iPod Ugh DUPLICATES! >:(

[mythosman]

Grrrrrrr... so I've collaborated my library a few times over, including ripping my ipod (which had a lot of my old music that was lost in a pc crash) etc. etc.

And now I have over 2000 duplicates! Yes yes, you can "show duplicate songs" but the folks at apple decided not to have a "delete duplicate songs" button. Thus when I show duplicate songs, I show 4000+ items. In order to delete the duplicates I'd have to essentially click every other song about 2000+ times then delete. Such a pain! And of course I can't just delete the entire list displayed with "show duplicates" or any of the scripts that are out, because for some reason it was decided to show the originals along with the duplicates. So if I delete all that show on the list, I lose all the originals as well.

My plan is to get rid of the duplicates, reformat my ipod to this un-duped library, delete my entire library that is on my ibook, then re-rip it all thus giving me an un-duped library.

In order to do this, I need to think of some genious method of getting rid of all these duplicates. Anyone have any ideas? I'm hard-pressed...


P.S. I tried dragging the duplicates into a folder on my desktop but the files are all differently named.

 

[Mechcozmo]

Try this Linkety to a helpful site of scripts.

 

[mythosman]

Been there, tried that. The only that was remotely close was trash duplicates, but that only works one at a time (i.e. select 2 duplicates and it'll trash one). If only there was a trash duplicates in a bulk scale..

 

[Mechcozmo]

Been there, tried that. The only that was remotely close was trash duplicates, but that only works one at a time (i.e. select 2 duplicates and it'll trash one). If only there was a trash duplicates in a bulk scale..

Email Doug. He might be able to help you with something.

 

[Chrismcfall]

How about you show the duplicates, edit> Select all>delete?

 

[TheAnswer]

Are the duplicates identical duplicates? Meaning were the ripped at the same bit rate in the same format? My friend ended up with a lot of duplicates after he converted some songs to Mp3 to make an Mp3 disk...we just ended up sorting by Kind (by going to View > View Options). Of course you can sort by any criteria in the View Options panel, so if you added the dupes later or there is anything different about them, try that out.

Just thought I'd throw that out there in the case that it might help. If they are identical copies, it won't do you much good though.

Good Luck!

 

[someguy]

How about you show the duplicates, edit> Select all>delete?

I think this would delete all the duplicates as well as the originals.

 

[Chrismcfall]

Aha, I read the first post again. Ok.

 

[mythosman]

Are the duplicates identical duplicates? Meaning were the ripped at the same bit rate in the same format? My friend ended up with a lot of duplicates after he converted some songs to Mp3 to make an Mp3 disk...we just ended up sorting by Kind (by going to View > View Options). Of course you can sort by any criteria in the View Options panel, so if you added the dupes later or there is anything different about them, try that out.

Just thought I'd throw that out there in the case that it might help. If they are identical copies, it won't do you much good though.

Good Luck!

Thanks for the tip buddy. I messed around with the view options for about an hour and just when I was going to give up, I realized I already had "date added" up, could of sworn I had already tried that, but I sorted by this. After a long time analyzing discrepancies and seeing if I could find a trend, I saw that there was indeed a gap in add time with nearly all the dupes.

So after sorting by name and ensuring that there was a 6 or 7 in at least one of the copies of each song (i.e. as the minute added, since when sorted by add date the numbers went 2:03-2:05 then 2:06-2:07) I sorted by add date and deleted all but the 2:06-2:07.

The result.. went from 2000+ duplicates to about 500. A good chunk. Thanks for the help people.

 

[mythosman]

Now, my plan is to copy 25 gigs of music from itunes library to my desktop in a folder by dragging and dropping it all, (which will leave me with hardly a gig of space left on here), then deleting all the other music libraries on here and moving the folder into my music folder. No problems with this, right?

 

[Rasheem]

Once in a barnes & Noble book store i saw a book titled something like iTunes hacks or something along those lines. while flipping the pages it reccomended a program tat would delete duplicates to any criteria you wanted. I dont remember the name of the program

 

[mythosman]

Thanks Rasheem, ever so helpful.

 

[Mechcozmo]

Now, my plan is to copy 25 gigs of music from itunes library to my desktop in a folder by dragging and dropping it all, (which will leave me with hardly a gig of space left on here), then deleting all the other music libraries on here and moving the folder into my music folder. No problems with this, right?

No clue what you mean to be doing...

 

[mythosman]

Well, after I deleted all the dupes in my itunes library, I still had to deal with the actual files.

Buuut, I ended up keeping it easy and consolidating my library, now giving me the freedom of deleting all the other music folders.

 

[Konradx]

There should be a simpler way or deleting duplicates..like a Delete duplicates button

 

[mythosman]

There should be a simpler way or deleting duplicates..like a Delete duplicates button

I know, right? It pissed me off that they would have a "show duplicates" button but none to delete. Seemed kind of pointless...but then again I suppose most people don't have 4000 of 'em.

Overall though Itunes redeemed itself.

 

[JNB]

Not entirely off-topic, but it seems to be that a fundamental rule of any db-managed application, no matter how lightweight, should require an "identify and merge" - or destroy - dupes. iTunes, Address Book (including Entourage! Grrr!), browsers, you name it.

I have multiple machines with multiple applications and probably 15% of my data is just a dupe. I run a Dell lappy for work, a G5 iMac at home running variously Outlook, Entourage, Mail, Thunderbird, Safari, Firefox (on both), IE on the Dell (have to, some work-related Java apps will NOT run under any other browser). Then there's the Treo. Don't even get me started...

I'm going nucking futs. Getting a MacBook and Paralleling as much of the Windows stuff I have to, and an iPhone so I can keep the phone part synced. I hope.

There oughta be a law...