If you have a large iTunes library it’s really easy
to inadvertently gather duplicate songs. Thankfully cleaning up and removing
the duplicates from the iTunes song library is really easy, here’s how to do
it:
Removing Duplicate Songs from iTunes
* Within iTunes open the ‘File’ menu
* Navigate down to ‘Show Duplicates’ (see below screenshot)
* iTunes will now show what it thinks are duplicates
* Navigate down to ‘Show Duplicates’ (see below screenshot)
* iTunes will now show what it thinks are duplicates
This method does not always work though to find
true duplicates of songs and will sometimes give you songs that are just very
similar in name or artist, so you may want to try this instead:
Remove Exact Duplicates from iTunes Song
Library
* Hold down the Option / ALT key
* Navigate to “File” menu
* Click on ‘Show Exact Duplicates’
* Now iTunes will display ONLY the exact duplicates (see screenshot)
* Navigate to “File” menu
* Click on ‘Show Exact Duplicates’
* Now iTunes will display ONLY the exact duplicates (see screenshot)
This list shows you the songs that iTunes thinks are
duplicates, so do not delete everything in the list or else you may delete the
original song that you want to keep. iTunes isn’t perfect in detecting
duplicates either, it looks like it bases most of the detection on song,
artist, and album names, so if you have
two songs named the exact same thing but they are different iTunes will likely
think it is a duplicate.
After you have cleaned up your duplicate songs,
you can get the iTunes library looking like normal again by clicking the ‘Show
All’ button that is highlighted in the above screenshot, or simply navigate
back to the ‘File’ menu and click on ‘Show All’ where “Show Duplicates” once
was.
Posts
