How do I get back "duplicate" files that weren't really duplicates?

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Level 1

53 points

How do I get back "duplicate" files that weren't really duplicates?

I found that my MacBook Pro had duplicated many, many song files when I xferred iTunes to my Mac when it was new. Well, 3 years later I finally decided the duplicate were taking too much space. I did a search for every file with an .M4p.1 (I think that was it) and found several hundred duplicates. I checked about 5 to be sure they were actually duped and satisfied I had assured I wasn't deleting single music files, I deleted a few hundred song files. And of course, now a bunch of songs I listen to regularly are missing.

Since Apple can't tell me why files appeared to be duplicates when they were not, can anyone tell me how to go back to the previous version with all the stupid "duplicates?"

Thanks.

MBP, Mac OS X (10.5.4), 2.5G Core 2 Duo

Posted on Feb 12, 2016 1:30 PM

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Answer 1

Limnos

Level 10

411,175 points

Feb 12, 2016 2:46 PM in response to Scott Craig

Use the backup you made before undertaking this kind of task.

Duplicate sorting in iTunes is based upon similar artist and track names, unless you use exact duplicates in which case it includes albums. Realize that if you do regular sorting and a track appears on different albums it will be detected as a duplicate. I even have a few albums where the same track appears twice and will be picked up as a duplicates. That is why duplicate deletion is best done manually, one by one.

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Answer 2

Scott Craig Author

Level 1

53 points

Feb 12, 2016 7:42 PM in response to Limnos

I had DOZENS of duplicates and they were not nearly enough to constitute "live album" or "greatest hits" tracks.

I don't know how I got so many, but they showed up when I moved iTunes to this Mac from my old one in 2012. And it was clearly too many to delete one-by-one.

I had duplicates and now I have huge gaps where none should be. Might just be time to tell iTunes I'm done. The volume levels in iTunes suck pretty bad anyway -- even stuff I have purchased thru the Apple store. Nothing is at the same volume and you can't make any adjustments other than dicking around with the volume on every stupid song.

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Answer 3

turingtest2

Level 10

272,743 points

Feb 13, 2016 4:47 AM in response to Scott Craig

First you need to reverse your actions. Restore a backup if you have one or try to find a suitable undelete application that may be able to restore any of the deleted files where the data hasn't yet been overwritten.

In iTunes the Show Exact Duplicates feature is more useful than Show Duplicates, however both features show all copies of any matching files, rather than the extra copies. Care has to be taken over exactly which entires you delete. In some cases multiple entries in the database can point to the same physical file, so care needs to be taken not to delete the one real copy of a track.

Once you've recovered the media and added it back to the library (or restored an older build of your database), and made a backup if you don't already have one, you could try Dupin or Dupin Lite 2 from http://dougscripts.com/ for cleaning the duplicates. I haven't personally tested either application but I would hope that they are both able to do a decent job. Over in Windows I have a script that takes into account the various different ways in which duplicates can be created, and cleans up in such a way as to preserve the best copy of each set of duplicates, merging highest rating, play counts, and playlist membership to the remaining file.

tt2

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