Duplicates in Music Folder

Due to some vista issues, I have multiple copies of songs in my music folder. My iTunes is showing the 16.9 gb that it is supposed to be, but my music folder shows that it contains 49 gb.
Does anyone know of an easy way to clean up the music folder?
I do have a backup that is about 4 months old, but if I restore from that, what will happen with the music I've purchased since then? Thanks!

jsmith,
I am having the same sort of ssue, except my iTunes Library shows double of every song title. My music folder is fine.
I painstakeingly removed all of the doubles manually and then upgraded to iTunes 7.2. BAM!! Doubles again.

Similar Messages

Duplicates in iTunes Music Folder but not in iTunes

If this has been addressed already, please forgive me, but in my User>Music>iTunes Music Folder each of over 6000 songs has a duplicate.
They don't show up as duplicates in iTunes or under Show Duplicates.
Is there anyway I can get rid of the 6000+ extra tunes other than clicking on each duplicate and dragging it to the trash?
tia,
Bob

Steve,
I started over by trashing everything in my User > iTunes file and relaunched iTunes.
Then I went to iTunes Menu > File > Add to Library where I re-imported all of my tunes into iTunes from by backup file on my external hard drive.
I then Consolidated the library (whatever that means); now, I'm back in business.
Here is a link that might help indirectly: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1329
hth, Bob
p.s. If you don't have your music backed up externally, you can get the tunes into iTunes directly from you iPod using this: http://www.fadingred.com/senuti/

Duplicates in iTunes Music folder

I just noticed that all of the m4a music files stored in my iTunes music folder have duplicates. This does not seem to be the case for mp3 files. These are not duplicates in iTunes--when I show duplicates in iTunes, I don't have any, even though the files are all listed twice on my hard drive. Why did this happen?

You probably added the files to the iTunes library with the copy to iTunes library location.
This will leave the originals where they were and then make a copy in the iTunes library.

I just dled Itunes onto my new laptop, when I synced with my music folder, all of the songs were duplicate on song list, what do I do?

I just dled Itunes onto my new laptop, when I synced with my music folder, all of the songs were duplicate on song list, what do I do? What did I do wrong, and where do I find a manual to learn how to use ITunes???

" When I did this, my library showed all the music I have "purchased" from itunes but did not have the music that I downloaded a long time ago through itunes from my old CDs."
Correct.
" How can I get that music to show up in my library now on my new computer? "
Copy it from your old computer or your backup copy of your old computer.
The sync is one way - computer to ipod.

Fixing duplicate/triplicate folders and songs in itunes music folder

The file structure of my music has gotten out of control.
I keep all of my music on a lacie external drive.
I think i used to import music into itunes incorrectly and
there ended up being duplicates of files and folders.
for some artists, i have seven folders that have between
them (typically in an illogical order) all of the music i
have for that artist.
is there a simple fix for reorganizing everything without
painstakingly going through every artist and every folder?
please help!

My music files were created long befor I had itunes, but I have been usinfitunes for about 10 months. I recently noticed that my music file has gone from about 3,500 tracks to almost 9,000 tracks the change being duplicates. itunes will identify the duplicates but does not have the capability to clean up the database.
getting rid of about 5,000 duplicates is going to be a giant task and before I do it I would like to know how it happened and be comfortable it won't happen again. I just checked my preferences and I have selected "keep ... music folder organized".
My music data base is on an external hard drive and part of a home network. Sometimes I have added music from various computers on the network. when I want to update the library on one of the other computers I have erased all music in the library and then added the music data base to the itunes on the computer attached to the external hard drive. Is that where the duplication takes place?
Help ...
epmdallas

Duplicate files in itunes music folder with title 1.mp3

Can anyone tell me why there might be duplicate files with this number in my music folder? I'm interested to know what might cause this to happen.

Any help here? This question has been bugging me for some time. It's hard to believe that this seemingly simple task / question is so difficult to find a solution for. Please - if you know a way, I'd love to clear some space from my itunes music folder.

