Finder/iTunes Music Copies

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Finder/iTunes Music Copies

I was clearing out my hard drive to make room for some Steam games when I noticed in the breakdown of storage that my music had ballooned massively, seeing as all of my songs are also on my iPhone and only take up 20GB.

Upon investigation I found that there were two and sometimes three copies of a lot of songs, one in my music folder, one in my iTunes library. These are songs that I've been ripping off CDs due to their unavailability on iTunes (and simply because I don't want to pay for them again), so the issue must have arisen when I imported the folders into iTunes.

Does anyone know a quick fix that doesn't involve me clicking on every single copy and deleting it or alternatively a setting I can change in either iTunes or finder to stop it happening again? I don't mind where the song is so long as there's only one copy and I can play it via iTunes.

MacBook Pro (Retina, 13-inch, Mid 2014), iOS 8.4, null

Posted on Jul 3, 2015 6:20 AM

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Answer 1

Limnos

Level 10

411,169 points

Jul 3, 2015 6:44 AM in response to Quiznor

"Organize" your library. iTunes 12 for Mac: Change where your iTunes files are stored - http://support.apple.com/kb/PH19507 This will make sure everything iTunes has in its library file (.itl) list has copies of the files to which it points in the place designated for the Media folder (usually also in the iTunes folder). In theory everything outside the so-designated Media folder can then be deleted, though the prudent would do a complete computer backup first and keep the backup for a few weeks just to make sure you don't get any surprises when playing your collection. There isn't any magic button which will clear any music files outside this media folder so this is the only bulk way of doing this. Of course if any of those files are not in the iTunes library and you delete them... That's why you back up first. 🙂

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Answer 2

Quiznor Author

Level 1

0 points

Jul 3, 2015 7:12 AM in response to Limnos

Thanks for the advice, turns out there were far fewer copies than I thought and my music library is actually around 35GB. Might be time to have a little clear out of that as well 😁

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