Is there a fast way to remove duplicate files from itunes?

I relocated a lot of my music on my computer to a single folder so there would be less clutter. So far as I know there is no easy way to relocate all of my music without going through each song one by one, and I have a rediculous amount of music so this was simply not an option. Instead I dragged everything back into itunes from that folder. Now I have a large number of 'ghost' files in my itunes and I was wondering if there is a fast way to get rid of them all without selecting and deleting them all individually?

I actually have scripts for reconneting moved media, and I could have shown you how to move the library without breaking the links. Normally moving the entire iTunes folder and then shift-starting-iTunes does the trick. Sometimes it is possible to put a broken library back together again.
I'm working on a rebuild of my DeDuper script which will merge stats from missing files before deleting. It's been on the back burner for a while but the lack of show duplicates feature in iTunes 11 has prompted to have another look at the issue so with luck I'll get it done in the next few days. That would be one way to tidy up.
If you just want to remove all the dead tracks right now you can download and install iTunes Folder Watch. Point it at your iTunes Media folder, connect it to your .xml file and enable the option to Check for dead tracks on startup.
tt2

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Help: there is a way to delete duplicate files in itune?

every time when im importing music on my itunes is storing the files in the itunes music folder. now i have to backup this folder and the size is more than 80GB. i found that there are many duplications of songs. is there any easy way to delete duplicate files and songs that are unchecked from itunes playlist?
thank you

Robert Jacobson has written a duplicate removal script which you can download here:
http://mysite.verizon.net/teridon/itunesscripts/
You imply that your duplicates are unchecked. You can create a playlist containing unchecked tracks. This would allow easy manual deletion.
You need two playlists.
First create a smart playlist called "checked" containing checked items:
Uncheck "Match the following rule"
Check "Match only checked items"
Live updating checked
Next create a playlist with the following rule:
Playlist is not checked.
Match only checked items not checked.
Live updating checked
This second playlist should have all your unchecked tracks in it.
Then you can use shift del to delete the tracks from you library.

Is there an easy way to eliminate duplicate tracks from iTunes on a mac?

All of a sudden I have over 6,500 duplicate tracks in my iTunes. Not entire albums but many tracks from an album are duplicated. Is there an easy way to get rid of these tracks or do I have to do this one by one? Also why would this be happening? I have "Keep iTunes Media Organized" checked as well as "Copy files to iTunes when adding to library".

It is hard to say why. iTunes is unlikely to do this all its own and there is probably something you did like add a folder that is not part of the current media collection thinking it needed adding, but it had already been added in the past.
There is no simple, universal panacea for duplicates. You can try some of the suggestions below.
How to find and remove duplicate items in your iTunes library - http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2905
http://dougscripts.com/itunes/itinfo/dupin.php (commercial)
Posts by turingtest2 about different types of duplicates and techniques- https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3555601 and https://discussions.apple.com/message/16042406 (Note: The DeDuper script is for Windows)
Frankly, I would do it manually. As you can see from turingtest2's post, some duplicates are not really duplicates and I would rather do it manually than discover that a script had removed my only copy of a file (yes, I have backups but I may not notice for a year or so a file is no longer there, by which time I would have overwritten the backup because I do not have drive space for storing a year's worth of weeky iTunes backups tens of GB in size).
I would also review how you add media to iTunes. It should not be producing all that many duplicates.

Quick way to remove duplicate files in iTunes Library folder?

I "consolidated my iTunes Library", which caused iTunes to place duplicate mp3/mp4 files in my iTunes library folder (I assume it copied them all over from my backup drive) which has doubled the size of my iTunes Library folder.
Keep in mind, that iTunes actually shows only one copy of each song/video within the app. It's only that the actual files have been doubled on my hard drive. iTunes is only using half of those files.
Is there a way to quickly identify and delete the duplicated files on my hard drive that aren't being used by iTunes?

This information from Doug should help you decide what you can use.
http://dougscripts.com/itunes/itinfo/duplicates.php

Is there an easy way to remove duplicates in my library?

