Q: how to delete duplicated songs all at one time?
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May 12, 2014 3:52 AMby Hipsolicitor,Hello all.
I'm having the same issue reported back in 2011, and have had trouble figuring out which is the original file after several backups; many of the file in my Itunes media library effectively do not exist - they have no physical location on my hard drive, but Itunes thinks they are there. It sounds like dedupe is the anwer, but i'm not tech savvy enough to know how to use a script, and can't find anywhere that's not a spamming site, or one that wants to charge you $30 for the privelege of using free software.
So how do I use a script, or where can I download dedupe for a reasonable amount?
This has been a problem i've been trying to solve for years through painstaking song by song deletion, so help is much appreciated.
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May 12, 2014 8:49 AMby turingtest2,The DeDuper script referred to in this thread is written by me and is free for anyone to download and use. There is some guidance on using my scripts at the top of the scripts page, but here is a more detailed description.
A step-by-step guide to using the DeDuper script
- Start by backing up your iTunes library. See this backup tip if you don't already have a strategy for this.
- Download the script if you haven't done so already. This is a direct download link to DeDuper that you can right-click on for download options: Save to your downloads folder, desktop or somewhere else you can find it easily when you want to use it.
- If it isn't already shown press CTRL+B to enable the menu bar, then from the Songs view hold down the SHIFT key and from the menu bar select View > Show Exact Duplicate Items. (Clicking the Same Album button seems to work if you forget to hold shift.)
You should get something like image below, click the image to see it in more detail. Click on the heading of the Album column if needed to change the sort order and use CTRL+J to enable artwork if desired.
Note there are 4 copies of the first track. In the second album only tracks 1 to 4 are duplicated which is why only those tracks from that album show up in this view. - To test how the script works select a sample of tracks rather than everything. In my case I'm going to select the Adele albums only by clicking on the first track, then scrolling to the last one, and shift-clicking that. This highlights all the songs between the two selections. Like this:
- Double-click on the script to run it. Because you've downloaded this script from the web you will probably get a warning message asking if you want to open it.
Obviously this is where you need to decide if you trust my advice. If you do click Open. If you want to prevent repeat warnings you can uncheck the box that says "Always ask..." - Assuming you click Open you should now get a dialog box like this:
Review the text, cancel if the numbers don't agree with your intentions, otherwise click Yes. - Depending on your settings for User Account Control and Internet Explorer you may get a progress bar displayed as the script evaluates the duplicates, otherwise you will just get the findings:
- Click Yes to remove the duplicates. When they have been removed you will get a results screen:
Note that all the duplicates of Adele's tracks have been removed leaving the originals behind. - If you're happy the script does what it is supposed to press CTRL+A to select all the duplicate tracks and run it again. Click the Done button at the top of the display to exit from the show duplicates display when you are finished with it.
Note that it is worth testing the script on one or two albums first to get a feel for it and also to determine if you get shown the progress bar. If not you need to be prepared for the script to take time processing the library with no feedback as to how it is getting on, or easy way to interrupt the operation. Tips for allowing the progress bar to work are at the bottom of the scripts page. All smart playlists are recalculated with each removed track so run time is probably a power relationship to library size, i.e double the size of the library and the script could take 4 times as long to run. If the progress bar won't display it might be wise to work with smaller chunks, e.g. start with all artists that begin with A, then B, etc. rather than tackling the whole library in one hit.
Once the library has been cleaned of the duplicates check it through before deleting what has been put in the recycle bin. When you are happy nothing has been deleted that should not have been you can update your backup.
tt2
- Start by backing up your iTunes library. See this backup tip if you don't already have a strategy for this.
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Jun 3, 2014 9:35 AMby turingtest2,Applescript? DeDuper is for Windows only I'm afraid, not OS X.
Try Dupin or Dupin Lite from Doug's Scripts.
tt2
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Jun 22, 2014 4:35 PMby TomQA,Thank you for the incredible amount of work you have put making iTunes palatable for the rest of us. My iTunes library is on my home NAS. I read through most of this thread and then downloaded DeDuper today from your website on a test of 25 duplicates:
I get this error:
Line: 503
Char: 55
Error: The track is not modifiable
Code: A0040203
Source: (null)
Thank you for your assistance!
TomQA
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Jun 22, 2014 5:05 PMby turingtest2,With your selection of 25 tracks in a songs or list view expose the Kind column. Any streams in there? The script cannot process these and they should be excluded but I haven't got around to it doing it automatically in the script yet. If the bulk of your library has become streams rather than direct file links we could investigate ways to fix that.
Otherwise see Repair security permissions for iTunes for Windows. Ostensibly the error says you're not allowed to change details of the track (even those only stored in the iTunes database ).
tt2
