John 1953

Q: Mass duplication of playlists in iTunes

After I set up iTunes Match, iTunes spontaneously created hundreds, possibly thousands of duplicate playlists, all empty.  The number created is so large that it is seriously affecting iTunes performance.  I've no idea how this happened, and am not conscious of having done anything to cause this.  The palylists were just there one day when I switched on.

 

I've tried deleting, but that is only possible one at a time, and I don't seem to have made any impact on the number.

 

Anyone know what may have caused this, and/or how to handle it?

Posted on Apr 23, 2012 2:18 AM

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Q: Mass duplication of playlists in iTunes

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  • by turingtest2,Solvedanswer

    turingtest2 turingtest2 Apr 23, 2012 6:06 AM in response to John 1953
    Level 10 (87,100 points)
    Apple TV
    Apr 23, 2012 6:06 AM in response to John 1953

    Doug's DeleteEmptyPlaylists script should clear the playlists. This post describes a technique for resetting iTunes Match to (hopefully) stop it happening again.

     

    Hmm, the direct link to DeleteEmptyPlaylists is being redirected to an ad for TrackSift just now. You may need to go to the Managing Playlists section and scroll down....

     

    tt2

  • by John 1953,

    John 1953 John 1953 Apr 23, 2012 8:16 AM in response to turingtest2
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Apr 23, 2012 8:16 AM in response to turingtest2

    Much gratitude for this.  It removed over 27,000 empty duplicate playlists in a few minutes>

     

    Thanks.

     

    JB

  • by Glenn Millhauser,

    Glenn Millhauser Glenn Millhauser Apr 26, 2012 8:45 PM in response to John 1953
    Level 1 (64 points)
    Peripherals
    Apr 26, 2012 8:45 PM in response to John 1953

    My imac, iphone and ipad developed this problem.  Absolutely thousands of empty playlists, all with the same name.  These appeared only when iTunes match was enabled.  I finally got it worked out.  Hoping that this will be of use to others, here's what I did:

     

    1) Turn off itunes match on all i-devices, but left it enabled on the imac.

    2) Installed Tracksift on the imac to remove the empty playlists.  It found >11,000!!

    3) I left iTunes on overnight hoping that the deletions propagated back to apple's iTunes servers.  I have no idea if this helped.

    4) Next day, turned off itunes match and quit itunes.

    5) Restarted itunes and turned on match, with fingers crossed that the playlists would not return....

    6) Success!  Enabled itunes match on the i-devices.  No more empty playlists, and the proper playlists synced across the computer and i-devices.  Good.

     

    Couple of extra points.  First, several threads suggest that holding the shift key while enabling itunes match keeps the emptly playlists from returning.  Didn't work for me.  Instead, steps 3 - 6 above worked.  Second, I emailed Apple and their rep gave me instructions for removing playlists... one by one.  I appreciate the contact, but not too helpful for 11,000.  Seems that they are not aware of this bug.

  • by Ituneslost11,

    Ituneslost11 Ituneslost11 Sep 23, 2013 7:40 PM in response to turingtest2
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Sep 23, 2013 7:40 PM in response to turingtest2

    I am having the same problem with thousands of empty playlists. How do I delete them all at once when I have a PC?

  • by turingtest2,

    turingtest2 turingtest2 Sep 23, 2013 11:17 PM in response to Ituneslost11
    Level 10 (87,100 points)
    Apple TV
    Sep 23, 2013 11:17 PM in response to Ituneslost11

    I wrote a Windows script called KillEmptyPlaylists for the task...

     

    tt2

  • by Ituneslost11,

    Ituneslost11 Ituneslost11 Sep 30, 2013 2:49 PM in response to turingtest2
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Sep 30, 2013 2:49 PM in response to turingtest2

    I clicked on this and ran the script (to the best of my knowledge) and it didnt do anything. I am sure that I am doing something wrong but do not know what. Can you provide me direction?

  • by turingtest2,

    turingtest2 turingtest2 Sep 30, 2013 5:12 PM in response to Ituneslost11
    Level 10 (87,100 points)
    Apple TV
    Sep 30, 2013 5:12 PM in response to Ituneslost11

    If you run the script it should start with a prompt asking if you want to remove empty non-smart playlists, Click OK and it will check every playlists, removing those the meet the criteria, and then produce a summary stating how many playlists were scanned and how many removed.

     

    tt2

  • by Ituneslost11,

    Ituneslost11 Ituneslost11 Oct 1, 2013 1:33 PM in response to turingtest2
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Oct 1, 2013 1:33 PM in response to turingtest2

    I clicked OK when prompted, and my itunes froze for a long time and then I received this error: Script Error 2.jpg

  • by turingtest2,

    turingtest2 turingtest2 Oct 1, 2013 1:47 PM in response to Ituneslost11
    Level 10 (87,100 points)
    Apple TV
    Oct 1, 2013 1:47 PM in response to Ituneslost11

     

     

    Which version of Windows?

    Is iTunes Match enabled?

    Is iTunes in the Cloud enabled?

    How many playlists do you think there are?

     

    tt2

  • by Ituneslost11,

    Ituneslost11 Ituneslost11 Oct 1, 2013 6:49 PM in response to turingtest2
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Oct 1, 2013 6:49 PM in response to turingtest2

    Windows 7

    iTunes Match is enabled

    ITunes in the Cloud is enabled

    Hundreds of Playlists

  • by turingtest2,

    turingtest2 turingtest2 Oct 2, 2013 1:29 AM in response to Ituneslost11
    Level 10 (87,100 points)
    Apple TV
    Oct 2, 2013 1:29 AM in response to Ituneslost11

    Disable iTunes Match and iTunes in the Cloud. Try again.

     

    tt2