tinytag

tinytag is a Python library for reading audio file metadata

Install

python3 -m pip install tinytag

Features

• Read tags, images and properties of audio files
• Supported formats:
  • MP3 / MP2 / MP1 (ID3 v1, v1.1, v2.2, v2.3+)
  • M4A (AAC / ALAC)
  • WAVE / WAV
  • OGG (FLAC / Opus / Speex / Vorbis)
  • FLAC
  • WMA
  • AIFF / AIFF-C
• Same API for all formats
• Small, portable library
• High code coverage
• Pure Python, no dependencies
• Supports Python 3.7 or higher

[!IMPORTANT]
Support for changing/writing metadata will not be added. Use another library such as Mutagen for this.

Usage

tinytag only provides the minimum needed for reading metadata, and presents it in a simple format. It can determine track number, total tracks, title, artist, album, year, duration and more.

from tinytag import TinyTag
tag: TinyTag = TinyTag.get('/some/music.mp3')

print(f'This track is by {tag.artist}.')
print(f'It is {tag.duration:.2f} seconds long.')

[!WARNING]
The ignore_errors parameter of TinyTag.get() is obsolete as of tinytag 2.0.0, and will be removed in the future.

Alternatively you can use tinytag directly on the command line:

$ python3 -m tinytag /some/music.mp3
{
  "filename": "/some/music.mp3",
  "filesize": 3243226,
  "duration": 173.52,
  "channels": 2,
  "bitrate": 128,
  "samplerate": 44100,
  "artist": [
    "artist name"
  ],
  "album": [
    "album name"
  ],
  "title": [
    "track name"
  ],
  "track": 4,
  "genre": [
    "Jazz"
  ],
  "year": [
    "2010"
  ],
  "comment": [
    "Some comment here"
  ]
}

Check python3 -m tinytag --help for all CLI options, for example other output formats.

Supported Files

To receive a tuple of file extensions tinytag supports, use the SUPPORTED_FILE_EXTENSIONS constant:

TinyTag.SUPPORTED_FILE_EXTENSIONS

Alternatively, check if a file is supported by providing its path:

is_supported = TinyTag.is_supported('/some/music.mp3')

Common Metadata

tinytag provides some common attributes, which always contain a single value. These are helpful when you need quick access to common metadata.

File/Audio Properties

tag.bitdepth      # bit depth as integer (for lossless audio)
tag.bitrate       # bitrate in kBits/s as float
tag.duration      # audio duration in seconds as float
tag.filename      # filename as string
tag.filesize      # file size in bytes as integer
tag.samplerate    # samples per second as integer

[!WARNING]
The tag.audio_offset attribute is obsolete as of tinytag 2.0.0, and will be removed in the future.

Metadata Fields

tag.album         # album as string
tag.albumartist   # album artist as string
tag.artist        # artist name as string
tag.comment       # file comment as string
tag.composer      # composer as string
tag.disc          # disc number as integer
tag.disc_total    # total number of discs as integer
tag.genre         # genre as string
tag.title         # title of the song as string
tag.track         # track number as integer
tag.track_total   # total number of tracks as integer
tag.year          # year or date as string

Additional Metadata

For additional values of the same field type, uncommon metadata fields, or metadata specific to certain file formats, use other:

tag.other         # a dictionary of additional fields

[!WARNING]
The other dictionary has replaced the extra dictionary in tinytag 2.0.0. The latter will be removed in a future release.

The following other field names are standardized in tinytag, and optionally present when files provide such metadata:

barcode
bpm
catalog_number
conductor
copyright
director
encoded_by
encoder_settings
grouping
initial_key
isrc
language
license
lyricist
lyrics
media
movement
movement_name
movement_total
publisher
set_subtitle
show_movement
url
work

Additional other field names not documented above may be present, but are format-specific and may change or disappear in future tinytag releases. If tinytag does not expose metadata you need, or you wish to standardize more field names, open a feature request on GitHub for discussion.

other values are always provided as strings, and are not guaranteed to be valid. Should e.g. the bpm value in the file contain non-numeric characters, tinytag will provide the string as-is. It is your responsibility to handle possible exceptions, e.g. when converting the value to an integer.

Multiple values of the same field type are provided if a file contains them. Values are always provided as a list, even when only a single value exists.

