1) Select any Album that you choose

2) Using Finder, locate the Album Folder & Tracks on the Drive where iTunes stores them

3) Take a note of the Date Modified of each of the Track Files (they will all likely be the same Date)

4) Multi-select all the Tracks...........and then change the Genre to something different (whatever you like)

5) Now Look again at the Date Modified for each of the Tracks

6) This will have changed to Today's Date for all of the Album Tracks..........this shows that the Genre is stored in each of the Track Files.......and not in the iTunes Library.itl or .XML Files


For contrast, choose another Album......and again record the Date Modified of all of the Tracks

Also take a note of the Date / Time of the iTunes Library.itl and .xml files

Now change the Star Rating for each of the Tracks to something else

You will see that the Date Modified for each of the Tracks does NOT change in this scenario

But you will see that the iTunes Library.itl and .xml file Date Modified property does change (can sometimes take a minute or two due to Caching etc.)

This shows that Star Ratings are stored in the iTunes Index Files

IMHO, the best way to think about it is

a) "User Choice" Items like Album and Track Rating get stored in the Index Files.........as these items are "user preference" and not Metadata as such

b While Track Metadata Artist, Album Name, Track Name, Composer, Genre, Artwork, etc., etc are stored in the Track File..........available to be picked up by other Players and Software etc.

Try BlissHQ.com for software to carry out Bulk Re-Tagging of iTunes and FLAC Libraries, especially when you want to replace with High Res Artwork etc.........also MP3Tag is worth looking at

-