The m-TAGS format offers a simple yet powerful solution to the media-metadata separation problem, which impacts the efficience of digital music collections and media distribution services alike. An m-TAGS file is media-independent. It just contains metadata (tags) describing a certain media source and a locator which identifies the source to which the metadata applies.

The format of an m-TAGS file is very simple. Each tag is represented by a pair "<tag name>" : "<tag value>", with the special "@" tag containing the location of the media resource. This format allows the defininion of any tag name and the assignment of any value to a tag. Support for multivalued tags is included, as well as for multi-part media indexing.

• For a rationale explaining the need for an efficient media-independent tagging mechanism, see the Media vs. Metadata section.
• For a more thorough description of how m-TAGS files work, see the Overview.
• If you would like to implement an m-TAGS extension for a specific product, you should read the Specification.
• If you are a foobar2000 user (and you should be, if you are serious about your music), then please download the "foo_tags" component.