Example:

from tinytag import OtherFields, TinyTag

tag: TinyTag = TinyTag.get('/some/music.mp3')
other_fields: OtherFields = tag.other
catalog_numbers: list[str] | None = other_fields.get('catalog_number')

if catalog_numbers:
    catalog_number: str = catalog_numbers[0]
    print(catalog_number)

print(catalog_numbers)

Output:

> 10
> ['10']

When a file contains multiple values for a common metadata field (e.g. artist), the primary value is accessed through the common attribute (tag.artist), and any additional values through the other dictionary (tag.other['artist']).

Example:

from tinytag import TinyTag

tag: TinyTag = TinyTag.get('/some/music.mp3')
artist: str | None = tag.artist
additional_artists: list[str] | None = tag.other.get('artist')

print(artist)
print(additional_artists)

Output:

> main artist
> ['another artist', 'yet another artist']

All Metadata

If you need to receive all available metadata as key-value pairs in a flat dictionary, use the as_dict() method. This combines the common attributes and other dictionary, which can be more convenient in some cases.

from tinytag import TinyTag

tag: TinyTag = TinyTag.get('/some/music.mp3')
metadata: dict = tag.as_dict()

Images

Additionally, you can also read embedded images by passing a image=True keyword argument to TinyTag.get().

If you need to receive an image of a specific kind, including its description, use images:

tag.images        # available embedded images

The following common image attributes are available, providing the first located image of each kind:

tag.images.front_cover  # front cover as 'Image' object
tag.images.back_cover   # back cover as 'Image' object
tag.images.media        # media (e.g. CD label) as 'Image' object

When present, any additional images are available in an images.other dictionary, using the following standardized key names:

generic
icon
alt_icon
front_cover
back_cover
media
leaflet
lead_artist
artist
conductor
band
composer
lyricist
recording_location
during_recording
during_performance
screen_capture
bright_colored_fish
illustration
band_logo
publisher_logo
unknown

Provided values are always lists containing at least one Image object.

The Image object provides the following attributes:

data           # image data as bytes
name           # image name/kind as string
mime_type      # image MIME type as string
description    # image description as string

To receive any available image, prioritizing the front cover, use images.any:

from tinytag import Image, TinyTag

tag: TinyTag = TinyTag.get('/some/music.ogg', image=True)
image: Image | None = tag.images.any

if image is not None:
    data: bytes = image.data
    name: str = image.name
    mime_type: str = image.mime_type
    description: str = image.description

    print(len(data))
    print(name)
    print(mime_type)
    print(description)

Output:

> 74452
> front_cover
> image/jpeg
> some image description

[!WARNING]
tag.images.any has replaced tag.get_image() in tinytag 2.0.0. tag.get_image() will be removed in the future.

To receive a common image, e.g. front_cover:

from tinytag import Image, Images, TinyTag

tag: TinyTag = TinyTag.get('/some/music.ogg', image=True)
images: Images = tag.images
cover_image: Image = images.front_cover

if cover_image is not None:
    data: bytes = cover_image.data
    description: str = cover_image.description

To receive an additional image, e.g. bright_colored_fish:

from tinytag import Image, OtherImages, TinyTag

tag: TinyTag = TinyTag.get('/some/music.ogg', image=True)
other_images: OtherImages = tag.images.other
fish_images: list[Image] | None = other_images.get('bright_colored_fish')

if fish_images:
    image = fish_images[0]  # Use first image
    data = image.data
    description = image.description

Encoding

To open files using a specific encoding, you can use the encoding parameter. This parameter is however only used for formats where the encoding is not explicitly specified.

