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.

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/

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.

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.

Duplications during itunes music folder transfer

I followed the steps detailed on this Web site for the transfer of the iTunes music folder from my laptop to an external hard drive. I then moved all my music files from another location into the folder, then did the "add folder to library" command. But during that final step, every song on my hard drive, now in the newly created iTunes music folder, was duplicated, and the duplicates showed up in the iTunes panel. I had the box marked "copy files to iTunes music folder when adding to library" unchecked. I've since reloaded iTunes and am beginning with a clean slate. Any ideas how to avoid the duplication problem during the next attempt?

Hey cheekycherub,
These instructions may be of assistance:
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=93063
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=93366
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=301748
Hope this helps,
Generik
PowerMac G4/Dell Precision WS 370, XP Pro Mac OS X (10.4.7)

ITunes Music Folder

Ok, so I tried downloading a TV show last night from the iTunes store and it said I didn't have enough space on my Hard Drive to complete the download. Well, that threw me off and as I was looking to see what was eating all my memory I noticed that my iTunes Music Folder, when navigated to via the finder, shows I have 30 GB of music files. If I look at the bottom of the iTunes window when the program is open it only shows 14 GB. I did FILE>SHOW DUPLICATES and it only shows 6.5 GB of duplicates. Does anyone know what is going on or how to correct? It is like there is two of every song, but I don't see duplicates in the iTunes Music Folder.

it is possible and likely that you have song files in your iTunes music folder that aren't referenced in your iTunes library. in other words, there are files in your iTunes music folder that iTunes doesn't know about.
for an unknow reason, you may have duplicate your songs using the finder. you can validate this by doing a "Get info" in iTunes on a song for which you see duplicate using the Finder. The Get info will show you the path of the selected song in the General tab. The duplicate you will see in the finder would have a difference in the name. This will allow you to manually discriminate which song is referenced in iTunes. But this could be a tedious task.
At this point, you will need to clean up this mess and there is several way to go. the simplest could be to drag'n drop your whole iTunes Music File into the iTunes window in order to have iTunes reference all your files and then, clean up the duplicates.
you may think of other way to go, but this will not be simple if you have a large library.

ITunes music folder help

I have been trying to save space on my laptops small hardrive by telling iTunes to put my music folder in an external hardrive that I have connected. My problem is that I accidentally deleted my music a while ago and in an effort to try and get it back into iTunes through an iPod ripping application for some reason iTunes made another iTunes music folder in my "my music" folder. I just want to be able to listen to my music in iTunes and preferably be able to automatically update my iPod still without it taking up my regular hardrive space.
I am also wondering if there is a way to export whole playlists from my iPod into iTunes without using iPod ripping software because it will duplicate all of my songs that way.
Thank you for any and all suggestions.

I had the same problem you are having a year or so ago. I was transferring my music from a shared folder through a network. I copied the contents of the folder with the music into it and I had to locate everything manually. I can't guarantee that thie will oslve your problem because I never tried it, but maybe if you copy all of your music to your existing iTunes music folder first and then copy the music from the iTunes music folder it might work. I'm not sure exactly where your music is stored now, but if it is somewhere else than the iTunes music folder created by iTunes this could work. Before you copy the music though you will want to delete everything in your existing library (make sure you keep the files though when it asks) so that you don't have a bunch of duplicates. I hope this helps.

Downloading songs into itunes music folder from limewire

I currently have songs scattered all over my computer and hard driveome from various programs and methods I have used to get music over the years. Some of the music is already in itunes and some isnt. I want to consolodate everything into my itunes music folder to make it more convenient. In an effort to do this I have switched my limewire preferences to download directly into the itunes music folder. However, when I download a song it appears in itunes only in a folder called "Limewire Tunes" but it is not present in the recently added folder or the itunes library. Does anyone know how I could remedy this?

Of course you can always go into your preferences @
Edit>Preferences>Advanced
and put a check next to Keep itunes music organized and copy files to itunes music folder when adding to library.
This way you can just add your new music to your library and it will automatically put it in your itunes folder for you all nice and neat like then you can delete the other music files from your limetunes music folder to keep you from having duplicates on your computer. Its a nice way to consolidate all your music into one easy to backup location
Hope that helps,
Seth
Windows XP

