What Is an LRC File? The .lrc Format Explained

The LRC format goes back to 1998. It started as a Winamp plugin called Lyrics Displayer and then spread to MP3 players and phones, and later media servers. It stuck around because it's so simple. There's no binary data and no schema. Just text.

A .lrc file has two kinds of lines:

• ID tags at the top, in square brackets. [ti:] for title, [ar:] for artist, [al:] for album, [by:] for whoever made the file, [offset:] for a global timing shift in milliseconds.
• Time tags on each lyric line, in [mm:ss.xx] form. Minutes, seconds and hundredths of a second.

So an LRC file is basically a list of lines, each one stamped with when it should show up.

People sometimes search for an "lcr file" too. That's just a typo for .lrc.

Standard LRC times each line. Enhanced LRC adds a second timestamp for each word using angle brackets. The A2 Media Player introduced it, so you'll also see it called A2 LRC or word-level LRC.

Here are the same two lines from the example above in Enhanced LRC:

[00:14.20]<00:14.20>I <00:14.55>left <00:14.90>the <00:15.30>porch <00:15.80>light <00:16.40>on <00:16.90>for <00:17.30>you
[00:18.05]<00:18.05>In <00:18.40>case <00:18.85>you <00:19.30>changed <00:19.95>your <00:20.50>mind

Want the word-by-word effect? Check your player first. Standard LRC is the safer default. The Enhanced LRC word-level timing guide goes deeper.

Most players treat the .lrc as a sidecar file. It sits in the same folder as the audio and has the exact same filename. Only the extension is different.

Music/The Lantern Club/Low Tide/
  03 - Quiet Hours.flac
  03 - Quiet Hours.lrc

The player loads the track and looks for a file with the same name and .lrc on the end. If it finds one it reads the lyrics from it. You don't change any settings or import anything. But if you rename the audio file the lyrics stop showing until you rename the .lrc to match.

Some players also read lyrics embedded in the audio tags (USLT or SYLT frames in MP3, the LYRICS tag in FLAC). Embedded lyrics travel with the file. Sidecars are easier to edit and swap out.

This is what I could confirm from official docs and release notes. If a player isn't listed it may still work.

Older hardware like Sony Walkman and Rockbox devices read .lrc as well. So do a lot of stock Android players.

Lyrics show as garbage characters or question marks. The file isn't UTF-8. Non-English lyrics get hit hardest. Open the file in a text editor, use Save As and pick UTF-8 (without BOM if you see that option). Plex specifically asks for UTF-8 sidecars.

Every line is early or late by the same amount. Add or change the [offset:] tag in the header. The value is in milliseconds. [offset:500] shifts lyrics earlier by half a second and [offset:-500] shifts them later. Not every player honors the tag though. If it does nothing you'll have to shift the timestamps themselves.

Lyrics start fine then slowly fall behind. That's drift, which is a different problem from offset. Usually the .lrc was made for another version of the track, like a remaster or a radio edit or a rip at a slightly different speed. One offset won't fix it. Find a file made for your exact version or regenerate the timing from your audio. The drift fix guide walks through it.

Nothing shows at all. Make sure the filename matches the audio exactly, including case. Make sure the extension is .lrc and not .lrc.txt. Rescan the library. Also look for embedded lyrics in the tags, since some players prefer those over the sidecar.

Word timestamps appear as text. Your player doesn't read Enhanced LRC. Convert it to standard LRC.

• LRC Format Complete Guide covers every tag and edge case
• Enhanced LRC Format Examples
• Enhanced LRC Word-Level Timing Guide
• LRC to TTML Guide if you need Apple-style timed lyrics
• Free converters: LRC to SRT, LRC to TTML, SRT to LRC