Duplicate Apple Music Playlists and Songs

Quick update: I spoke to two helpful Apple Specialists last Monday. First we tried replacing Music Library from a Time Machine backup about a month ago, but it made no difference. We finally had to turn off Sync, trash my old library and turn Sync back on. At that point all the duplicate songs were gone (I went from 25,000+ to 12,000+, but the duplicate playlists remained. I saved all my songs on an external drive, but it was easiest (but time consuming) to download fresh copies to the iMac. That's completed successfully.

Next, I deleted all the duplicate playlists. The five smart playlists with no names, stayed deleted, but several other Smart playlists (60s, 70s, 80s, Last Added, etc) won't stay deleted. All of my personal playlists that were duplicated and deleted, have stayed gone, at least for now. I'm just leaving the duplicate Smart playlists for now. Maybe I'll try again after I update to Big Sur 11.2.

I'm still very curious if anyone besides Wayne and myself are seeing this problem. Thanks.

Jim

See Duplicate songs in iTunes - Apple Community. Generally signing out of the iTunes Store and back in agan will fix cloudy duplicates.

tt2

Greetings Wayne,

It sounds like you are seeing duplicate songs and new, but empty playlists in Music on Mac. We know how important listening to your music is for you, and we will help you get to the right place to find a resolution.

Convert music file formats in Music on Mac talks about the differences between the file types you're seeing in your list there. That page also states, "The song in its original format and the newly converted song appear in your library." That may be why you are seeing what appears to be duplicates.

These articles may also be helpful: Find duplicate items in Music on Mac, and Create, edit, and delete Smart Playlists in Music on Mac

Can you confirm for us where you are navigating to within the Music app on your Mac, where you are seeing this list of duplicates? Do you also see these duplicates on any other device that is signed in and using your Apple Music subscription? Do you recall any changes being made to your Mac or software since noticing this?

If you force quit the Music app How to force an app to quit on your Mac, and then restart your Mac How to turn your Mac on or off, does it remain the same, or resolve the issues?

We look forward to hearing back from you.

Cheers!

I tried deleting all the duplicates with the cloud symbol on it, which left the other half of each duplicate with a cloud symbol with an "x" through it. Clicking on that symbol showed the message "This song has been deleted from your Cloud Music Library, and does not appear on any of your iOS devices using your Cloud Music Library," and with an option to "Add to Cloud Music Library." Clicking on this made it so the deleted cloud duplicate would be re-added to your library, but not result in the duplicate being visible—how things should be. I found this to work for me.

Wayne,

Thanks for the additional information regarding your duplicate songs and playlist issues. For continued assistance, please reach out to our AppleCare support team via this link: Get Support.

All the best!

Have you tried any of the DougScripts applescript utilities? like this one to help ID/Remove duplicate files: https://dougscripts.com/itunes/index.php

I have almost the same problems:

1. About six new Smart Playlists with no name and no content
2. All my regular playlist have been duplicated; mostly the duplicates are empty; some have a few songs
3. In Song list, I only have one copy, but everything is in the cloud now, despite the fact I have 1000s of songs on my hard drive
4. Looking in the media folder in Music, the songs are still there
5. I picked a small playlist and clicked on all the clouds to force a download; now they show downloaded - but in the media folder I now have two of each song, the original and one with a "-1" extension.
6. Just noticed all the behavior yesterday; don't know when it happened. Running Big Sur 11.1. No recent changes.

Thanks for any help...

Just a quick correction to my post last night:

My experience is almost exactly like Wayne's. I stated last night my songs were not duplicated. I must have been tired. They are all duplicated. I did have around 12,000 songs, now I have 25,399. So, every song I have is now Uploaded; the duplicate song is usually Removed, but sometimes it's Matched or Purchased. I know Removed would usually mean the song had been removed on another device, but I have not removed anything anywhere.

The six new Smart Playlists with no name all contain 25,399 songs (all my songs).

I tried a force quit of Music, followed by a restart, but nothing changed.

I'm anxious to see what happens with Wayne's library after it syncs.

Thanks for any help.

Wayne,

Thanks for the update. That's encouraging!

Community specialist: Is it OK that I contact Get Support as well? My issues are quite similar. Thanks.

Jim