Content

• To step
• Method 1 of 2: Using iTunes
• Method 2 of 2: Using a different program

Do you find yourself constantly putting the same music tracks on your iPod? If you click "Next", will the song play again? If so, then you have a problem with duplicate files. Fortunately, this is easy to fix. Follow this guide to clean up duplicate files in iTunes, or use a separate program or script to delete them automatically.

To step

Method 1 of 2: Using iTunes

1. Open the Music Library in iTunes. Press Alt (Windows 7 & 8), Shift (earlier versions of Windows), or the Option key (Mac) and click the "View" menu. Select "Show exact duplicate parts". This will change the song list to a list of all duplicate songs on your computer. These are songs with the same titles, artists and albums.
   • If you don't hold down the Shift or Option key, you will see the default option "Show duplicate items". This one shows duplicate tracks based on the song title, but doesn't differentiate between albums. This means that new recordings and live versions are often marked as duplicates but are not.
   • Make sure you have the latest version of iTunes.
   • The "Show Exact Duplicate Items" option may be in the file menu on older versions of iTunes, instead of the "View menu."
2. Sort the list of duplicate items. If your list of duplicates is long, it is nice to sort them before you start deleting songs. This makes it easier to determine which duplicates to keep and which to remove.
   • Sorting by "Added" allows you to delete older versions.
3. Remove the duplicates. After sorting, select a group of songs you want to delete using Shift. The whole group will be deleted. Press the Delete key on the keyboard to delete the songs from the library.

Method 2 of 2: Using a different program

1. Find a script to remove duplicate numbers. There are several popular options for both Windows and Mac, although not free. The most popular are:
   • Dupin Lite (OS X)
   • DeDuper (Windows)
2. Use DeDuper for Windows. Open the list of duplicate songs in iTunes. If you are using DeDuper, you will first need to open the list of duplicate songs in iTunes. You do this by clicking "View" and then "Show Duplicate Items." Select the list of duplicate numbers.
   • Run the script. Double-click the downloaded VBS file. All duplicate numbers are removed so that only 1 unique version remains. The songs marked "Played" and "Skipped" are merged, keeping the best rating.
   • Deleted files are placed in the Recycle Bin, in case you want to restore them.
   • The script takes a while to complete the task, especially with larger files.
   • The largest duplicate is kept; this is probably also the number of the best quality.
3. Use Dupin Lite for Mac OS X. Run the program Dupin Lite. In the top left corner, select the library in which you want to search for duplicates.
   • Select the criteria according to which Dupin Lite compares duplicate numbers.
   • Click on "Filter" to find out which copy you want to keep on your computer. You can keep the oldest, most played, best quality or a song with a different characteristic.
   • Click on the "Get Dupes" button and a list of all duplicate songs will appear. The checked tracks are kept and checked according to the settings of the Filter. The rest can be removed.