Delete Duplicate iTunes songs?

Try this 🙂

How to find and remove duplicate items in your iTunes library

However, the Apple KBase seems to be experiencing some issues right now, perhaps try later.

Would sorting by Dated Added help at all in this instance? If all else fails, there's this: http://dougscripts.com/itunes/itinfo/dupinlite.php

If it's the article I found earlier (I don't know for sure because KB is down) when I was having the same problem then it doesn't work for libraries imported in one go, because it relies on using 'Date Added' to distinguish between the duplicates.

My problem was down to having playlist files for each album, assuming your problem is the same, then in the end I just deleted the whole library, trashed any playlists from the folders (use finder to find all .m3u files), then import files to the library, put back the .m3u files from trash.

I still have access to KBase 🙂

Summary

You may sometimes see an item displayed more than once in your iTunes library. To find and remove all items that show up more than once in your library, follow the steps below.

Products Affected

iTunes 9, iTunes 8 for Mac, iTunes 7 for Windows, iTunes 8 for Windows, iTunes 7 for Mac OS X

1. Choose File > Display Duplicates to show duplicate items (matches are based on the song name and artist). If you have multiple versions of the same song (for example, live and studio versions, or versions from different albums) you can hold the Alt or Option key (for Mac OS X) or the Shift key (for Windows) and choose File > Display Exact Duplicates. This will show only duplicate songs having the same name, artist, and album.

2. Sort by the date you added the song to iTunes by clicking the Date Added column.

3. To delete the older items: click on the item with the oldest date, hold down the Shift key, and click on the older item next to the most current date. Then delete the duplicate items by choosing Edit > Delete.

Note: If you have the same content synced with another computer, you will need to make sure that you replace the older content with the newer content in your library.

Hi, you can always follow the steps to remove duplicate items from your library.

how to find and remove duplicate items in your itunes library

http://support.apple.com/kb/ht2905

Cheers 🙂

That's the article that I provided twice above 😀

Yep, it's the one I was thinking of, it won't work for the OP as they imported their library in one go so the 'Date Added' field can't be used to distinguish between duplicates. The conclusion I came to was it's either a matter of going through track by track, buying a paid app (somebody posted one above), or deleting the library and starting again.

In case anyone is still searching the web for a quick FREE easy way to accomplish deleting duplicates in the event you either dragged the same albums into your iTunes folder OR you imported using .m3u's, and you cannot delete using the Date Sort Method, simply open up a finder window and navigate to your iTunes folder, search for "1.mp3" and this will return results for all the duplicate named files in your entire folder since iTunes does nothing more than rename the file the original name plus a 1 or 2+(if you have more than 1 dupe). Make sure you dont have track names that end with 1.mp3 2.mp3, etc. (I had none). Good luck, hope this helps someone else out. Saved me from sorting through 1,600+ files.

(example: greatsong.mp3 gets renamed

greatsong1.mp3

greatsong2.mp3(if it was duped twice, and so on))

Perhaps this thread will prove useful.

tt2

I tried the software that auotmates it for you, it also cleans up your iTunes library for you automatically..

I found it at a website called tunescleanup.com... I liked it, and it seemed to do the trick just fine to me..

Doing this job manually just *****.. Why anyone would want to spend tons of time trying to do this manually is beyond me.. Specially when you can have it done automatically...

I suspect the OP got sorted out, it was nearly a year ago after all... There's also the free script I wrote called DeDuper whose genesis is described in this thread and which is designed not be too radical with your library.

tt2

@DCGoD, this is the way I wish I had thought of first! Much easier than running some secondary program!!

So after you cull the files by searching and deleting you will be left with a whole bunch of broken links in iTunes. Do you delete these by hand, trash & reimport your library or run a secondary program for that task? How is that easier than using a single tool designed for the job?

tt2

Because if I'm going to delete a bunch of files, I want to be the one doing it instead of a program. What if something goes wrong (or it flat out just doesn't work)? The proposed method is easy and requires no additional programs...you can accomplish what you need to do using the tools that are already available to you on your computer.

If these other programs work, are free and easy to use then I'd say go for it...typing "1.mp3" into finder is just one other option.

And yes, I simply imported the new files...I cooked dinner while they were reimporting so it was finished before I even noticed :)

juicebox_jackson wrote:

Because if I'm going to delete a bunch of files, I want to be the one doing it instead of a program.

Fair enough. But deleting & reimporting isn't a solution for everyone as it loses playlists, ratings & other metadata.

FWIW my script is free, easy to use and moves any deleted files to the recycle bin so that they can be recovered if you change your mind. The current version only deletes logical dupes (two pointers to the same file) and physical dupes, files that have exactly the same track information & file size. I wrote it precisely because I couldn't be sure the other programs I could find would reliably remove only the files that I consider to be dupes suitable for automatic removal.

tt2