How do I delete multiple duplicate songs in Itunes library

Hey RasmaGunars,

Thanks for the question. We have a great resource that will help you easily resolve the duplicate items in your library:

How to find and remove duplicate items in your iTunes library

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2905

1. Choose View > Show Duplicate Items 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 View > Show Exact Duplicate Items. This will show only duplicate songs having the same name, artist, and album.

2. Duplicate items will be sorted next to one another. Review each item to determine which one you'd like to remove from your library. You can compare the track length, date added, genre, play count, size, bit rate, and more to help you determine which item you'd like to keep and which item you'd like to remove.

3. To delete an item, click the item to select it. Then remove the duplicate item by choosing Edit > Delete.

4. When you are finished removing duplicate items from your library, click Show All Items at the bottom of the iTunes window.

If the duplicate items were all added at the same time:

- Sort the duplicate list by Date Added

- Highlight all duplicates

- Delete the highlighted items all at once.

Thanks,

Matt M.

Apple's official advice is here... HT2905 - How to 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.

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 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 for background 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)

tt2

I've got this issue...but my problem is that somehow my dupes point back to the very same album folder. If I delete a 'duplicate' it will actually delete the file itself.

Does anyone know how I can get iTunes to not show the library as having two of each track?

Delete the entry from the library, don't send the file to the recycle bin, then the file is still there for the original. My script aims to work out which type of dupes you have and clean up accordingly.

tt2

...I don't suppose you have this for OSX do you? If not, do you have any advice along those lines?

Thank you again for your advice

Try Dupin or Dupin Lite from Doug's Scripts,

tt2

What am I to do when "Show Duplicates" and "Show Exact Duplicates" is in gray and unable to be clicked on? I have seen several other people have the same problem as well.

Switch to the Songs view.

tt2

This seems to be the link from your mate Doug here

http://dougscripts.com/itunes/scripts/ss.php?sp=scanfordoubleentries