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Field Values options

Open File → Options… → Field Values, then Edit field values…, to maintain reusable choices for any editable tag field. The same editor is available through View → Field values….

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Use a custom list for consistent spellings such as Indie Folk, Instrumental, and Live. The list suggests values; it does not forbid other text or automatically retag existing files.

Choose a field and enter values

Enter an uppercase field name in Field, or select a field under Fields with custom values. Put one choice per line in Custom field values. Field names are normalized to uppercase; technical information fields beginning with _ cannot receive editable custom lists.

The editor trims leading/trailing whitespace, drops empty lines and exact duplicates, and preserves the order entered. Sort A–Z sorts the current list. A field supports up to 5,000 custom choices. Multiline text belongs in metadata fields, not inside one list entry.

Press the editor's own OK to save. Cancel abandons its unsaved list edits. Once that OK has saved the list, canceling the outer Options dialog does not reverse it.

Where choices appear

The tag-panel drop-down can include special keep/blank choices, values already present in the selection, the field's custom list, and standard genre choices for GENRE. In-place file-list and Extended tags editing also receive completion candidates from field values. General → Auto-completion controls inline completion, independently of storing these choices.

Prefer values from tags in list at tag panel defaults to off. Enable it to show only the selection's existing values, alongside applicable keep/blank choices, when the selection already supplies values. If a field is empty, its custom choices remain available. This preference can make a large collection's current spellings easier to review without mixing in the whole custom list.

Genres

Show only user-defined genres defaults to off. Enable it to omit the standard genre list from the panel's choices and use the custom GENRE list instead. Existing selected values still appear. In OpenTag the saved list preferences apply without requiring the Mp3tag restart described in the original reference.

A custom genre is still text. ID3v1 supports a fixed indexed genre list and cannot preserve arbitrary new genre names. Use a richer tag type such as ID3v2 or APEv2 when saving user-defined genres; changing this UI list does not extend ID3v1.

Import, export, and quick addition

Import… reads a text list with one value per line and merges it into the current field's list, removing exact duplicates. It does not replace every field's lists. Export… writes the current field's list for backup or sharing. Export writes a file immediately, even if the editor is later canceled.

While editing a single-line value in the tag panel, Shift+Enter adds that field's current text to its custom list. Empty or multiline values are rejected, and an exact duplicate is not added again. This stores a suggestion; it is not a separate command to save pending audio-file edits.