how to delete duplicated songs all at one time?

Your DeDuper script is stellar! Thanks for putting it out there.

I do have an issue though. I select display exact duplicates and itunes shows 1948 songs out of 17123 that I have stored total. I select all the tracks, and run DeDuper using "Process tracks automatically", which comes back with 53 physical duplicates and 932 alternate duplicates. I press "Yes" in the script to delete automatically, but Itunes pops up with a warning "Are you sure you want to delete this copy of the selected item?" with an option to also hide this item in iCloud. I select "Delete Item", the file deletes, and then it pops up again for the next file. Surely I don't have to click this dialog 932 times. I've tried to find a way to turn off the confirmation but have not been successful. Any ideas?

I unticked "Show Itunes in the Cloud purchases", and also tried "Hide Music in the Cloud" under the view menu, but I still get the dialog. Regardless, your script still makes it SO much easier. I might just relent and start clicking away at itunes dialog this weekend with a cold beverage.

Hmm, may help to close & reopen iTunes. Would you have ripped something you once purchased at better quality from CD? I suspect you're only getting that prompt from purchased/protected tracks that appear as dupes, but of course if that is most of them then that's a drag.

tt2

Yeah - I rebooted the machine after the change. Its no biggie really. I can click the dialog 900+ times sometime this weekend. Its definitely not something caused by your script. If it matters I'm using itunes 11.0.2.25 under win7 x64.

I'm not going to uninstall and reinstall just to get itunes to behave like it should on just these boxes. It is what it is for some reason. icloud is running in the tray but i don't think that would have anything to do with it. No worries - thanks for the excellent script!

Well the only thing I can think of is that you've managed to download your purchases more than once or somehow physically copied and reimported them into your library. I'd have to run some tests which I'm not set up to do where I am now, but there may be a faster way to eliminate those by showing only purchased tracks in a smart playlist, sorting on date added, and then shift-deleting the more recent imports. (As long as you don't need the playlist/playcount merging features of the script).

tt2

What version of Windows? Is the Windows Scripting Host installed and enabled?

http://www.ehow.co.uk/how_8392805_enable-script-host-windows-7.html

If you're still having trouble could you post a screen shot of the error message?

tt2

Hi TT2,

I'm getting an error just before the delete stage.

Line: 375

Char: 39

Error: Object required: 'T'

Code: 800A01A8

Source Microsoft VBScript runtime error

OS is a fully up to Windows 7 SP2

iTunes version is 11.0.2.26, I'm just updating to 11.0.3 to see if that works (however I never find iTunes updates to be particularly reliable)

any ideas on what the problem could be? or what software I can use to debug the script? (I get the feeling that this is an obvious question but please humor me)

Thanks!

The current version doesn't cope if the source playlist has multiple references to the same track. This shouldn't happen if you've started with the Songs view and then use Shift > View > Show Duplicate Items, but if you've prepared a playlist elsewhere and dragged suspect dupes into it for sorting later that could be why. I'm scratching my head for other possible reasons just now but if that's not it let me know and I'm sure I can track it down.

Or better yet finish off the next version. 😉

tt2

thanks tt2

I've just run it again after only selecting whats shown when I view exact duplicates as I was previously running it with all duplicates, and all songs.

However I'm still getting the same crash, so its crashing on all possible combinations of tracks: "All Songs", "Duplicates" and "Exact Duplicates".

I am asking it to only delete true duplicates ("no" on the final confirmation dialogue) could this have something to do with it?

Thanks for your support!

No the choice isn't a problem. Have I mentioned turning off iTunes in the cloud yet?

Use View > Hide <Media Kind> in the cloud or Edit > Preferences > Store and untickShow iTunes in the cloud purchases to hide the cloud items.

I've really got to find some time to update all my scripts to account for cloudy items. Been snowed under at work lately but let me know if that makes any difference. If not I'll see what else I can come up with.

tt2

I've just had a thought, would it be possible to modify the script so instead of deleting the dupliates it moves the tracks that it would have normally deleted into a separate playlist? Then I can simply delete them by hand.

That's probably a good idea... I've been pressed for time lately so I haven't had a chance to do any testing so see if I can work out was going on but adding to a playlist should be feasible. I'll try to work on it tonight.

tt2

Hi TT2 -

I'm running Windows 8 and iTunes 11 and used your script to create the ExactDuplicates playlist, which worked perfectly. I then selected the files in the playlist and ran the DeDuper script. It runs, but doesn't detect any duplicates "No duplicates were found from the xx (where xx is the number of tracks I have selected) processed tracks: No duplicates were removed." I've done this with the source being the Exact Duplicates playlist and the show exact duplicates items list. I have amlost 13,000 duplicates so I'm hoping to avoid doing this manually. Any ideas what's going on?

Thanks!

Hmm. Just fired up a test library, deliberately created the three types of dupes the script is able to find, and it clears them perfectly. I'm running iTunes 11.0.3.42 on 32-bit versions of Windows 7 & XP. I don't have access to a Windows 8 system as yet but perhaps I can set up a trial virtual machine.

I had hoped to work on the "make a playlist of the dupes" version last night but work intervened. Perhaps I can make time today. In the meantime it might be worth testing what happens if, having revealled the exact duplicates, you then narrow down to a single artist using the search box (click the magnifying glass and untick "Search entire library") and run the script on the smaller selection.

tt2

A bit of testing later, it looks to me as though the problem is when you are trying to de-dupe large number sof tracks. Works fine with 999 selected items, any more and it fails. I'm currently trying to find the exact threshold.

Erm.. just did a few more (the last two tests) that have disproved the above theory. I hope the tests are of some use.

Tests are below.

28 Duplicates from 112 Selected Items

28 Physical

No Problems

954 from 2251

798 Physical

156 Alternate

- 'No' - Delete all but alternate dupes

- Failed.

Line: 375

Char: 39

Error: Object Required: 'T'

Code: 800A01A8

114 from 245

108 Physical

6 Alternate

- 'No'

- Success

108 Deleted

6 Skipped

375 from 856

301 Physical

74 Alt

- 'No'

- Success

301 Removed

74 Skipped

416 from 1110

333 Physical

74 Alt

- 'No'

- Failed - error as before

423 from 1000

336 Physical

85 Alt

- 'No'

- Success

416 from 1037

321Physical

95 Alt

- 'No'

- Failed

253 from 1346

201 Physical

52 Alt

- 'No'

- Success