how to delete duplicated songs all at one time?

Again this is where I think I'm missing the point. I want all my media stored on my local hard drive and with all my OCD tag edits. A cloud service where I could stream/download to other computers/devices on demand might have a certain appeal were I able to take advantage of it and thought it value for money, but I wouldn't ever delete my copies of my songs. I'm too conscious of the risk that something wouldn't be stored exactly the way I have it, and I certainly wouldn't want to eat my bandwidth uploading all my files.

As to respawning playlists I was referring to this issue: After turning on iCloud/iTunes match, my playlist was duplicated 2000 times

tt2

Read this post towards the start of this thread. If it is clear that your duplicates are either all logical duplicates or are all physical duplicates then this section...

If all the duplicates have recently been added into your library then you could sort the list on the date added column, select a range of tracks with SHIFT-click and delete all the recent entries.

Gives you a quick solution. For logical duplicates do not delete the files, for physical duplicates do. If you're not sure what I'm talking about then read the post.

If things are more complicated then use the DeDuper script.

Whatever approach you take, please backup before you start so that, if something goes wrong, you can restore the current state of the library,

tt2

Thank you for the feedback. 🙂

A while back I decided to commit to iTunes and imported whatever WMA I had into iTunes. WMP doesn't expose a programming interface like iTunes, but if you have them share a common media folder then any tidying you do with iTunes can be picked up automatically by WMP. Just make sure iTunes is in charge. See my post on Getting iTunes & Windows Media Player to play nicely for details.

tt2

From the top of the scripts page...

The general method of use is to download the script to a folder of your choice, e.g. your Desktop, Downloads folder or create a folder at ...\iTunes\Scripts. Select a playlist or highlight some tracks in iTunes and then double-click on the script to execute it. If no specific tracks are selected the script will try to work with all tracks in the current playlist. Some scripts offer a choice of track by track confirmation of changes or fully automatic processing of the selection. Many of the scripts can optionally display a progress bar while running.

You are strongly advised to backup your entire library, or at the very least the iTunes Library.itl file, before use. Test the behaviour of your chosen script on a small group of files first to make sure it does what you want before applying it to large numbers of files.

In short, you run the script from Windows Explorer by double-clicking on it. If nothing happens at all then there is a possibility your AV package is silently blocking access, though usually they like to brag.

tt2

The general method of use is to download the script to a folder of your choice, e.g. your Desktop, Downloads folder or create a folder at ...\iTunes\Scripts. Select a playlist or highlight some tracks in iTunes and then double-click on the script to execute it. If no specific tracks are selected the script will try to work with all tracks in the current playlist. Some scripts offer a choice of track by track confirmation of changes or fully automatic processing of the selection. Many of the scripts can optionally display a progress bar while running.

You are strongly advised to backup your entire library, or at the very least the iTunes Library.itl file, before use. Test the behaviour of your chosen script on a small group of files first to make sure it does what you want before applying it to large numbers of files.

Most builds of Windows will execute *.vbs scripts when you double-click them. If that doesn't happen then you might need to visit the Add/Remove Programs or Programs & Features control panel to enable the Windows Scripting Host. I can track down details if you have issues.

tt2

Follow this link to the download page for the DeDuper script, right-click on the script name there and "download" or "save as" to your downloads folder, desktop or other location of your choice. Double click to run. Please take note of the warning to backup your library before deduping. Take a look a the first page of this thread for background.

tt2

These are probably what I refer to as type 1 or logical duplicates back on page 1 of this thread. The other possibilty is that there are two different paths that refer to the same file, which can happen with mapped drives or folder redirection, and you've added both paths to the library. My DeDuper script handles the first case properly, but not the second as yet.

tt2

Select a sample duplicate and look at Get Info > Summary tab. Check the location, then use Next/Previous to look at the next matching duplicate. If both have the same location (ignore case differences) then these are logical dupes and my script should be safe to use. If not then the current version of the script is not safe. In either case you should not really run the script until you have a backup of the current state of your library.

tt2

Well done, and interesting indeed. The constuction \,, in a file path means "parent of" the current folder, so having drilled down to Playlists the path then pops back up to D:\ before going down again into D:\Shared\Music\Etc. I wonder how iTunes managed to end up using this format rather than an absolute path?