Hi there, since I first started using my ipod, I've had a new laptop. Having finally figured out (with your help!) how to move the songs from my ipod to the library on my new laptop, I did the transfer but it's duplicated loads of the tracks.
Is there an easy way to remove them/stop that from happening?
Any suggestions? Ta Legs xxx

You'll find a script here.
http://home.comcast.net/~teridon73/itunesscripts/index.html

Is there a way to remove duplicate photos from my iphoto library?

Can anyone tell me how to remove duplicate photos from my iphoto library?

Go to the source and post here:
https://discussions.apple.com/community/ilife/iphoto
where the iPhoto experts are.

Should I remove duplicate songs from itunes before connecting new ipad2

Bought new iPad2. New to Apple. Have to connect to iTunes. Should I remove all duplicate songs from iTunes first, before connecting new iPad 2?

Download the zip, and run the program you find: http://ottodestruct.com/blog/2006/01/31/easier-to-use-itunes-scripts/
If you're leery and want more references, do a search for "Quickscripts" and you'll see what people have to say about it!
Good luck!

How to remove pdf files from iTunes/ iPhone/ Books sync window?

I've removed the files from my iTunes library folders, but they still show up with icons in the Books sync window for my phone and iPad.
I've deleted all hard copies of the

Leave it to Safari to crash and not finish my post. I've deleted all of my hard copies within iTunes..Here is a screen shot of where I'd like to remove the pdf files.
I can't highlight the pdf and hit delete from here. Any reference of the 2 willamette books I've deleted, but they are still there....ideas?

Ical cleaner - to slow any faster way to remove duplicates

it takes 3 or 4 days and seems to freeze, any beeter way to remove duplicates

Hi,
You could try my iCal Dupe Deleter.
http://www.nhoj.co.uk/icaldupedeleter
Best wishes
John M
<hr />As I sell software on my site and ask for donations, the Apple Discussions Use Agreement requires that I state that I may receive some form of compensation, financial or otherwise, from my recommendation or link.

HT2905 how do you remove duplicate libraries from itunes

I recently purchased a new window9.1 computer. I tried to move the library to the new pc by using an external haddrive. The songs and other items all transfered, but the mudic remsined on the externalmedia informaiton files, I had to connect the drive to listen to music.. I worked with tech support and copied themusioc files to ITunes. When I reopened the media files and copied music were on the system. ITunes recognzed there was missing information on the media data file and corrected it, so oe I have 20,000 sonfs in a 10,000 song library.How do you delete massive duplicates without individually deleting10,000 songs?

Apple's official advice is here... HT2905 - How to find and remove duplicate items in your iTunes library. It is a manual process and the article fails to explain some of the potential pitfalls.
Use Shift > View > Show Exact Duplicate Items to display duplicates as this is normally a more useful selection. You need to manually select all but one of each group to remove. Sorting the list by Date Added may make it easier to select the appropriate tracks, however this works best when performed immediately after the dupes have been created. If you have multiple entries in iTunes connected to the same file on the hard drive then don't send to the recycle bin.
Use my DeDuper script if you're not sure, don't want to do it by hand, or want to preserve ratings, play counts and playlist membership. See this thread for background and please take note of the warning to backup your library before deduping.
(If you don't see the menu bar press ALT to show it temporarily or CTRL+B to keep it displayed)
tt2

How to remove duplicate songs from Itunes

I've consolidates my music in Itunes 11.01. Playlists are just getting crazy with duplicates.
I want to eliminate duplicate music files, as well as eliminate the references in the interface.
Then sync my new IPad.
When I manually erase a duplicate in Windows Explorer, I'm left with a "!" indication in Itunes that the file cannot be found... duh.
I want to find either an easier way to eliminate duplicates without Windows Explorer, or
a way to select all the "!" references in Itunes interface and delete.
Help please from a completely organized person who hates Apples "intelligence" at thinking it knows what I want, and not providing
adequate help under "remove duplicates" in its help index.
Thanks.