There are two folders in the My Music folder dedicated to iTunes music: •My Music AppleReceive and •My Music iTunes iTunes Media Music They share many of the same titles, although some duplicates may be mp3 and m4a. Confusingly, neither for

There are two folders in the My Music folder dedicated to iTunes music:
•My Music > AppleReceive
and
•My Music > iTunes > iTunes Media > Music
They share many of the same titles, although some duplicates may be mp3 and m4a. Confusingly, neither format seems to be exclusive to the AppleReceive or iTunes Media folder.
I'm reluctant to playing the "delete one and see what happens" game.
Any theories/suggestions?

BCHeller wrote:
There are two folders in the My Music folder dedicated to iTunes music:
•My Music > AppleReceive
No idea what this folder is. Sounds like it is something you created & named.
•My Music > iTunes > iTunes Media > Music
This is the default folder iTunes uses for music.

ICloud/iMatch keeps adding duplicates to my iTunes music folder? What's going on? What am I doing wrong?

Every time I open iTunes, iMatch keeps adding duplicates for some -- not all -- of the files in my music folder. Each gets a little cloud-with-exclamation-point next to the duplicate. If I manually remove them, they pop up again the next time I open iTunes. The actual files are not duplicated in my local music folders.
What am I doing wrong? Could it be related to the Error 50 message (Cannot save library) I get sometimes. I uninstalled and reinstalled iTunes, which stopped that message for a few weeks, but now it's reappearing after I manually deleted all the duplicates.
This is driving me crazy.

What have you tried?
You opened itunes?
Connected ipad?
Went to the music tab?
Selected sync music and selected the music to sync?
Synced?

Is there a way to put music (mp3) from my PC onto my iPhone (5c) without having to duplicate that music by adding it to the iTunes Library?

Greetings all, I am a brand new iPhone owner (my first smartphone in fact) and am very sad that I don't love my new device as much as I was beginning to. I've come into the Apple family with open eyes and heart, but I am heartbroken and mortified and what I've been learning this morning. I just spent five hours (no exaggeration) reading forums, downloading iTunes (which I don't really think I want, I am used to WMP and much more accustomed to it), downloading and installing an update, learning that certain options which were recommended are now gone unless you use secret commands (want to Add Folder to Library? Well, too bad! Unless you know the secret Ctrl-B handshake. Hope you didn't just spend tons of time adding items file by file before you learned that (by scouring the obscure forums for that information, since it's not common knowledge or readily accessible in iTunes now)!). Apologies for the sarcastic tone, still very frustrated with the whole process. I've seen support messages directing people to support pages with QuickTime videos; QuickTime doesn't install easily or quickly or work properly on my PC (perhaps I need to work with it more, buuuut...), it's all just seeming so....proprietary.
Is it really the way this works that I have to duplicate all of the music that is currently on my hard drive not just once but twice, such that I need to have it 1) on my hard drive in my music folder where it has always been (so that I can play it how I am used to, using WMP), 2) copied to my iTunes Library and then 3) "Synced" (whatever this really means...still learning obviously) / copied onto my iPhone? Thus taking up twice the space on my hard drive that it needs to?
There's really no way to simply have the phone take it from my hard drive? Apple seriously needs it to not only be existent on my pc, but duplicated into the iTunes Library (which is really just another folder, right?) in order to allow it to be put onto my iPhone?
Please please please tell me I am misunderstanding how this works. I really genuinely do want to love my iPhone and get accustomed to how it and the software it needs works, but this has been frankly a nightmare and has had me wishing for brief moments that I had gone with something more PC friendly. Please just tell me that it gets better, that you can have a PC that you use, and have an iPhone that you use and marry the two happily once you get used to the way to do that.

