at 10:20 pm
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    mp3tag does a great job removing tags and adding them too :)

    1. aldo marrocu said on March 7, 2012 at 7:19 am
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      HI THERE, WELL I HAVE DOWNLOADED THE ID3KILL AND I FRANKLY I CAN’T GET IT TO WORK, I VE WINDOW 7 AND I WOULD LIKE SOMEBODY TO EXPLAIN TO ME OUT ID WORKS.- I’VE A QUANTITY OF ID3 TAGGED FILES…- I LOAD THE ID3KILL, CLICK THE ” GO ” BUTTON, AFTER A SHORT WHILE A LITTLEWINDOW COME OUT AND TELL ME THAT THE TAGS HAVE BEEN REMOVED… BUT WHERE? THE OLD FILE IS STILL THE SAME AND THERE’S NO INDICATION OF ANY OUTGOING ……..-PLEASE SOMEBODY HELP ME…A BIG THANKS IN ADVANCE

      1. Bobby said on September 23, 2016 at 3:23 am
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        same here

      2. Maurizio Picone said on January 18, 2018 at 6:51 pm
        Reply

        same. it DOESN’T clean anything.

      3. brapstu said on December 25, 2020 at 5:11 pm
        Reply

        not very pog

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