You might want to take a look at my post make a split library portable at some point.

tt2

L-Kent wrote:

turingtest2,

I am amazed at your knowledge and your willingness to share it!!

I am encountering the error below when I run DeDuper. Any suggestions?

This looks like a problem someone else had back here. We never did get to the bottom of it, but it seemed that working with smaller chunks of the Exact Dupliactes enabled him to finish the task.

My apologies if you have addressed this already and I just missed it when going through the previous posts.

There are a few aren't there? 😝

tt2

Faux-Pas wrote:

Weird! ever since I consolidated (thank you for your help, again, you're my hero), it won't let me dedupe!

(newest iTunes, newest Deduper, Windows 8.1) -

keeps giving me the info "There was a problem deleting the file ..." within the iTunes Media folder, ending with a 1 or 2, thus an exact duplicate. the script works fine, only the deleting part is somehow not working. will go back and read the 18 pages I missed since last time, maybe you've already answered that question. 🙂

What happens if you try to delete the same file yourself via Windows Explorer? It might be a permissions issue. See Repair security permissions for iTunes for Windows for details.

Otherwise you could try the non-recycling option as described above to see if that works without error.

tt2

With your selection of 25 tracks in a songs or list view expose the Kind column. Any streams in there? The script cannot process these and they should be excluded but I haven't got around to it doing it automatically in the script yet. If the bulk of your library has become streams rather than direct file links we could investigate ways to fix that.

Otherwise see Repair security permissions for iTunes for Windows. Ostensibly the error says you're not allowed to change details of the track (even those only stored in the iTunes database 😕).

tt2

I can't think of a good reason for it not to work then. Try the second box in Troubleshooting issues with iTunes for Windows updates and tear everything out then reinstall. I don't know of a magic command that just registers the iTunes automation server.

tt2

Yes, show duplicates shows all matching files, so you need to keep one of them. This is my standard post on the topic.

Duplicates in iTunes are usually the result of reimporting content located outside of the media folder when your settings allow for imported songs to be copied into the media folder. iTunes doesn't keep a record of the external paths, so if you add the same folder twice you get two copies.

Apple's official advice on duplicates is here as given above: Find and remove duplicate items in your iTunes library. It is a manual process and the article fails to explain some of the potential pitfalls such as lost ratings and playlist membership, or that sometimes the same file can be represented by multiple entries in the library and that deleting one and recycling the file will break any others.

Use Shift > View > Show Exact Duplicate Items to display duplicates as this is normally a more useful selection. You need to manually select all but one of each group to remove. Sorting the list by Date Added may make it easier to select the appropriate tracks, however this works best when performed immediately after the dupes have been created. If you have multiple entries in iTunes connected to the same file on the hard drive then don't send to the recycle bin.

Use my DeDuper script (Windows only) if you're not sure, don't want to do it by hand, or want to preserve ratings, play counts and playlist membership. See this thread (this thread) for background, this post for detailed instructions, and please take note of the warning to backup your library before deduping.

(If you don't see the menu bar press ALT to show it temporarily or CTRL+B to keep it displayed.)

The most recent version of the script can tidy dead links as long as there is at least one live duplicate to merge stats and playlist membership to, and should cope sensibly when the same file has been added via multiple paths.

tt2

Take a look at one of my recent posts on How to remove duplicate songs, it sounds like you are describing what I refer to as logical duplicates where two or more entries in the library point to the same file. Deleting one of the entries and its file breaks the others.

SeeRecover your iTunes library from your iPod or iOS device for tips on securing the content stored on your iPhone.

Whatever approach you take to duplicates you should start with a backup so that you can recover if you get too enthusiastic.

tt2