HydroThunder wrote:
Greetings all, I am a brand new iPhone owner (my first smartphone in fact) and am very sad that I don't love my new device as much as I was beginning to. I've come into the Apple family with open eyes and heart, but I am heartbroken and mortified and what I've been learning this morning. I just spent five hours (no exaggeration) reading forums, downloading iTunes (which I don't really think I want, I am used to WMP and much more accustomed to it), downloading and installing an update, learning that certain options which were recommended are now gone unless you use secret commands (want to Add Folder to Library? Well, too bad! Unless you know the secret Ctrl-B handshake. Hope you didn't just spend tons of time adding items file by file before you learned that (by scouring the obscure forums for that information, since it's not common knowledge or readily accessible in iTunes now)!). Apologies for the sarcastic tone, still very frustrated with the whole process. I've seen support messages directing people to support pages with QuickTime videos; QuickTime doesn't install easily or quickly or work properly on my PC (perhaps I need to work with it more, buuuut...), it's all just seeming so....proprietary.
Is it really the way this works that I have to duplicate all of the music that is currently on my hard drive not just once but twice, such that I need to have it 1) on my hard drive in my music folder where it has always been (so that I can play it how I am used to, using WMP), 2) copied to my iTunes Library and then 3) "Synced" (whatever this really means...still learning obviously) / copied onto my iPhone? Thus taking up twice the space on my hard drive that it needs to?
There's really no way to simply have the phone take it from my hard drive? Apple seriously needs it to not only be existent on my pc, but duplicated into the iTunes Library (which is really just another folder, right?) in order to allow it to be put onto my iPhone?
Please please please tell me I am misunderstanding how this works.
Okay.
You are misunderstanding how this works.
When you add songs to your iTunes Library, all you are in fact doing is telling iTunes where (on your computer) to find the music. iTunes does not create additional versions of your music (see * below). iTunes is a database (or catalogue) - it simply lists your music and knows where it is so that it can copy it to your iPod.
Synced - synchronise... to make as one, to make the same as each other. Well, that's what my dictionary tells me anyway. To make iTunes and the iPhone the same, to have the same music etc. on or in each. (Subject to your preferences.)
HydroThunder wrote:
I really genuinely do want to love my iPhone and get accustomed to how it and the software it needs works, but this has been frankly a nightmare and has had me wishing for brief moments that I had gone with something more PC friendly. Please just tell me that it gets better, that you can have a PC that you use, and have an iPhone that you use and marry the two happily once you get used to the way to do that.
Okay, I'l tell you that too.
It gets better. You can have a PC that you use, and have an iPhone that you use - and marry the two together blah blah blah.
Now that you have iTunes installed, at least you've got that far, although I can't quite imagine how it managed to take five hours. (You would have all these same issues if you were moving from iPhone to any non-Apple product.)
Secret menus, (CTRL+B etc.) - yes, there have been some very odd moves with all this "hiding menus" nonsense. But with the help of useful contibutors to these discussions, you will find iTunes easy. There are however, so many ways to configure iTunes, that everyone will tell you that everyone else's method is wrong.
So let's start with basics:
Once iTunes is set the way you want to view it, all you will need to do is add music to your iTunes Library, either by;
putting a CD into your computer's CD drive, and telling iTunes to import the CD. iTunes will make a digital copy, put it in a folder (in the iTunes Media folder) and list the album in your iTunes
buying music from the iTunes Store. The store will download the music to your Library.
Buying music from other sources. For example Amazon. Here in the UK, Amazon have a downloader which will download any purchases, place them in an Amazon folder and add them to your iTunes Library
Add other digital files by using the Add Folder to Library. (I can make sure you can easily find that, if you wish.)
Then - you can add songs to Playlists - if you wish. You do not have to add music to Playlists. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise!
Then - connect your iPhone to the computer, and let iTunes perform a Sync.
Your first ever Sync will need a little bit of configuration. A Sync will copy the new songs to your iPhone. It will also transfer back to your iTunes Library:
any songs purchased, on the iPhone, directly from the iTunes Store.
any apps purchased, on the iPhone, from the iTunes Store.
Play Counts. The number of times a song has been played, on the iPhone, since the last Sync.
Last Played date and time. You won't believe how useful this feature can be.
HydroThunder wrote:
There's really no way to simply have the phone take it from my hard drive?
That is precisely what iTunes is for - it's exactly what it does and how is does it. By the way, also don't let anyone tell you that you should use Manual Management to anage your iPhone. No one with any sense would use Manual Management. Why do housework, when iTunes can do it for you?
* There is one tiny issue in all this. If you leave your music where it is now, it may make it slightly harder for you to transfer all your music to another computer anytime in the future because it will be in various different palces on your current computer. There is a setting in iTunes to "copy files to the iTunes Media folder when adding to library", which will duplicate songs, but that's so that you can store all your music in one parent folder for easy transfer to another computer. Your choice. If you take it, once it's done, you could then delete the older copies in the other storage locations.
Of course, if you transfer all your media, files, documents to the new compurer, it shouldn't be any hassle really.
As for WMP. While you are used to it, now that you have an iPhone, why not try playing music in iTunes? It's really not that bad.
So - you tell me what point you have reached and what other information you need to help you with iTunes, what views you want in your iTunes Library. There are lots of ways to vieww your Library! You only need to tell us how you like to look at things, by albums with artwork, by a sonsg list but with the option of looking at albums, or Last played. On and On it goes!
I may be a bit biased in my choice of views, but I can still help you get the best out of iTunes. It really is a fantastic piece of software, despite the little annoying things Apple put into it.

