how to get iTunes to check/not add duplicates before adding items from folders

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Level 1

8 points

how to get iTunes to check/not add duplicates before adding items from folders

I was adding a large folder of media to iTunes because some how I screwed up and iTunes could not find the file links for most of my music (thousands of recordings). The screwup seems to have occurred when my music external drive failed and I tried to restore from a backup--not time capsule. Because of all the duplicates, my list has grown to over 45Gig.

While using File/Add to library I got a message there was not enough space but iTunes would add what it could. I have now cleaned up my hard drive and have more space. How do I:

1. Get iTunes to check to see if there is enough space before it starts adding things?

2. Get iTunes to not duplicate the files already added? I know a bunch is missing because I have all the Beatles music but none shows up.

3. Is there anyway to merge the media data in the folders??

4. An easy way to delete duplicates--I now seem to have thousands?

I have come to hate both iTunes and iPhoto because there doesn't seem to be a conversion to a windows app so I am held hostage. I only have 1 mac left and have moved to Windows machines.

Also, is there any way beyond one at a time to eliminate duplicates? It seems like this would not be that uncommon of a problem.

Thanks,

Billie

MacBook Pro, Mac OS X (10.7.5)

Posted on Aug 21, 2015 5:31 PM

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Answer 1

Limnos

Level 10

411,097 points

Aug 22, 2015 9:47 AM in response to billiebog

1. Not that I know of.

2. No. You add a single file 20 times and you end up with 20 entries all pointing to the same file.

3. I'm don't really know what you mean by this.

4. There's many methods to eliminate duplicates, the question is do you trust them? Sometimes what appears as a duplicate isn't really. There's also different kinds of duplicates. I think one of the Neil Young albums has two tracks with identical artist and name (one is unplugged). Would you want that detected as a duplicate? What about two copies of a track but at two different bitrates?

How to find and remove duplicate items in your iTunes library - http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2905

Posts by turingtest2 about different types of duplicates and techniques - https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3555601 and https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3293239?answerId=16042406022#16042406022 (Note: The DeDuper script is for Windows).

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

http://dougscripts.com/itunes/itinfo/dupin.php (commercial) There are other similar tools, particularly a much earlier version of this package called "Corral iTunes Duplicates", which I am sure a general web search would reveal.

Your better approach would have been to try to determine why your links broke and to repair those.

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