Cue Sheet (computing)

Cue Sheet (computing)

A cue sheet, or cue file, is a metadata file which describes how the tracks of a CD or DVD are laid out. Cue sheets are stored as plain text files and commonly have a ".cue" filename extension. CDRWIN first introduced cue sheets, which are now supported by many optical disc authoring applications and media players.

Cue sheets can describe many types of audio and data CDs. The main data (including audio) for a CD described by a cue sheet is stored in one or more files referenced by the cue sheet. The data files may be audio files (commonly in MP3 or WAV format), or plain disc images (sometimes with a ".bin" extension). Cue sheets also specify track lengths, and CD-Text including track and disc titles and performers. They are especially useful when dividing audio stored in a single file into multiple songs or tracks.

The name "cue sheet" originates from the "send cue sheet" SCSI/ATA command in optical disc authoring. The specification for that command defines a cue sheet format containing mostly the same information, but in a tabular, binary data structure, rather than a text file.