Cleaning up duplication mess from Shared iTunes Music folder

I'm helping my sister clean up a mess on her Windows Vista computer. In the process of cleaning up one mess, I may have made another.
She's wanting to share the iTunes Music folder with multiple users on the machine--so that they can all access the music from their individual user accounts. A couple of months ago, I set up the iTunes Music folder in the Public folder so that all users could access it. Each user then created it's own iTunes Library database upon opening iTunes in their accounts.
We thought this would work fine, but she's now finding that if items are added in different accounts, they're not showing up in the others--you have to know what was imported/added in one account so that you can "add to library" in the others.
So, in order to try to fix that, I created a new Music folder ("iTunes Music New") for the Main user's account and "consolidated Library" so that it would contain everything. I then went into each account and changed their default Music folder location to the new Public one that I created "iTunes Music New".
My next problem occurred when I clicked consolidated library in a 2nd account. Now, since all accounts are pointing to the same folder and I hit consolidate library in 2 accounts, the Music Folder has duplicates of MANY, MANY songs. However, they're not necessarily duplicated in the iTunes Music Library database, since the consolidation occurred from two separate accounts.
Most of the duplication software/scripts that I've researched seem to be able to delete duplicates within the iTunes Music Library database. Obviously, I'm not needing that, I'm needing to delete duplicates from the iTunes Music folder itself.
Is there a way to do this?
Once I solve this problem, my next question is how to clean up all of the secondary user libraries so that they match the main one. It doesn't matter if I lose playcounts on these secondary accounts as long as I retain them in the main original. Can I just delete the .xml and iTunes Library.itl files and "add to library" the main music folder?
Or can I create a shortcut in each of the secondary users folders that would point to the .xml and .itl files in the "master" user's folder?
I hope that this makes sense.
I'm hoping to get this situation mostly cleared up before I leave my sister's in the next day or so.

Unfortunately, you're going to have to delete those duplicate files by hand.
On my PC when I do boneheaded things like that, Windows gives them names like
song[1].mp3
song[2].mp3
You can use Windows search to find files with [1] in the filename. That should speed up the process.
After you get everything on the hard drive fixed, all you have to do is set up the secondary accounts to use the main users's ITL file.
From iTunes > Help > iTunes Help
*To create or use a different iTunes library:*
+If iTunes is open, quit it.+
+Hold down the Shift key while you open iTunes (from the Start menu, choose All Programs > iTunes > iTunes).+
+In the dialog that appears, do one of the following:+
+To create a new library, click Create Library.+
+To choose a different library, click Choose Library.+

Why does my finder nest an iTunes music folder within my music folder and not let me delete it?

I'm working on the arduous task of combining and winnowing down my multiple iTunes libraries and music folders onto a single drive. The last thing I have to do is carve out the duplicate tracks from a time I tried to move my library to another drive and it rewrote all of my tracks and added a "1" to the file name (making it virtually impossible to use duplicate finder siftware.
In going systematically through every artist and album folder in my new iTunes/Music folder I found a subfolder called "Music" which essentially mirrors the folder it resides within. In that folder is another "Music" folder with exactlay the same comtents. It's like those russian dolls.
At first I though I found the reason why my folder was taking so much space on my drive (1.4 tb when it should noly be about 70 gb), so I though I would just delete it--but it will not allow me to, giving me the error code -8072.
Any thoughts out there?
Thanks for your time.

Here are typical layouts for the iTunes folders:
Your library is in the newer layout and you are trying to move/have moved the media folder (red outline) to D:\Music. The extra Music folder is supposed to separate other types of media within the iTunes Media folder.
If you don't want (or have room for) your library in the usual location of <User's Music>\iTunes, then you are usually much better off moving the entire iTunes folder to the root of your prefered drive, e.g. as D:\iTunes and accessing the relocated library by holding down shift as you start iTunes. The media folder would then be D:\iTunes\iTunes Media and music would end up at D:\iTunes\iTunes Media\Music\<Artist>\<Album>. Keeping this structure make moving the library easier in future.
Since it seems you've already started moving things around it is probably too late to move the library in a single step. See Make a split library portable for details of how you can proceed.
tt2

Lost consolidated iTunes Music folder; Recovered much of it, unconsolidated

How to re-consolidate without starting over?
I had about 60,000 songs consolidated into my iTunes Music folder on one external drive, with my Library in my User folder on my internal startup drive. I also had a backup of all this on another external drive. A power surge from overloading my home electrical system fried both external drives: they are dead. My computer, with its Library (and thoughtfully labored-on Playlists, but of course without the song data files), is intact. I have added new songs since then, about 3,000 of them, with the a new iTunes Music folder in the User folder on my internal startup drive. I have added the new songs to the original Library, in the hope that its playlists would some day be operable if I recover the lost songs. So, of course, I have 60,000 Library entries with exclamation points next to them (no links to the data files, since the data files are lost).
I recently recovered about 40,000 of the original 60,000 songs (data files), but they are scattered around several other drives, +not at all+ consolidated.
So my problem is: how to get all the pieces of the system back together again?
It is clearly not feasible to manually link all 40,000 files one by one.
I know I could delete my Library and start over and "Add to Library" all the 43,000 songs that are unconsolidated and scattered through various drives. But I fear this would render all my playlists inoperable--even if I were to save them, export them, and then re-import them into the new Library. Would it?
I know I could also keep my Library as is and "Add to Library" all the 40,000 songs that are scattered through other drives. But I fear this would give me twice as many song entries, half of them duplicates with exclamation points next to them (no link to the actual song). And I don't even know whether this would save the operability of my precious Playlists.
Over the years, I had carefully corrected errors in the spelling and naming of thousands of songs and albums through my Library. I fear that those corrections live only in the Library, and will be lost if I start over and just build a new Library from the 40,000 recovered songs. Or are such corrections, when made in the Library, applied to the actual data files as well, in which case many of the 40,000 recovered songs would have those changes in them, and would show up in the rebuilt Library?
Is there some strategy for bringing it all together (and keeping my Library and its Playlists intact and operable) that will save me?
Thank you,
Mark

