Possible to avoid duplicates _when adding_ music to the library?

[pullman]

I know it's possible to find duplicates in the Music library. But is it possible to prevent duplicates at the time of adding music to the library?

I have music on my MBA 11" which I copied from my Mac media centre. Then I ripped a large number of CDs to the MBA which I now want to add to the media centre.

If I were to simply select all music on the MBA to add to the media centre's music library I would be adding lots of duplicates. Ideally I'd like to avoid having to verify for each album folder if it's already in the media centre before adding it.

I tested with one album which is already in the media centre and that was copied over.

Thanks in advance
Philip

 

[GGJstudios]

AFAIK, the Music app doesn't scan your existing library when adding new music. It just adds it. It doesn't assume that you don't want to add a song simply because you already have it. One may be a live version, and the other a studio version. They may be different bit rates. One may be a single and the other from an album. When songs are added, the metadata may be missing or not populating the same fields as the metadata for the song you already have.

You could begin by unchecking all the songs in your library. Then add the new songs, which will automatically check them. Now you can go through your library, comparing the checked (new) items to the unchecked (old) items. You'd have to have your metadata in matching fields for any find duplicates script to work well.

 

[pullman]

Thank you very much, my apologies that it took so long to reply. Thanks also for the creative suggestion.
cheers
Philip

AFAIK, the Music app doesn't scan your existing library when adding new music. It just adds it. It doesn't assume that you don't want to add a song simply because you already have it. One may be a live version, and the other a studio version. They may be different bit rates. One may be a single and the other from an album. When songs are added, the metadata may be missing or not populating the same fields as the metadata for the song you already have.

You could begin by unchecking all the songs in your library. Then add the new songs, which will automatically check them. Now you can go through your library, comparing the checked (new) items to the unchecked (old) items. You'd have to have your metadata in matching fields for any find duplicates script to work well.