TinyTag.get('a_file_with_gbk_encoding.mp3', encoding='gbk')

File-like Objects

To use a file-like object (e.g. BytesIO) instead of a file path, pass a file_obj keyword argument:

TinyTag.get(file_obj=your_file_obj)

Exceptions

TinyTagException        # Base class for exceptions
ParseError              # Parsing an audio file failed
UnsupportedFormatError  # File format is not supported

Changelog

2.2.1 (2026-03-15)

• ID3: Prevent infinite loop due to malformed SYLT strings

2.2.0 (2025-12-15)

• Add support for movement, work and grouping fields
• ID3: Make synced lyrics available in 'other.lyrics' (LRC format)
• ID3: Continue reading after encountering empty frame
• ID3: Fix frame reading when image parsing is disabled
• ID3: Exclude more frames containing binary data
• ID3: Avoid unnecessary string decoding
• M4A: Support extended atom sizes
• M4A: Ensure all field names are lowercase
• OGG: Stop reading after reaching EOS page
• Vorbis: Map UNSYNCEDLYRICS field to other.lyrics

2.1.2 (2025-08-14)

• M4A: Add a few missing additional metadata fields
• M4A: Support '©com' composer atom
• M4A: Fix reading of multi-value custom fields
• M4A: Use correct encoding when reading data names
• ID3: Don't read entire file to determine duration
• ID3: Skip stray null byte before image data
• Add missing __version__ attribute
• Avoid some unnecessary work in hot code paths
• Improve a few incomplete type hints

2.1.1 (2025-04-23)

• ID3: Stop removing 'b' character from strings
• Port unit tests from pytest to built-in unittest module

2.1.0 (2025-02-23)

• Opus: Calculate audio bitrate
• Opus: Take pre-skip into account when calculating the duration

2.0.0 (2024-11-03)

• BREAKING: Store 'disc', 'disc_total', 'track' and 'track_total' values as int instead of str
• BREAKING: 'as_dict()' method (previously undocumented) returns tag field values in list form
• BREAKING: TinyTagException no longer inherits LookupError
• BREAKING: TinyTag subclasses are now private
• BREAKING: Remove function to use custom audio file samples in tests
• BREAKING: Remove support for Python 2
• DEPRECATION: Mark 'ignore_errors' parameter for TinyTag.get() as obsolete
• DEPRECATION: Mark 'audio_offset' attribute as obsolete
• DEPRECATION: Deprecate 'extra' dict in favor of 'other' dict with values in list form
• DEPRECATION: Deprecate 'get_image()' method in favor of 'images.any' property
• Add type hints to codebase
• Provide access to custom metadata fields through the 'other' dict
• Provide access to all available images
• Add more standard 'other' fields
• Use Flit as Python build backend instead of Setuptools
• ID3: Fix invalid sample rate/duration in some cases
• ID3: Fix reading of UTF-16 strings without BOM
• FLAC: Apply ID3 tags after Vorbis
• OGG/WMA: Set missing 'channels' field
• WMA: Set missing 'other.copyright' field
• WMA: Raise exception if file is invalid
• Various optimizations

1.10.1 (2023-10-26)

• Update 'extra' fields with data from other tags #188
• ID3: Add missing 'extra.copyright' field

1.10.0 (2023-10-18)

• Add support for OGG FLAC format #182
• Add support for OGG Speex format #181
• Wave: support image loading
• Add support for file-like objects (BytesIO) #178
• Add list of supported file extensions #177
• Fix deprecations related to setuptools #176
• Fix pathlib support in TinyTag.is_supported()
• Only remove zero bytes at the end of strings
• Stricter conditions in while loops
• OGG: Add stricter magic byte matching for OGG files
• Compatibility with Python 3.4 and 3.5 is no longer tested

1.9.0 (2023-04-23)

• Add bitdepth attribute for lossless audio #157
• Add recognition of Audible formats #163 (thanks to snowskeleton)
• Add .m4v to list of supported file extensions #142
• Aiff: Implement replacement for Python's aifc module #164
• ID3: Only check for language in COMM and USLT frames #147
• ID3: Read the correct number of bytes from Xing header #154
• ID3: Add support for ID3v2.4 TDRC frame #156 (thanks to Uninen)
• M4A: Add description fields #168 (thanks to snowskeleton)
• RIFF: Handle tags containing extra zero-byte #141
• Vorbis: Parse OGG cover art #144 (thanks to Pseurae)
• Vorbis: Support standard disctotal/tracktotal comments #171
• Wave: Add proper support for padded IFF chunks

1.8.1 (2022-03-12) [still mathiascode-edition]

• MP3 ID3: Set correct file position if tag reading is disabled #119 (thanks to mathiascode)
• MP3: Fix incorrect calculation of duration for VBR encoded MP3s #128 (thanks to mathiascode)