bump

Using external hard drive for music files NOT in iTunes music folder

Hi there. Due to lacking disk space on my computer I have all my music files (that I had before using iTunes) on an external HD. I can easily import these drives to iTunes (v.8) without copying them to the iTunes music folder. But when I want to synchronize my iPod the next time, iTunes cannot find the files on my external HD and I have to import them all again, delete all the duplicates and - worst of all - do all the playlist sorting again! Is there a solution to this without putting all my music into the iTunes music folder (I would like to keep it separated)? Thanks in advance!

I use an external firewire drive to store my iTunes library on. One thing to be aware of...
You need to go into your iTunes preferences, then to "Advanced", then select the location where you want to store your iTunes Music folder. In my case it is in a folder titled "Music" on my external firewire drive. The iTunes "Library" file is stored on your internal hard drive.
The thing that can cause you problems it that....if you forget to turn on the external drive before you boot up your Mac, the iTunes library file will look for your music folder and won't be able to find it. So a new iTunes Music folder will be created on your internal hard drive, with nothing in it. You'll see all of your songs listed in your iTunes program...but if you try to double click on any of the songs to play them, you'll get an exclamation mark saying "cannot find file".
If this happens, you need to delete the new iTunes Music folder on your internal drive (but not the iTunes Library file!), then quit iTunes, turn on the external drive, then relaunch iTunes....and it will find the original music folder.
It's a hassle that I have had to go though many times, I keep forgetting to turn on that drive before launching iTunes.
Oh, one other thing....about the way you worded your post. You aren't running short on "memory", you are running short on "storage"....they are two different things. Hard drives are storage, RAM chips are "memory" that run your programs.

Moved iTunes music folder to HDD, Now iTunes Can't Find it--Help :-)

I finally was able to get an HDD that actually mounted and now I have moved my iTunes music folder based on the instructions here: iTunes: Moving your iTunes Music folder. I printed them out and followed them step-by-step.
Before moving the folder iTunes Music from my internal HD (~/Music/iTunes/iTunes Music) to the trash, I played random tracks with no problem. So I moved the folder to the trashcan, then emptied the trash as instructed. Went back to iTunes to play some music, and now all of my tracks have the dreaded exclamation point in the first column. When I click on a track to play it, I get the message "The song 'blah blah blah' could not be used because the original file could not be found. Would you like to locate it?"
Of course, I can select 'Yes' and go through the steps and locate the files on my HDD. This, however, is not an optimal process with over 2400 songs. Does anyone know what went wrong with my relocation?
Melissa
PowerBook G4 PowerPC Mac OS X (10.4.8) iPod 30G, MyBook 250GB HDD, iTunes 7.1.1

I've used that method to transfer music from one drive to another literally dozens of times and never seen it fail in the way you experienced. I'm at a loss to explain how you could have followed the instructions, successfully transfer the music to the new drive, and yet have the iTunes database still think the music should be on the original drive.
What I can suggest are two solutions: One for it you don't care about keeping your playlists, rankings, and playcounts intact. The other for if you do care.
Fast fix but loses the meta data: Quit iTunes. Open your home directory, find the music folder and open it. Trash everything you see in your music folder and restart iTunes. All your music and playlists will be gone. Open your new drive on the desktop, find the folder with your music, and drag it into your iTunes window. Your music will be imported into a new iTunes catalog and then you can create your playlists.
Keeping the metadata: After quitting iTunes, move the music back to its original location by dragging the music folder(s). Unmount the new drive and play some music. Remember the songs you clicked on and showed iTunes how to find? Do those songs all over again and once you've verified the iTunes library now points to all the songs properly, delete the songs from the new drive and repeat the steps to move them again.

ITunes Music Folder organization

Hey. I have all my albums stored in a My Music folder, some are labelled fully (Artist - Album) as the folder name, while others are simply the artist, the album or what have you. As I load new albums onto my computer, I just do a manual "add folder to iTunes" each time. I checked both Keep ITunes Music Folder Organized and Copy Files to iTunes Music Folder when Adding, and it prompts me to copy all the files over. I've tried this a few times, using My Music as the folder, and other locations, but it only ever copies like, ten of my three-hundred odd albums.. I want it to copy ALL my music and organize it accordingly, but it won't.. What gives?

Hi Jen, welcome to discussions
iTunes always manages the music folder in that way (\[artistname]\[albumname]\[title]).
To keep it from splitting up your albums with several different artist, check "part of a compilation" in the info tab (right-click->get info). Now those albums will appear in one folder (\compilations\[albumname]\[title])

Duplicates in iTunes Music folder

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