Importing existing MP3 files from my My Music folder to iTunes

I added a bunch of music from cd to my My Music folder using WMP. How can I get the iTunes program to import all of the music (60 or 70 cds worth) and convert it without having to do it one song at a time? Didn't it do the same thing the first time I installed iTunes?

I have all of my music on a dedicated hard drive in hierarchal folders for artist then albums & etc. If I add new music, assuming all of the new music I add is not from the same artist, I would have to do the add folder menu option for each new artist or album (Holding Shift or Ctrl while selecting folders does not select folders cumulatively). The only way I'd be able to add multiple folders at one time is to choose my highest folder 'My Library' but I'm afraid if I choose this, I will create duplicate copies of the thousands of songs I already have.
Is there a better way choose multiple folders to add new Artist - Albums - Songs to the iTunes Library?
Will iTunes copy a song if it already knows that song is in your library?
Thanks,
Steve Schumsky
Pentium 4 2.8GHz, 512MB Ram, 60GB iPod Video Windows XP Pro
Pentium 4 2.8GHz, 512MB Ram, Windows XP Pro

I'm having a huge issue with itunes locating my missing files..and it's too many for me to locate 1 by 1..It says I'm missing over 3,00 songs and They are all in my music folder..What can I do to fix this issue?

I'm having a huge issue with itunes locating my missing files..and it's too many for me to locate 1 by 1..It says I'm missing over 3,000 songs and They are all in my music folder..What can I do to fix this issue? I've looked at all the tutorials on youtube and none of it works. I recently got a new computer and I Back-Up all my music and itunes playlist and I import it on my new computer with the new itunes and I go to play a few songs, it says I'm missing them I locate a few but it's still like 3,000 missing and again they are all on the computer and in one folder..Please Help !

I did that and nothing changed half my songs still have examination marks beside them
I also just tried dragging my folder of music int he playlist and it duplicated all of my songs? My playlist was at 5k now it's at 10k becuz of 3 duplicates of songs. Is there a way to delete multiple duplicate files?

Two iPods, Two sets of ratings, one music folder?

