WVTAG(1)

💖 WVTAG(1) 💖

okay bestie, welcome to the General Commands Manual corner of the group chat — this one's all about wvtag, and ngl it's lowkey iconic ✨

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🌸 NAME 🌸

wvtag — manipulate wavpack metadata 🎀

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🦋 SYNOPSIS 🦋

wvtag [-options] file ...

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✨ DESCRIPTION ✨

so basically, wvtag applies the metadata operations you asked for to each of the WavPack source files you listed, and it does them in this exact order, no cap:

1. clean
2. import
3. delete
4. write
5. extract
6. list

heads up bestie: WavPack metadata lives inside APEv2 tags 👑. And if the only tag chillin' in your source file is an ID3v1 tag, wvtag will automatically import from it — and if you request an edit, that ID3v1 tag gets deleted and replaced with an APEv2 tag. periodt.

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🎀 OPTIONS 🎀

• --allow-huge-tags — allow tag data up to 16 MB. real talk: embedding more than 1 MB is not recommended for portable devices, and it may not work with some programs — including older versions of WavPack 😭
• -c — extract cuesheet only to stdout (same energy as -x "cuesheet")
• -cc — extract cuesheet to a source-name.cue file in the same directory as the source file (same energy as -xx "cuesheet=%a.cue")
• --clean, --clear — clean all items from the tag (and yes, this happens first 💅)
• -d "Field" — delete the specified metadata item (text or binary)
• -h, --help — display this help 🫶
• --import-file infile.wv — import all tag items from the specified WavPack file into the APEv2 tag. note: imported tag items get added to any existing tag items unless you include --clean. And if there are > 1 MB cover images present, add --allow-huge-tags to include them.
• --import-id3 — import applicable tag items from an ID3v2.3 tag present in DSF files (and possibly other files) into the APEv2 tag. note: again, imported tag items get added to any existing tag items unless you include --clean. And again, if there are > 1 MB cover images present, add --allow-huge-tags to include them.
• -l, --list — list all tag items (done last, bestie)
• --no-utf8-convert — don't recode passed tags from local encoding to UTF-8; assume they're already UTF-8
• -q — Be quiet: keep console output to a minimum 🤫
• -v, --version — Write program version to stdout
• -w "Field=" — delete the specified metadata item (text or binary)
• -w "Field=Value" — write the specified text metadata to the APEv2 tag ✍️
• -w "Field=@file.ext" — write the specified text metadata from a file to the APEv2 tag; normally used for embedded cuesheets and logs (field names Cuesheet and Log)
• --write-binary-tag "Field=@file.ext" — write the specified binary metadata file to the APEv2 tag; normally used for cover art with the specified field name Cover Art (Front) 🖼️
• -x "Field" — extract the specified tag field only to stdout
• -xx "Field[=filename]" — extract the specified tag field into a named file in the same directory as the source file. An optional filename specification may contain:
  • %a — gets replaced with the audio file base name
  • %t — gets replaced with the tag field name (note that for binary tags, this comes from the data)
  • %e — gets replaced with the extension of the binary tag source file (or "txt" for a text tag)
• -y — yes to all warnings; use with caution! ⚠️

fr fr be careful with -y. It says yes to all the warnings. With caution, bestie, with caution. 💀

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🌈 SEE ALSO 🌈

wavpack(1), wvgain(1), wvunpack(1), www.wavpack.com

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👑 AUTHORS 👑

• David Bryant <david@wavpack.com>
• Jan Starý <hans@stare.cz>

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and that's the whole vibe check, bestie — you're officially a wvtag main character 💖✨

cute little sign-off: this page is from Debian, version dated January 16, 2026, and yeah, it's the WVTAG(1) manual page 🎀🦋 bye ily 🫶