does itunes duplicate my music folder thereby taking twice the necessary disc space?

Check your iTunes setting:

If iTunes is set to "Copy files to the iTunes Music folder when adding to library," iTunes will copy all content that is added to the iTunes library to the iTunes Music folder.

And therefor iTunes creates a copy of your music files and leaves the original in place.

To adjust this setting or change the location of this folder, go to the Advanced tab in iTunes Preferences.

Stefan

Hi....so I also changed the option so my files are no longer copied each time, but is there a way to delete what has already been copied? And if I can remove the copies where are they located and how do I remove them?

Is your original folder still normal and intact. If so just trash the one with the dupes and recreate it.

I don't know. How do I tell which is the original and which is the duplicate?

The one with the duplicates would be twice as large.

I don't know a lot about computers. I guess what I am saying is where do I find these folders? Under music folder, system folder, etc?