iTunes: Can’t Change Song Name, Artist, or Album on Get Info Screen

If you’re a user of Apple iTunes who experiences a problem where you cannot rename anything about your music including “Song Name”, “Artist”, or “Album”, you may have a problem where your music files are set to “Read Only”. You will need to make them writable with these steps.

1. Open “iTunes“.
2. Have a look under “Edit” > “Preferences” (Windows)/”iTunes” > “Preferences” (MacOS).
3. Select the “Advanced” tab.
4. Note the “iTunes Media folder location“.
5. Close iTunes and do one of the following based on your operating system.
   

   Windows

   • Right-click the “Start” button, then select “File Explorer“.
   • Navigate to the location for your “iTunes Media folder location” you gathered in step 4.
   • Right-click the “Music” folder, then choose “Properties“.
   • Deselect the “Read Only” box, then select “OK“.
   • “Apply changes to this folder, subfolders and files” should be selected. Select “OK“.
   • Wait until the attributes are applied to your files.

   MacOS

   • Navigate to the location for your “iTunes Media folder location” you gathered in step 4.
   • Click the “Music” folder to highlight it.
   • Select “File” > “Get Info“.
   • Expand the “Sharing & Permissions” tree.
   • Select the “Lock” icon. You may be prompted for credentials for an administrator account.
   • Set your account or “Everyone” to “Read & Write“.
6. Open iTunes and see if you can modify your music files now.

FAQ

I followed the Windows steps, but “Read Only” gets re-checked again. Why does this happen?

You may have to apply security permissions to the folder as well. Use these steps:

• Right-click the “Start” button, then select “File Explorer“.
• Right-click the location for your “iTunes Media” folder located at the place you gathered in step 4.
• Select “Properties” > “Security” > “Advanced” > “Change Permissions…“.
• Double-click your account and check “Full Control. Do the same for the “SYSTEM” group.
• Check the “Replace all child object permissions with inheritable permissions from this object“.
• Select “OK“, then “OK” again.
• Now follow steps 1 through 6 again.

Note: If permissions are grayed out, select “Disable inheritance“, then choose “Convert inherited permissions into explicit permissions on this object“.