5-10 copies of all my songs!

Hey Janshere,

Thanks for the question. When resolving duplicate items in iTunes, I find that the information outlined in the following article provides the best procedure. If all of the duplicate items were imported into your library on the same date, you can use the “Date Added” column to sort the items, then select the entire group of duplicates (click on first, shift-click on last).

How to find and remove duplicate items in your iTunes library

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

Once you have resolved the duplicate items in your iTunes library, you can then sync your iPhone and the changes should appear.

Thanks,

Matt M.

As above, Apple's official advice on duplicates 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 such as lost ratings and playlist membership.

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, 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.

You may also find my FindTracks script useful if there are broken links remaining in the library after deduping which have the potential to be repaired. Alternatively iTunes Folder Watch with its option to Check for dead tracks on startup can be used to remove any broken links.

tt2