Show duplicates in ITunes 11?

gr8sho wrote:

Hey, Thanks for mentioning "Show Exact Duplicate Items". I never knew this existed. Will help clear up some nagging issues with my library.

That was a little-known feature back when this duplicates utility was first introduced, glad it was resurrected.

I found the source of the problem where iTunes said I had a bunch of exact duplicates. Apparently my old protected AAC purchases are being reported as being available to re-download, while at the same time reporting these songs as duplicates of what I already have ... this has to be a bug with the duplicates query and/or the iCloud status of protected songs I purchased long ago (on the same account I use today if that's relevant).

I re-downloaded a few of these and they came down in the same protected 128kbps format, so there's no advantage to replacing the versions I already have. Oh well ...

I would be interested to know if the redownloaded tracks still show up as duplicates.

tt2

turingtest2 wrote:

I would be interested to know if the redownloaded tracks still show up as duplicates.

When I re-downloaded the songs from the cloud I kept my originals, so at that point I had real duplicates. I didn't want to delete my originals because of the work involved in transferring ratings and Comments in the tags.

I'll try deleting an original and replace it with a cloud version. It will be interesting to see if iTunes perpetuates the problem by saying again that my (new) local copy is a duplicate of the cloud version. I'll give that a shot in the coming days on some samples and report back.

rockmyplimsoul wrote:

When I re-downloaded the songs from the cloud I kept my originals, so at that point I had real duplicates. I didn't want to delete my originals because of the work involved in transferring ratings and Comments in the tags.

Ah yes, I'm well aware of that thorny issue which is why I created my script for the task (though it doesn't preserve comments in the current version). Also with identical details such as yours it would, I believe, try to keep the older one. Tweaking the playcount of a single track isn't too hard if you want to be able to restore the info for your test track. Sadly I have none that show up like that or I'd try the experiment myself.

tt2

OK, so I download the cloud copy of some of my old protected AAC files, transferred my ratings and comments (don't care about playcounts) and then deleted the originals. I re-ran the duplicates query and they did not come back as duplicates, nor do they show up as being eligible to be re-downloaded from the cloud, so this seems to work. Oddly enough, some of the re-downloaded songs from the cloud came back unprotected, but still at 128kbps.

At this point its not worth doing this exercise for all the affected songs, just an exercise in curiosity about how the duplicates query and cloud status are interacting.

Thanks. My guess is that purchased downloads now include some kind of separate ID that means they can be tracked across your libraries and devices. Older downloads won't match the scheme so appear as dupes. I suspect this is also part of the glue that makes iTunes Match work.

tt2

Easiest way: press ctrl + E then click view tab, display duplicates!

Ctrl + B perhaps? This thread was started because iTunes 11.0 didn't provide that feature. It was restored with iTunes 11.0.1. 😉

tt2

i will join those moaning about the loss of "show duplicates" and rejoicing about its return, but I am still having problems.

I'm only interested in files on my HDD, not in iCloud (I don't even use iCloud), but somewhere along the line it appears i have songs in iCloud.

So, when i "Show duplicates" it shows me files that are on my HDD AND in iCloud and it calls that a "duplicate." Well, that's not what i want. I only want to see files that are duplicated ON MY HDD.

I discovered the menu choice that says "hide/show music in the Cloud," but that doesn't help. when I "show duplicates" and say "hide music in the cloud," it still shows my the files on my HDD that have corresponding duplicates in the cloud.

All i want to see is what files are duplicated on my HDD -- is there a straightforward way to do this?

Use Edit > Preferences > Store and turn off Show iTunes in the Cloud purchases. Show duplicates should now be working with local files alone.

Note when your iTunes in the Cloud purchases are visible you should only see cloud links on those tracks not presently downloaded to your computer. I suggest you use Shift > Show Exact Duplicates to ensure you're not worrying about tracks that aren't really duplicates, but just share some details.

tt2

Bingo! That did it! Thanks very much.

You have to enable the Menu Bar from the tiny drop down menu in the top left corner. Then you will be able to have all of the features that were on the old itunes 🙂

Don't know why it worked this time - but I just

went to View

selected Show Duplicate items (although it was greyed out)

got a list of tracks (some were ticked some not)

deleted them all (thinking I could then start importing from scratch)

BUT this just left behind one copy of each track - no need to re-import or anything

The original question of, essentially, 'how do I indentify and remove duplicates' has now transformed into an additional question, namely 'who is the prat in Apple who removed this importnat facility?' !!

Maverick747 wrote:

The original question of, essentially, 'how do I indentify and remove duplicates' has now transformed into an additional question, namely 'who is the prat in Apple who removed this importnat facility?' !!

It was removed from the first one or two builds of iTunes 11 but was reinstated quite some time ago now... 😉

tt2