Duplicate Songs appear on Albums

Question

Level 1

6 points

Duplicate Songs appear on Albums

Relatively new subscriber to Apple Music here.

I have an old iTunes / MacOS Music library of songs mostly ripped from MP3s.

When I search for an album I own on my iPhone Apple Music (iOS), I will often see duplicate tracks. Sometimes they're downloaded, sometimes they're not. In general, this does not happen on MacOS.

I have Library Sync enabled on both my Macbook and iPhone.

Is there any way to fix this? If I'm listening to an album on my iPhone, I do not want to listen to every song twice.

Tried signing out and in from iCloud, resets, etc.

Posted on Feb 8, 2022 1:43 PM

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Answer 1

ManJor

Community Specialist

Feb 9, 2022 11:28 AM in response to DropDeadSuit

Hey there, DropDeadSuit!

We appreciate you reaching out on Apple Support Communities. From our understanding, you have duplicate songs on your iPhone and Mac, and would like to remove those for easy listening. We’d be happy to help out!

Find duplicate items in Music on Mac - Apple Support can help you to easily locate all duplicates, then remove those from the Mac. If you’re using Sync Library on your devices, this should result in those songs being removed from your iPhone as well. If it does not, let us know if you’re able to delete those songs directly on your iPhone. This can help us to determine if the songs were synced using the Mac, or if they’re being synced using the feature we previously mentioned.

Also, let us know which iOS and macOS versions you're currently running, so we can help ensure the steps provided work best for you.

Kindest regards!

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Answer 2

ManJor

Community Specialist

Feb 9, 2022 4:26 PM in response to DropDeadSuit

We appreciate the update, DropDeadSuit!

In that case, it sounds like the duplicates may be saved on your hard drive. To test this, we'd recommend selecting just one of the songs and creating a copy in a safe location. Once complete, delete the song that is saved to your hard drive and check to see if the duplicate still shows. If it doesn't, and you only see one copy of the song in your library, then you would be fine to delete any duplicates that you find using the article that we previously provided.

If you're not sure where your Music is stored on your hard drive, you can use Change where your music files are stored on Mac - Apple Support to see where the imported files are stored. This will help add peace of mind when deleting any songs from the other location.

Cheers!

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Answer 3

DropDeadSuit Author

Level 1

6 points

Feb 9, 2022 1:04 PM in response to ManJor

Thank you!

These duplicate songs appear on my iPhone (iOS 15.2.1) in Your Library mode. Same on my Macbook (MacOS 12.2). When I'm browsing on the online Apple Music selections I don't see the duplicates. This is happening on my iPhone even on albums that I haven't downloaded.

I do have Library Sync running.

Using the instructions from the 'Find Duplicate Items' post, it certainly seems like this has affected / is affecting my entire library. When I search for duplicates I get almost 23,000 results on MacOS Music. This was not occurring before I subscribed to Apple Music.

So ... do I have to manually go through all 23,000 tracks for this? And is there a way that I can ensure this process does not delete my MP3s from my MacOS hard drive / Music Library?

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Answer 4

DropDeadSuit Author

Level 1

6 points

Feb 9, 2022 7:12 PM in response to ManJor

I will say, looking at the list of duplicate songs on my MacOS Music, it does appear to be one copy located on the cloud and one copy that's on my hard drive. The copies on the hard drive are my original MP3 files from back in the iTunes days.

I absolutely do not want to delete the copies on my hard drive as those are the originals and in most cases are irreplaceable. This seems like an it's a cloud / library sync issue, no? Is there any other way to fix this?

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Answer 5

ManJor

Community Specialist

Feb 10, 2022 11:35 AM in response to DropDeadSuit

We understand.

In that case, we'd recommend reaching out to Apple directly using: Get Support They'd be the best hands possible to look into any iCloud syncing issues that you may be experiencing.

Have a great day!

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Duplicate Songs appear on Albums

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