Itunes has duplicated my entire library is there a way to restoring it

Hi there,

Here is my current boilerplate post for duplicates in iTunes for Windows:

iTunes may create duplicates if the same content is repeatedly added from outside the media folder when it is set to make copies of anything that is added to the library, or is added from an external drive that hosts the media folder that was offline when iTunes was launched.

Apple's official advice on duplicates is here: 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.

Start in the Songs view. Use View > Show Duplicate Items (pre iTunes 12.4) or File > Library > Show Duplicate Items (post 12.4) and then click Same Album to display exact 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 for background on the script, 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.

The first link in the highlighted section takes you to the genesis of the deduper script where I cover the potential pitfalls when deduping. Your case 1 is what I call logical duplicates, and case 2 what I call physical. My script analyzes the library to determine which kinds of duplicates you have and in each case takes the appropriate steps to delete the unwanted entries while retaining one physical copy of the file and preserving information such as ratings, play counts and playlist membership that might be lost if you simply selected one of the files to remove and kept the other.

The second link should give you an idea of how the script works. After deduping your album folders should each contain only one copy of each track. This will normally be the one without the trailing 2 or 3, but you can turn Keep organized off, and then back on again, to force iTunes to tidy up the file names if required.

I'm not quite sure what your starting position was, but you mentioned having content in three folders. You might care to review my Make a split library portable tip which covers some issues with library organization.

Reimporting the library from your iPod is possible, but wouldn't be the way I would go. See Recover your iTunes library from your iPod or iOS device for details.

tt2

Hello!

I was reading your posts yesterday and, when i saw the screenshot of duplicates in Windows Explorer, i was in awe cause i have this exact problem!

I have been organising for the billionth time my iTunes Library and just yesterday i saw that i had not unchecked the box "Keep my iTunes Media Folder Organised", and as a result i saw that my Library had been divided into three different folders, while some other ones (whose i had deleted just the duplicates) had disappeared from my laptop. I put them again back together, restoring also the ones from Recycling Bin, and now i can see that more than half of my Library is duplicate songs. I have done the process before, but the problem is that now [CASE 1] some duplicate songs are duplicates only in the Library (meaning that they are both connected to the SAME song in the Media Folder while they both play! -- so if i delete any of them and delete also the song in the folder, i cannot have the song in my laptop), while [CASE 2] others are duplicates in the Library AND in Windows (meaning that there can be two songs with the same name in the Library but checking the location of these two songs someone can see that they are connected to two different songs: one with the exact same name of the song, and one with the name of the song with the extension "2" or "3", so we are talking about clones -- i think i did this cause i tried ti import one part of my devided Library through iTunes). I do not know how to deal with CASE 1 (cause if i delete a duplicate song from the Library, i have to keep the song in the Folder, or else it does not play), or CASE 2 (cause i cannot know which songs are connected to a close song and which ones belong to CASE 1. I am really considering making a new Library from scratch importing the songs from iPod, but i do not know the problems or the possible losses to this.

Any kind of help would be appreciated.

Thanks

Since you've got a thread of your own running it is probably easiest if we continue there.

tt2

Do the duplicates show in the library or only on the hard drive? If they are only on the drive then you would need to scan the media folder adding everything to the library before the following method can be used to clean up.

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.

tt2

To be clear the question I'm asking is do you see duplicates in iTunes:

Or Windows Explorer:

Or both?

As long as you see them in iTunes (which is what I think you're saying) then my script should be able to help you clear up.

tt2

Start here: Re: how to delete duplicated songs all at one time?

Feel free to ask questions.

tt2

Actually if the tracks are definitely not duplicated in Windows Explorer then perhaps reverting to a previous iTunes library as described in Empty/corrupt iTunes library after upgrade/crash would be easier.

tt2

My tracks are duplicated in Windows Explorer and not in iTunes. They are duplicated on my iPad when synced. .

Any ideas? Deleting them is getting old.

Thanks!

I think this happened when I consolidated an already consolidated library. I must have done it 3 times because each track is listed 4 times.

nomt2hi wrote:

My tracks are duplicated in Windows Explorer and not in iTunes. They are duplicated on my iPad when synced. .

Any ideas? Deleting them is getting old.

Thanks!

Add the contents of the media folder into the library. Dedupe as shown above.

Generally if syncing doesn't work as expected take the following steps:

1. Backup device.
2. Restore as a new device.
3. Restore the backup made earlier.

This assumes all content on the device is in your library. If that isn't the case see Recover your iTunes library from your iPod or iOS device.

tt2

Hi TT2,

When I try your script, iTunes asks me with every song whether I want to maintain it in the cloud (I have 12.1). This makes it still a manual process. How do I avoid that?

CDIII

Hmm, that's a new one. 😮

Assuming these are showing with the cloud symbol then I probably need to revisit the code. I thought I'd made the script ignore those. Edit > Preferences > Store > Show iTunes in the Cloud purchases > Off should fix it at your end. Also turn off iTunes Match if you have that.

If that isn't the issue have you managed to import duplicate copies of your purchases? I may need to investigate further and attempt to replicate your set up.

tt2

Wait - changing that setting seems to have fixed it. Thank you!