Q: Why does iTunes duplicate, triplicate, or even quadruple songs I import into it?

iTunes doesn't play nicely with symlinks and the media folder. You can redirect iOS backups with one, but that is a separate issue, and even then I would recommend a locally connected drive, not a network share.

tt2

That's why it would be nice if iTunes did not add exact duplicates!

I don't want to drag-n-drop my songs into a different folder (automatically add...), I just want to put them in one folder and not mess with it. It would make my life simpler.

Scott

When you add a bunch of files to iTunes it looks at the filepath of each file. If there is already an object in the library with that filepath then the new item will be ignored without creating a duplicate. Duplicates can be created if, for some reason, iTunes isn't correctly recalling the filepaths to existing content. This can happen if the designated media folder isn't available to iTunes when it is launched. Connecting the media folder won't repair all of the links that iTunes currently "knows" are broken, so it may create duplicates if asked to scan the media folder for new content. If you add content from outside the media folder and tell iTunes to make copies of anything added inside the media folder then it keeps no record of the paths where media has been imported from. Using the same folder as source for media later will create duplicates. If you rip the same CD in two different formats iTunes will see these as exact duplicates on the basis of metadata, but it won't, for example, know that one is better quality, or that you made the second one to add to an mp3 only media player. An automatic rejection of something that appears to be an exact duplicate might not suit every purpose.

Use iTunes Feedback to make suggestions for improvement.

tt2

This does not really help me. I recently bought a new computer (with Windows 10) and downloaded iTunes. I transferred my music to my new PC, but when I upload folders to iTunes, it duplicates my files so I get 2, 3, and even 4 copies of songs. I have tried File --> Add Folder and I have tried drag and drop. I have tried doing it in small increments...just a few letters of the alphabet at a time... and it will go well until I get about halfway through the alphabet, then duplicates everything already there. None of them have the exclamation mark and my music library is too big to delete the songs one at a time. I just spent an entire day on this, only to have to delete my whole iTunes library (again). How do I get this to work correctly and prevent this problem from recurring?

Without looking at the content of your drive before you attempt to add it to iTunes, and not knowing what settings are in place, it is hard to be certain what the issue might be. For example there could be multiple tracks in the source folder, which is why adding them makes them show up in iTunes. Adding an XML playlist at the time of the import might also cause problems though I've never tested for this. However there should be no need to add media to a new library. If you have properly copied over your content from a previous computer then you should be bringing over the complete working library with all of its ratings, playlists, play counts, etc. in place.

In general you would copy the entire iTunes folder from the user's music folder on the old computer into user's music folder and it will just work. For those who have split out the media to a new location there are steps in Make a split library portable which may be needed to make sure that the library is still able to see the media after the transfer.

tt2