Here’s something which I’ve been failing to do, and about which I and can’t find any appropriate info in any forums. It seems like a very obvious thing to want to do…
We have one computer and two iPods. Most of our Playlists are ratings-driven. Eg. “500 3+star tracks that haven’t been played this month”. My girlfriend rates music differently to me. I don’t want her ratings affecting my playlists and visa versa.
The only way (as far as I can tell) to have one file of music and two sets of ratings is to use two libraries. This is achieved by holding down shift when starting iTunes and then choosing whichever library you want before syncing the iPod. So far so good.
The problem is, whenever I add new music I can only add it into one library at a time; the other library knows nothing about it. The same applies if I delete anything (the other library thinks the files still exist). The only way around this is to add/delete twice, which is a faff. Podcasts need to be downloaded twice as well. Also, I think, if I add a CD of music and then go into the other library and try and add it again (or point iTunes to the new mp3 files) it will create duplicates. In any case, it’s a lot of messing about.
So, any ideas on how I can have one big music folder and two iPods with different ratings without doubling my iTunes ‘admin’ time?
Any advice would be graetfully appreciated.

Thanks very much for your reply, but it doesn't look like there's a suitable option for me at the moment. I only want one music folder and I want all music accessible to both users/iPods, just with independent ratings. There appears to be a number of ways of doing this but none without a lot of duplication of effort. I have 95Gb of music which is constantly being added to and deleted from as buy new music and remove duplicates etc. I put a fair amount of time into refining ratings and playlists in order to improve the quality of the stuff I listen to and I don't want to start making lists of the things I add/delete and then have to log into another iTunes session to repeat the exercise. It seems a shame that iTunes can't offer a practical solution to the notion that two people might have slightly (not completely) different tastes in music. I'm certain this sort of thing will have to be looked at in future, especially now there are plenty of iPod families out there.
Thanks again to all of the above for your replies.

Restored my Macbook Pro but my iTunes content was saved on a separate partition. When I re-setup iTunes the status bar reports 30gb less content than my iTunes Music folder. How can I find what is 'missing'?

My Macbook Pro software was failing and the Apple Store was able to restore it without removing the partition on my hard drive that contained most of my files including all my iTunes content. Initially when I re-setup my library I simply went to file--> add to library. Shortly after I realized that was essentially copying the library to the other portion of the partition because I forgot to change the location of the library. So I deleted the content already copied & then I re-setup the library, by asking it to be pulled from the previous location using this pages advice: iTunes: How to open an alternate iTunes Library file or create a new one
It appeared to work & everything I thought was imported. But on closer inspection, it appears that I have 30gbs less appearing on the status bar in the iTunes app than I do when I pull up the info on the iTunes Music folder in my finder. I'm not sure if this means somehow I have 30gbs of duplicates in my finder folder or if (most likely) I somehow didn't fully import the library from that file. Any advice? Is there a way to restore iTunes to factory settings again & set it up correctly this time?
Also I never actually trashed the original content I accidentally transferred to the other drive but when i skimmed those in my trash bin it appears they ARE indeed in iTunes, so I have no clue what didn't actually import. Any ideas?! I'd greatly appreciate it!

You could have all the computers point to the same library but it can't be opened by more than one at any time.
No answer for knowing which library is in use other than selecting it at startup. This question gets asked here occasionally but I don't think it is a high-demand feature since most people have just one library. I guess you could put in an empty playlist with the library name so you have an identifier.

How can I add songs to itunes music folder without them being duplicated within the folder (not on my hard drive)?

I have music files all over the place and want to put them all in itunes with no duplicates and get rid of all the rest. how can I do that? Some of my playlists are missing songs. I would like to move the playlist back to itunes from my ipod without having to put the songs in my media folder yet again! I have wasted so much time fooling with this. Really what I am trying to get at through all of this is to run the songs on the ipod through ivolume so they play equally.
Can anyone make sense of this for me?

