Audio Metadata Viewer

View ID3 tags, album art, duration, bitrate, and codec info from MP3, FLAC, WAV, and OGG files.

Tested tool guide Tested browser tools Checked August 16, 2026

What Audio Metadata Viewer does, with a checked example

Select an MP3, FLAC, WAV, or OGG file and this tool reads it locally in the browser, reporting title, artist, album, track number, album art, duration, bitrate, sample rate, channels, and codec. Tags are not one block: MP3s carry ID3v2 frames at the start and a fixed 128-byte ID3v1 trailer at the end, FLAC and OGG use Vorbis comments, and WAV uses RIFF LIST chunks. The common surprise: nothing is uploaded, and duration is computed from the file structure rather than stored - the same for bitrate on lossless files, while an MP3's bitrate is read from its frame headers.

Worked example

A concrete input and expected output from the current implementation.

Input

sample.wav - 16-bit PCM at 44,100 Hz, stereo, 882,000 bytes of audio data, with a LIST INFO chunk carrying the title "Harbor Drift" and artist "Aria Chen"

Expected output

Format: WAVE (RIFF)
Codec: PCM (uncompressed)
Sample rate: 44,100 Hz
Bit depth: 16-bit
Channels: 2 (stereo)
Duration: 5.00 s
Bitrate: 1411.2 kbps
Title: Harbor Drift
Artist: Aria Chen
Album: (none)
Album art: none

Byte rate is 44,100 x 2 (bit depth) x 2 (channels) = 176,400 bytes per second, so 882,000 bytes is exactly 5 seconds, and 176,400 x 8 = 1,411,200 bps, or 1411.2 kbps. A WAV stores neither duration nor bitrate; both follow from the fmt chunk values.

How the result is produced

Where each format keeps its tags

MP3 metadata sits in two places: ID3v2 frames at the very start (TIT2 title, TPE1 artist, TALB album, TRCK track, APIC picture) and a fixed 128-byte ID3v1 block at the end with 30-character fields for title, artist, and album. FLAC and OGG use Vorbis comments (TITLE=..., ARTIST=...), with cover art in a PICTURE block or METADATA_BLOCK_PICTURE comment. WAV files carry LIST INFO sub-chunks such as INAM and IART.

Values derived from the file, not stored

WAV duration is the data chunk size divided by the byte rate. FLAC duration comes from the total sample count in the STREAMINFO block. MP3 duration is audio data size divided by bitrate - accurate to within one frame for constant bitrate, approximate for variable bitrate, where a frame-count header (Xing or VBRI) makes it exact. OGG duration comes from the last page's sample counter (granule position) divided by the sample rate.

Good uses

Checking a podcast episode or track before publishing: most players fall back to the filename when tags are missing, so a quick look at title, artist, and cover art catches blank or mismatched metadata.
Verifying that a file you received actually has the encoding the filename claims - real sample rate, bit depth, and constant versus variable bitrate - before it enters a podcast, broadcast, or archival workflow.
Diagnosing why the same MP3 shows different titles in different apps: the ID3v2 block at the front and the ID3v1 trailer at the end often disagree, and this tool shows both sets.

Limits and checks

Variable-bitrate MP3 duration is an estimate. Without a frame-count header it is computed from file size and an average bitrate, and a truncated download makes it worse; expect possible differences of a second or two from your player.
Bitrate is not a stored property on lossless files. FLAC and WAV have no bitrate field, so the value shown is size over duration averaged across the whole file; a Vorbis header may list a nominal bitrate, but encoders often store zero there.
Text and art depend on how they were written. ID3v2.3 tags are often ISO-8859-1 rather than UTF-8, so non-ASCII characters can render wrong; and cover art only appears when stored in the standard mechanisms (APIC, PICTURE, METADATA_BLOCK_PICTURE) - unusual placements show no cover.

Common questions

Why does the duration differ from what my music player shows?

On constant-bitrate MP3s, WAV, and FLAC the value is essentially exact, so a disagreement usually means a variable-bitrate MP3: with a frame-count header (Xing/VBRI) the count is exact, but without one it is estimated from file size and an average bitrate the file does not actually hold, so a second or two of drift is normal.

Can this tool edit or remove tags?

No. It only reads: nothing is uploaded, modified, or written back to the file. If tags are wrong, edit them with a dedicated tag editor - and remember an MP3's ID3v2 and ID3v1 blocks are independent, so an editor can fix one while leaving the other stale.

References and verification

The example and behavioral notes were checked against the browser implementation. Standards and primary references below define the relevant format, formula, or platform behavior.