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iTunes Duplicates

H

htdefiant

macrumors member
Original poster
Sep 19, 2006
77
0
I was trying to move my library from my internal drive to my external drive. I messed up on a step. to make a long story short, I now have a duplicate of everything I had before. How can I rectify this?
My original iTunes library is c:/Documents and Settings/Harrison/My Documents/My Music/iTunes/iTunes Music .
That is where the library is pointed now.
Every other song has an error, because I unplugged the external drive (which still has a copy of the library on it) is pointed to
F:/iTunes/iTunes Music

Any easy fixes or do I just have to go delete every other song in my 4500 song library? I already did the A artists. B's are up next if there are no solutions.
Any thoughts?
 
It really doesn't take that much time to rebuild the library, so why not just do that? Don't forget to export your playlists and then reimport them after you rebuild the library.
 
Sorry - please tell me how to export a playlist (multiple) and then import them after I erase my library and put all my songs in the library again.
Perhaps I need a guided tutorial :p
 
htdefiant said:
Sorry - please tell me how to export a playlist (multiple) and then import them after I erase my library and put all my songs in the library again.
Perhaps I need a guided tutorial :p
Click to expand...

I don't think there is a way to export multiple playlists at one time. You have to export them one by one.

Now that I think of it, I don't think you have to mess with playlists. Just select all the songs in the library and press delete. Then simply rebuild the library. The playlists will still be there and they will work as before after the library is rebuilt.

Here are the steps:

  1. In the iTunes Preferences, choose Advanced and change the music folder location to where you actually have your music stored (I presumed you want the external USB). Make sure you deselect the the option to copy files to iTunes library!
  2. Select all songs in you Library Music list and delete them. If you're afraid that this will actually delete the files as well, delete one as a test and check if the file is still there. I guarantee it will be.
  3. Choose Add to Libary from the File menu and select the root folder where your music is stored. Click the Choose button (it may be called something else in Windows, perhaps "OK"). This will start the library rebuilding process (should take just a few minutes).

Let me know how you make out.
 
If you want to delete all the "dead tracks" ie the ones that point to c:/Documents and Settings/Harrison/My Documents/My Music/iTunes/iTunes Music wouldnt something like idletunes or ituneslibraryupdater work or am i misunderstanding your request?

will the old playlists work with the songs in their new location?
 
Here is the solution:
Every other song has an error, because I unplugged the external drive (which still has a copy of the library on it) is pointed to
F:/iTunes/iTunes Music
Click to expand...

That could be the solution to your problem.

If you're saying those tracks all have the "exclamation marks of death", then have a look at MacMuse's User Tip for a strategy on getting rid of them.

If that does the trick, make sure you're following these instructions in the Apple Knowledge Base when moving the songs in your Library from one drive to another.
 
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