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

Ok, so it looks like what you said. They are not read only. Thank you for offering to make the archive folder. That would be awesome. I really appreciate all of the help.

You're welcome. 🙂

Nudge me if I haven't come back with a solution by Monday.

tt2

OK, try downloading a fresh copy of the script. Use Notepad++ or similar to edit the line that reads Archive=False to Archive=True. When the time comes to remove the files you will get an extra prompt asking you to confirm the media folder the tracks will be archived into. This would normally be the current media folder, e.g. ..\iTunes\iTunes Media and the script will typically move songs to ..\iTunes\iTunes Media\Archive\Music\<Artist>\<Album>\## <Name>.<Ext>. If should cope with media currently stored either inside or outside of the active media folder. If you have multiple duplicates currently stored on parallel paths the script will add trailing suffixes to avoid trying to give two archived files the same filename and should tidy up any loose artwork from a folder that has been emptied of media by deduping. (Note to self, add routine to delete orphaned art in recycle mode).

tt2

Thank you turningtest2,

I was able to edit the Archive to True. Are you saying that to delete the duplicates, I will go into the Archive folder to delete a bunch of albums at once?

Thank you!

Yes, hopefully if you now run the DeDuper script it will move all of the dupes to <Media Folder>\Archive without excessive prompting and clean up your library. You can then delete the folder <Media Folder>\Archive as one action in Windows Explorer.

tt2

Ok, the deduper did a great job! Everything worked. I synced my iPod, but the iPod is showing duplicate songs. I tried several things, deleted archived folder, tried resyncing, I even removed all of the songs from my iPod, but it's not removing them. I am pretty frustrated. Not with you. I guess my next option is redo the iPod like it's new? Any ideas of anything I missed?

If it is an iPod classic or nano, restore the device, then sync your selected playlists.

If it is an iPod touch the following steps usually work to clean things up.

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

You should probably copy off the contents of the camera roll first unless you have Photo Stream set up and it reliably captures everything. It also assumes that all media content on the device is in your library. If that might not be the case see Recover your iTunes library from your iPod or iOS device.

iOS devices may also list your cloud purchases. In some circumstances the device may list a downloaded copy imported from your library and a copy from the cloud, or it may show your copy with the original store metadata instead of any changes you have made. If this is an issue make this change on the device:

Settings > Music > Show All Music > Off

If you have any issues with the same artist or album appearing multiple times in any listing see Grouping tracks into albums.

tt2

This is interesting. I can sync my apps, but my music won't syn. I no longer see dups of the songs on the itouch so that is fixed. Trying not to restore the itouch to original. I wonder if there is something I don't have checked off that I should?

The three steps done in sequence should sort things out. It is also probably a good idea to do this every few months so that you have more than one backup point for recovery. As a rule there is only one rolling backup, but it gets archived when you restore and a new rolling backup is created.

tt2

I was going through my library and choosing 1/2 the songs and deleting. Then, I tried to play some of the single songs left and got a msg: the original file was gone. So I reinstalled all the deleted songs. If I use this script, am I going to have the same problem?

Please heed the advice to backup first, but no you shouldn't have that problem if you use my script. It works out if two entries in the library refer to a single file and in such cases removes one of the entries and doesn't delete the file.

tt2