HT201812: Find and remove duplicate items in your iTunes library

Learn about Find and remove duplicate items in your iTunes library
Gavstar

Q: I have 10,672 duplicated song in my iTunes Library. Surely there is an easier & automatic way of deleted duplicates while keeping a version without individually manually selecting each song?

Using iTunes 12.1.2 on OS 10.10.3

I have 10,672 duplicated song in my iTunes Library. Surely there is an easier & automatic way of deleted duplicates while keeping a version without individually manually selecting each song? An old version of iTunes would automatically hide a version while showing a duplicate by holding down shift when selecting show duplicates, enabling you to simply select all and delete. Can this still be achieved as it not practical for me to select 5,336 songs manually?

Posted on May 6, 2015 3:28 PM

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Q: I have 10,672 duplicated song in my iTunes Library. Surely there is an easier & automatic way of deleted duplicates while keep ... more

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  • by norm123,

    norm123 norm123 May 8, 2015 2:33 PM in response to Gavstar
    Community Specialists
    May 8, 2015 2:33 PM in response to Gavstar

    Hello Gavstar,

     

    You can quickly delete duplicates within iTunes by changing the view to Songs and make sure to add the category for date added. Organize by the data added and you should be able to make a quick selection of the duplicate songs by clicking on one of them, holding shift, scroll down to the last duplicate and then hit delete. 

     

    Find and remove duplicate items in your iTunes library

    https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201812

     

    Using the new iTunes

    https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT203128

     

    Regards,

    -Norm G. 

  • by Gavstar,

    Gavstar Gavstar May 14, 2015 12:56 PM in response to norm123
    Level 1 (1 points)
    May 14, 2015 12:56 PM in response to norm123

    Thank you Norm G for your advice. On this occasion it does't help as I will have to manually go through and select nearly 11,000 songs. I will be manually selecting these non stop for days! Isn't there an easier way?

  • by Limnos,

    Limnos Limnos May 14, 2015 1:15 PM in response to Gavstar
    Level 9 (53,685 points)
    Mac OS X
    May 14, 2015 1:15 PM in response to Gavstar

    Tell us why the method outlines won't work. If all your duplicates were created on May 3, 2015 then all you need to is sort by date, select all in the range of May 3, 2015 and delete those.  If you have problems selecting a range of items in iTunes then you need to tell us that.

     

    Remember there are different kinds of duplicates and they need to be handled differently.

     

    How to find and remove duplicate items in your iTunes library - http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2905

     

    Posts by turingtest2 about different types of duplicates and techniques - https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3555601 and https://discussions.apple.com/message/16042406#16042406 (Note: The DeDuper script is for Windows).

     

    http://dougscripts.com/itunes/scripts/ss.php?sp=scanfordoubleentries

     

    http://dougscripts.com/itunes/itinfo/dupin.php (commercial) There are other similar tools, particularly a much earlier version of this package called "Corral iTunes Duplicates", which I am sure a general web search would reveal.

     

    The best way to deal with this is to avoid it in the first place. I create one duplicate per year with 12+ years of using iTunes so review your methods.

  • by Gavstar,

    Gavstar Gavstar May 14, 2015 1:36 PM in response to Limnos
    Level 1 (1 points)
    May 14, 2015 1:36 PM in response to Limnos

    The best way to deal with this is to avoid it in the first place. I create one duplicate per year with 12+ years of using iTunes so review your methods.

    You're right Limnos, I have now changed my methods, but I had years of bad methods. I've got years of tracks imported into iTunes at different dates. Most of which are imported CD's and imports from archived PC hard drives. So the duplicates aren't all from the same date range. I only get tracks from iTunes and Amazon now so I don't get these duplicates but its sorting out my years of mess which is the problem.

     

    The advise given does make it a little easier so if that's my only option then I will have to persist with going through selecting date ranges.

     

    What happened to this function in iTunes though?