It sounds like you have a few different problems.
To find all your music, try using a spotlight search. Type "kind:music" in the spotlight search (the magnifying glass in the far upper-right corner ) then choose "show all in finder". You'll end up with a window that shows all your music files, regardless of where they are on your hard drive. But don't move any files, because that may confuse iTunes (it won't be able to find files that you move, because - d'oh! - you moved them and now they're not where iTunes left them. That's usually how people end up in the kind of situation that you're in.)
If you want to let iTunes organize your music for you, make sure those options are turned on in the iTunes preferences (in the "advanced" section), then go to the "File" menu, choose "Library" and then choose "Organize library". That will put all your music in the iTunes Library folder (but leave copies of the originals wherever they were, all over your hard drive).
To find duplicates in your iTunes Library, choose "display duplicates" (or hold down the option key and it changes to "display exact duplicates" which might help in some cases). You'll still have to manually go through them to delete one of each duplicate.
Now you can start combining those three techniques - if you consolidate your music and let iTunes copy everything into the music folder, you'll know that iTunes safely has a copy of all your music in the iTunes Library folder. So you can do the spotlight search, and delete any duplicate files that are not in your iTunes library folder. Anything that's left over (that is, it's not a duplicate and it's not in the itunes music folder), you'll need to add to iTunes (try using the "automatically add to itunes" folder - spotlight search to find it - anything you drop in there will get added to iTunes without leaving a duplicate file). Then you can use the itunes "duplicates" feature to find the duplicates in iTunes and fix those.

Why has itunes moved my music files out of the Music folder?

To my horror I just found out that itunes has moved folders (albums) out of the Music folder, Ive always found those folders very well organized (music, movies, podcasts, etc) now Im seeing some albums mixed with those folders (out of the music folder) and some albums IN the music folder as well, even worse I have the same folder inside Music and out!! with a few tracks on each, but in iTunes everything looks normal and it plays the album as usual, Im losing my mind over this I cant find a way to fix it, I even started moving them manually but there are too many, and for the duplicate folders I have to move the tracks that were moved. Any idea on why did this happen? I dont want to move the folders and lose hours only to find out that itunes did it again!! I thank you very very ver much in advance.

iTunes on a Mac may be more forgiving if you move things around manually, but it isn't really recommended.
Here are typical layouts for the iTunes folders:
If you have upgraded from version 8 (or earlier) to iTunes 9 (or later) at some point, then your media folder (everything inside the red outline) may still be called iTunes Music instead of iTunes Media. The extra Music folder inside the media folder is used if you had an older library and have allowed iTunes to Upgrade to iTunes Media Organization (iTunes 9) or used File > Library > Organize Library > Reorganize files in the folder "<Media Folder>" (iTunes 10/11). Depending on your choices for Keep iTunes Media folder organized and Copy files to iTunes Media folder when adding to library plus a little bug in which one build changed the name of the file storing the choice of layout it is quite easy for some of your files to be organized according to one layout and some the other. (Recent installs of iTunes on a Mac now give the library file the .itl extension)
Assuming you're happy letting iTunes organize your files the following steps should tidy things up (should it be necessary):
1. Select File > Library > Organize Library... > Tick Reorganize files in the folder "<Media Folder>" and click OK. Skip if this option is grayed out (already upgraded) or you prefer the older layout.
2. Select File > Library > Organize Library... > Tick Consolidate files and click OK. This will bring any files currently organized outside the designated media folder into it. N.B. This will create duplicate copies of any file that needs to be consolidated, and you will need to manually clean up afterwards.
3. Select iTunes > Preferences > Advanced tab, uncheck Keep iTunes Media folder organized and click OK.
4. Select iTunes > Preferences > Advanced tab, check Keep iTunes Media folder organized and click OK. This triggers iTunes into reorganizing everything according to your preferences.
5. (Optional, if applicable) Close iTunes, rename the media folder iTunes Music as iTunes Media then restart iTunes. Check under iTunes > Preferences > Advanced tab that the location has automatically updated. If you can't access the media for any reason just undo the folder rename.
PS If you really prefer the older layout, but it is already in the new one then, edit the hidden file .iTunes Preferences.plist in your media folder and change the integer from 1 to 0 before doing step 3.
You should backup your library before attempting any major reorganization.
If iTunes is still creating files or folders in the wrong locations there is a possibility of permissions problems. Offhand I'm not sure of the correct OS X terms but on Windows both the system and user accounts should have full access permissions to all files & folders within the iTunes folder in order for it to work properly.
tt2

Duplicates in Music Folder

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for