How do I convert MP3s with "Latin-1" ID3 tags to Unicode tags on Windows?

Question

Suppose you have a bunch of MP3 files whose ID3 tags are written in a non-Latin script (e.g. Russian) and you want them to show up properly in all your Unicode-supporting media players and apps.

Also suppose you're on Windows.

Answer 1

Here's a useful recipe assuming you have Java installed:

Download id3iconv and then open a command prompt, change to the directory containing the music and perform the following command (modify it to suit your needs!):

for /r %F in (*.mp3) do java -jar ..\path\to\id3iconv-0.2.1.jar -e cp1251 %~sF

In the following sample:

• /r is used to make it go into subdirectories (in case you have, say, a discography spanning many directories).
• I'm using %~sF (short names) since the file names might not be represented in your ANSI encoding. Short names are the "safest".
• cp1251 is the encoding for Windows Cyrillic (suitable for Russian). Use the encoding that matches your files. id3iconv can't guess that :(