How to find and remove duplicate items in your iTunes library - http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2905
Posts by turingtest2 about different types of duplicates and techniques - https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3555601 and https://discussions.apple.com/message/16042406 (Note: The DeDuper script is for Windows).
May 2014 post on iCloud duplicates - https://discussions.apple.com/message/25867873
Show exact duplicates (Mac and Windows) - https://discussions.apple.com/message/16951281
http://dougscripts.com/itunes/itinfo/dupin.php (commercial)
iTunes Duplicate Song Manager - http://sourceforge.net/projects/itunesdsm/
http://www.hardcoded.net/dupeguru_me/
http://www.wideanglesoftware.com/tunesweeper/index.php
http://www.araxis.com/find-duplicate-files (commercial, free trial) - finds duplicate files on computer, not specifically iTunes
I would do it manually. As you can see from turingtest2's post, some duplicates are not really duplicates.
I would also review how you add media to iTunes. It should not be producing all that many duplicates.

Is there an easy way to remove duplicates in my Mac OS X Mail mailboxes?

Having imported some mailboxes from other applications I find that there are many duplicate messages in Mail mailboxes. I know this comes about from my lack of care in importing. I'd like to eliminate the duplicates, but obviously doing so one by one would be quite a task. I have little expectation that there's an easy way to do this, but I can always hope. Is there a way? Thanx,
Ken

Mail Scripts was a good suggestion but I doesn't work. Well what do you expect with freeware. I ran the duplicate catcher script several times, once on a rather large mailbox which I know contains hundreds of duplicates and it found 1 (one). As suggested I checked "Take all accounts offline" before I ran the script. Does anyone know a different program that can eliminate those duplicates? I'd really appreciate one that works.

Is there a way to remove folders & files from the backup?

i moved a bunch of file that was on two external drives to a larger single external... is there a way to get rid of the backups from the two original externals and free up some space on backup drive?

Enter Time Machine, navigate to the files you want to delete, select them, click the gear button, and then click "Remove all backups of...".

Is there any way to remove an app from iTunes?

I cannot figure out how to delete my downloaded iPhone apps that appear in iTunes 11.3 running under 10.6.8 on my MacBook Pro.
I can remove them from my iPhone, which is good, but I went a little wild years ago trying out apps thinking I could delete the redundant ones once I had decided which ones I like. Well, I've decided, but the whole discard pile is still cluttering up my iTunes window. They also require lots of CPU time getting themselves updated.
Deleting them forever must be simple, but I've run through my gamut of ideas (hitting my keyboard's Delete button, and searching the pull-down menus) with no joy, so I though I'd ask:
What's the trick?
--Gil

Ah-HA! I knew there had to be a way!
Not quite the same in 10.6, but close enough to find it:
It's iTunes>apps, not iTunes>iPhone>apps. I didn't realize there were different windows.
Not double-click, but control-click. Close enough.
Easy-Peasy, now that you showed me how.
Thanks, Barry.
--Gil

Please help! is there a (easy) way to remove/copy files to ext HD without changing ANY date? An d how about e-mail attachments, they also change all dates

Dear forum readers
All I want is to copy my pics to another disk without MAC OS change the date on wich I shot them. Pics, sent to me by e-mail also loose there original date. I understand the difference between making a new file by copying, but I don't understand why it change when I remove them.

There are two kinds of metadata involved when you consider jpeg or other image file.
One is the file data. This is what the Finder shows. This tells you nothing about the contents of the file, just the File itself.
The problem with File metadata is that it can easily change as the file is moved from place to place or exported, e-mailed, uploaded etc.
Photographs have also got both Exif and IPTC metadata. The date and time that your camera snapped the Photograph is recorded in the Exif metadata. Regardless if what the file date says, this is the actual time recorded by the camera.
Photo applications like iPhoto, Aperture, Lightroom, Picasa, Photoshop etc get their date and time from the Exif metadata.
The problem is that the Finder doesn't work with Exif. You need to use an app that understands Exif.
Regards
TD

Is there a fast way to remove duplicate files from itunes?

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