     

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iVlG7SyXjJg

  • by Limnos,

    Limnos Limnos May 14, 2015 2:52 PM in response to Gavstar
    Level 9 (53,685 points)
    Mac OS X
    May 14, 2015 2:52 PM in response to Gavstar

    Sorry, I have an old computer and slow connection so I almost never watch online videos unless I want to spend 5 minutes doing so for a 60 second video. 

     

    You can sort by whatever criteria you wish.  If they really are scattered about with no common feature you may well have to do it all manually.  If it were me I would be too worried about things being removed that are not truly duplicates and would prefer to do it by hand.  I would say your best bet is to check out Dupin.

  • by richard grant,

    richard grant richard grant Aug 11, 2015 6:47 AM in response to Gavstar
    Level 3 (695 points)
    Aug 11, 2015 6:47 AM in response to Gavstar

    Gavstar, I'm not sure how much this will help, but there's an Applescript utility to automate some of the process of finding and removing duplicate tracks:

     

    http://dougscripts.com/apps/dupinapp.php

  • by Limnos,

    Limnos Limnos Aug 11, 2015 7:23 AM in response to richard grant
    Level 9 (53,685 points)
    Mac OS X
    Aug 11, 2015 7:23 AM in response to richard grant

    Yes, that is the "Dupin" to which I referred in my last post, and to which I provided a link in a post previous to that.  Hopefully the OP has resolved this in the past 3 months since the last post.

  • by richard grant,

    richard grant richard grant Aug 11, 2015 7:25 AM in response to Limnos
    Level 3 (695 points)
    Aug 11, 2015 7:25 AM in response to Limnos

    Sorry, Limnos. Don't know how I managed not to see that.

  • by nateg999,

    nateg999 nateg999 Apr 11, 2016 6:57 PM in response to Gavstar
    Level 1 (4 points)
    iTunes
    Apr 11, 2016 6:57 PM in response to Gavstar

    I have had this same problem for years, especially for voice memos which multiply like rabbits. It's absurd that Apple provides no way to deal with large numbers of duplicates in a simple way. Gavstar is totally right. Anyone who suggests a manual solution is missing the point. It should be as simple as pushing one button to get rid of all duplicates on iTunes on every device. SOS to Apple--help us out on this.

  • by Airsculpture,

    Airsculpture Airsculpture Apr 12, 2016 7:30 AM in response to Limnos
    Level 4 (1,396 points)
    Apple TV
    Apr 12, 2016 7:30 AM in response to Limnos

    I'm interested here, are people saying the duplicates are the same song in different albums, like in a greatest hits as well as the original album, or are they exactly the same song and album.

     

    I have 12.5k songs in my library and since I started using iTunes back in the early 2000's I have never had the need to de-duplicate. I am curious as to how this situation occurs

  • by hhgttg27,

    hhgttg27 hhgttg27 Apr 12, 2016 7:45 AM in response to Airsculpture
    Level 5 (5,407 points)
    iTunes
    Apr 12, 2016 7:45 AM in response to Airsculpture

    Genuine duplicates (i.e., excluding different recordings of the same song) happen when people add media to their library more than once.  My experience is the same as yours - more than 10 years of using iTunes, main library with 88k songs, never once seen a duplicate except as the result of occasional dumb-user error on my part.

  • by Airsculpture,

    Airsculpture Airsculpture Apr 12, 2016 7:49 AM in response to hhgttg27
    Level 4 (1,396 points)
    Apple TV
    Apr 12, 2016 7:49 AM in response to hhgttg27

    Ok, thanks for that.

  • by nateg999,

    nateg999 nateg999 Apr 12, 2016 7:58 AM in response to Airsculpture
    Level 1 (4 points)
    iTunes
    Apr 12, 2016 7:58 AM in response to Airsculpture

    I agree this doesn't come up too often for albums. The main problem is a bug that duplicates voice memos recorded on the iphone. You can find many people complaining about this in various places online. The solution that some people suggest is to stop syncing voice memos to itunes from your iphone. But then you don't have backups of your latest voice memos, unless you use icloud. But many people don't want to use icloud for various legitimate reasons. The best solution by far would be for Apple to fix this bug that has been duplicating voice memos on everyone's computer for years. If I am missing something, please do share your wisdom.