1.8.0 (2022-03-05) [mathiascode-edition]

• Add support for ALAC audio files #130 (thanks to mathiascode)
• AIFF: Fixed bitrate calculation for certain files #129 (thanks to mathiascode)
• MP3: Do not round MP3 bitrates #131 (thanks to mathiascode)
• MP3 ID3: Support any language in COMM and USLT frames #135 (thanks to mathiascode)
• Performance: Don't use regex when parsing genre #136 (thanks to mathiascode)
• Disable tag parsing for all formats when requested #137 (thanks to mathiascode)
• M4A: Fix invalid bitrates in certain files #132 (thanks to mathiascode)
• WAV: Fix metadata parsing for certain files #133 (thanks to mathiascode)

1.7.0. (2021-12-14)

• fixed rare occasion of ID3v2 tags missing their first character, #106
• allow overriding the default encoding of ID3 tags (e.g. TinyTag.get(..., encoding='gbk')))
• fixed calculation of bitrate for very short mp3 files, #99
• utf-8 support for AIFF files, #123
• fixed image parsing for id3v2 with images containing utf-16LE descriptions, #117
• fixed ID3v1 tags overwriting ID3v2 tags, #121
• Set correct file position if tag reading is disabled for ID3 (thanks to mathiascode)

1.6.0 (2021-08-28) [aw-edition]

• fixed handling of non-latin encoding types for images (thanks to aw-was-here)
• added support for ISRC data, available in extra['isrc'] field (thanks to aw-was-here)
• added support for AIFF/AIFF-C (thanks to aw-was-here)
• fixed import deprecation warnings (thanks to idotobi)
• fixed exception for TinyTag misuse being different in different python versions (thanks to idotobi)
• added support for ID3 initial key tonality hint, available in extra['initial_key']
• added support for ID3 unsynchronized lyrics, available in extra['lyrics']
• added extra field, which may contain additional metadata not available in all file formats

1.5.0 (2020-11-05)

• fixed data type to always return str for disc, disc_total, track, track_total #97 (thanks to kostalski)
• fixed package install being reported as UNKNOWN for some python/pip variations #90 (thanks to russpoutine)
• Added automatic detection for certain MP4 file headers

1.4.0 (2020-04-23)

• detecting file types based on their magic header bytes, #85
• fixed opus duration being wrong for files with lower sample rate #81
• implemented support for binary paths #72
• always cast mp3 bitrates to int, so that CBR and VBR output behaves the sam
• made str deterministic and use json as output format

1.3.0 (2020-03-09)

• added option to ignore encoding errors ignore_errors #73
• Improved text decoding for many malformed files

1.2.2 (2019-04-13)

• Improved stability when reading corrupted mp3 files

1.2.1 (2019-04-13)

• fixed wav files not correctly reporting the number of channels #61

1.2.0 (2019-04-13)

• using setup.cfg instead of setup.py (thanks to scivision)
• added support for calling TinyTag.get with pathlib.Path (thanks to scivision)
• added appveyor windows test CI (thanks to scivision)
• using pytest instead of nosetest (thanks to scivision)

1.1.0 (2019-04-13)

• added new field "composer" (Thanks to Phil Borman)

1.0.1 (2019-04-13)

• fixed ID3 loading for files with corrupt header (thanks to Ian Homer)
• fixed parsing of duration in wav file (thanks to Ian Homer)

1.0.0 (2018-12-12)

• added comment field
• added wav-riff format support
• use MP4 parser for m4b files
• added simple cli tool
• fix parsing of FLAC files with ID3 header (thanks to minus7)
• added method TinyTag.is_supported(filename)

0.19.0 (2018-02-11)

• fixed corrupted images for some mp3s (#45)

0.18.0 (2017-04-29)

• fixed wrong bitrate and crash when parsing xing header

0.17.0 (2016-10-02)

• supporting ID3v2.2 images

0.16.0 (2016-08-06)

• MP4 cover image support

0.15.2 (2016-08-06)

• fixed crash for malformed MP4 files (#34)

0.15.0 (2016-08-06)

• fixed decoding of UTF-16LE ID3v2 Tags, improved overall stability

0.14.0 (2016-06-05):

• MP4/M4A and Opus support