Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Delete duplicate songs in iTunes
- Thread starter jessicapp
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
What if you don't have any duplicate songs, this might be the problem, even before you hit that Menu iTunes knows if there are duplicates, if there are none I guess it's greyed out.
Oh, and in mine it says "Show Duplicate Songs", not "Show Exact Duplicate Items".
Oh, and in mine it says "Show Duplicate Songs", not "Show Exact Duplicate Items".
Let me get a question in on this thread...
I have a large number which list as exact duplicates, is there any easy way on the Mac to automatically process the list? I found a vbs script but alas I am not on Windows.... or is that hot damn I am not on Windows?
I have a large number which list as exact duplicates, is there any easy way on the Mac to automatically process the list? I found a vbs script but alas I am not on Windows.... or is that hot damn I am not on Windows?
You may want to check out Dupin from Doug's AppleScripts for iTunes, which is a great resource for managing your iTunes tags and files.
However, there are reasons why you may want to keep some duplicates. iTunes considers items duplicates if the song name and artist fields match. They may be from different albums, have different lengths or bitrates, be different file types, be live or studio versions, etc. There is no software that can make all those determinations for you. The safest method of dupe deletion is manual. With any other method, you run the risk of deleting something you didn't intend to delete.
However, there are reasons why you may want to keep some duplicates. iTunes considers items duplicates if the song name and artist fields match. They may be from different albums, have different lengths or bitrates, be different file types, be live or studio versions, etc. There is no software that can make all those determinations for you. The safest method of dupe deletion is manual. With any other method, you run the risk of deleting something you didn't intend to delete.
length
After getting the list of exact duplicates, I put them in order of song length then look for the duplicates. If they're the exact length they're probably the same recording.
If you have room keep the ones that are on different albums or compilations. (to keep the albums complete)
After getting the list of exact duplicates, I put them in order of song length then look for the duplicates. If they're the exact length they're probably the same recording.
If you have room keep the ones that are on different albums or compilations. (to keep the albums complete)
That, and you don't want to make albums incomplete. There are cases where a duet of two singers is on albums of both singers, so deleting one song means you have one incomplete album. Or you have an album of an artist, and a "best of" album, you would want them both complete.
Agreed , usually the eq and and sometimes the mix is different.
I have a bunch of ABBA compilations and I was thinking of deleting the duplicates but after listening to quite a few I noticed big differences in E.Q. and mix on most tunes.
I went to my laptop and removed (hide in the cloud) a play-along music book with 150 tracks.
I still have it on my desktop but it's no longer in the cloud.
I haven't read this whole thread so apologies if this has already been said. If you want to solve this problem of duplicates in iTunes, don't bother downloading all these rubbish programmes that promise to fix it for you, like i did. Just un-install itunes and re-install it again. It really is that simple. Took me a stressed out couple of nights to work that one out!
Since duplicates reside in the iTunes library, and since uninstalling iTunes doesn't remove the library, it's very unlikely.
I'm trying to think if there was anything else that i did for this to work for me. All i can of is that i deleted EVERYTHING from my library first before reinstalling. ANyway it worked and I'm so happy about it that i registered here to mention it!
Yeah you're probably right. I know nothing about these things and just sort of stab in the dark until it gets sorted.