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how to remove duplicate tracks in iTunes ?

W

WannabeSQ

macrumors 6502
Original poster
I seem to have many duplicate songs in my iTunes library (probably cause i have moved them around so many times between 3 computers and multiple hard drives trying to make room for all 40gb)

Is there a way to automate the deletion of these extra files? I got rid of some manually, but with this many songs it would take forever.
 
you could simply empty you library (remove the songs but not delete them) and then consolidate your library (under advanced) to organize them all in your desired directory.
 
I have it set already to organize music library and to copy music files into music library. Would removing and re adding them delete any duplicates? I dont think it would, as i had some duplicate files where it added a "-1" (without the quotes) to the end of the filename.
 
the only and easiest way that i have found to do this is to control click on the Track Name/Artists/Albums sort columns and check the Date Added selection. the next step to go through each artist and sort by the date added. now you need to manually delete the files that are duplicates.

this works really well for me because almost all of what i have is full albums and every once in a while i get a duplicate by accident. usually because they weren't tagged correctly and it didn't notice that i was importing the same thing again.
 
PS...i know that sounds like a pain in the arse, and it is...completely...but it's the price to pay when you have over 8000 songs 😀 😀 😀
 
I sort my songs by track time and check for duplicate times matching duplicate titles. This way, you will most likely find dupe files.
It is really a pain to delete dupes, but there is no other way in my eyes 🙁 🙄
 
You can dl MP3 Rage, and run a dupe check on your music folder. It helps with exact matches.
 
Originally posted by Nipsy
You can dl MP3 Rage, and run a dupe check on your music folder. It helps with exact matches.
Click to expand...

Exact in what matter? Does it check only the file name, or also size, sound length and so on!? Hmmm... 😕
 
You know, this would be a great item for everyone to send as FEEDBACK to Apple. I never realized that this was a problem for anyone else, but it sounds rather obvious that iTunes should be able to do this for us.

Dan
 
Originally posted by alset
You know, this would be a great item for everyone to send as FEEDBACK to Apple. I never realized that this was a problem for anyone else, but it sounds rather obvious that iTunes should be able to do this for us.

Dan
Click to expand...

I would think that this would just be a rather hard thing to effectively do, especially with mp3 where different encoders will give the same song non-exact mp3's. The only thing that could be compared is exact dupes or filename similarities. But for real consistincy, it would be tough.
 
Originally posted by Stike
Exact in what matter? Does it check only the file name, or also size, sound length and so on!? Hmmm... 😕
Click to expand...

I believe it uses size, length, ID3, and sample rate in its algorithm.
 
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