VLC is showing a different title than is in the mp3 metadata

VLC player: How to display file name on the title bar.

Menu Tools -> Preferences (Show settings = ALL) -> Input/Codecs? Then at the very bottom of the right panel set the option "Change title according to current media" to "$F" or "$u" (without quotes $f= file name and path ---- $u= file name only}). Save, exit and restart VLC.


It turned out that the files had two sets of tags. One set, the one I wanted, was written as an ID3 tag. The other set, which VLC was displaying, was written as an APE tag. To fix this, I downloaded MP3tag and used it to remove the APE tags. Steps:

  1. Open all the problem files in MP3tag
  2. Go to tools -> Options -> Tags -> Mpeg and ensure that it is set to read and write only APE tags (this should leave your ID3 tags untouched. enter image description here
  3. Remove all the tag content (on the right sidebar, make sure none of the fields have text). If you have multiple files, you can select <blank> from the drop down menu.
  4. Save the files!