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I want to strip/change some extended attributes from some mp3 files that I have, but cannot seem to find any way how.

I used mdls to list out the full metadata of a file, and get a number of items beyond the average metadata, such as kMDItemComment and kMDItemAudioEncodingApplication (these are a couple that I'd like to delete).

However, trying to use the xattr command does not work. Simply using xattr filePath returns no list of attributes, which it does with other file types. When I try changing it anyway with a xattr -d com.apple.metadata:kMDItemComment foo/bar/fileName.mp3, I get an output of "No such xattr: com.apple.metadata:kMDItemComment"

Why aren't any of the attributes accessible through xattr? Are there other commands or freeware I can download to successfully access and change these properties of the files? Thanks in advance!

jmglynn
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    While I'm not that familiar with the Mac OS, it looks like `xattr` affects only Mac extended attributes, data which is part of the underlying OS. `ItemComment` and `AudioEncodingApplication` sound like they might be data in the ID3 information embedded in the file. – StarGeek Dec 21 '19 at 21:45
  • @StarGeek You were absolutely right, it turns out all the fields I was looking for are just ID3 tags from later versions. I struggled to find a tool that would even let me edit them, as they are not the typical tags most people care about, but alas I found one and everything is fixed. Thank you! – jmglynn Dec 21 '19 at 22:22
  • @jmglynn Which tool did you find that allowed you to edit these attributes on mp3 files? I'm looking for a similar solution for some other file types. – Max Well Aug 03 '23 at 00:09
  • @MaxWell Hey, unfortunately I don't remember the exact program I downloaded to do so back then, but there should be any number of freeware desktop apps or even browser based web apps that will let you edit ID3 tags with a quick google search. You mentioned you're interested in different file types, but are you still looking to edit ID3 tags on non-mp3 music/video files? If so, give https://www.mp3tag.de/en/ a look. I've since started writing scripts to programmatically edit ID3 tags in Python using the [eyeD3](https://eyed3.readthedocs.io/en/latest/) library – jmglynn Aug 28 '23 at 00:41

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