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Duplicates in Music library point to same physical file - how to resolve

Converted to Sync Library with Apple Music last week, been working thru the rubble and down to a bunch of duplicates to clean up. Some different scenarios, this one I don't know how to solve. I tried chatting with Apple Support, took an hour, got transferred 3 times and none the wiser, so I'll try the trusty support forum instead...


I have two songs, one with good cloud status, the other has Cloud Status = Duplicate


But both songs point to the same physical file. See Michael Jackson example pics attached.




I had thought this was a case of doing "Delete from Library" on the duplicate and I would get a dialogue box would come up asking whether to keep the file or move to trash, I would say keep file for the good version of the song, and be done.


For the first one I tried to resolve, screenshot below, I did not get that dialogue, Music just trashed the file leaving me with a song in my library pointing to a file in my trash.


Q1: how do I resolve these duplicate cases?


Q2: what is the best way to resolve the case with the trashed file. If I right click it in the trashcan there is no "Put Back" option. If I manually copy the file to another folder and do File>Import in Music nothing happens that I can see (I would expect a duplicate and then I delete the one pointing to trash).



Thanks!!

iMac Line (2012 and Later)

Posted on Dec 3, 2019 8:59 PM

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Dec 4, 2019 5:35 PM

Solved the trashed file by running File>Library>Organize Library and checking "Consolidate Files" and Music pulled that file out of the trash and put it in the correct artist folder.


Having resolved that I moved ahead with trying deletions on the other duplicates but I did get the option to Keep File that for whatever reason didn't come up on other items, so everything was resolved OK.


Carry on!

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1 reply
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Dec 4, 2019 5:35 PM in response to ringspa

Solved the trashed file by running File>Library>Organize Library and checking "Consolidate Files" and Music pulled that file out of the trash and put it in the correct artist folder.


Having resolved that I moved ahead with trying deletions on the other duplicates but I did get the option to Keep File that for whatever reason didn't come up on other items, so everything was resolved OK.


Carry on!

Duplicates in Music library point to same physical file - how to resolve

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