Removing iTunes duplicate files

I'm not sure exactly how it happened, but most of my songs in iTunes have a duplicate file. For example, when I select "Show song file" the folder where the songs are stored looks like the following. The file ending ..1 is the one that is being used in each case.
01 How Am I Different 1.mp3
01 How Am I Different.mp3
02 Nothing is Good Enough 1.mp3
02 Nothing is Good Enough.mp3
...and so on
First, any ideas how this might have happened? I do remember consolidating the library sometime ago - might that have done it?
Secondly, how can I safely remove the duplicate files without corrupting my library or losing music?
Thanks!

I've got over 900 dupes like this. I looked at each pair, and the only difference is the modification date. All mp3 tags are the same, as are the compression params and the Fairplay params.
In my case these dupes were created when I imported large partions of an almost-but-not-quite identical library from another computer, in attempt to do a manual sync between two iTunes libraries on two different machines.
iTunes seems to be a bit too conservative in it's criteria for detecting differences during an import. Clashing mp3 tags is reasonable, but clashing mod dates when there's no other differences is too much. I'm going to file this as an iTunes bug.

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I have just deleted over 20GB of duplicate files from my music folder on my PC, these have been created by Itunes, does anyone know why Itunes creates duplicate files and how to stop it?
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I've got over 900 dupes like this. I looked at each pair, and the only difference is the modification date. All mp3 tags are the same, as are the compression params and the Fairplay params.
In my case these dupes were created when I imported large partions of an almost-but-not-quite identical library from another computer, in attempt to do a manual sync between two iTunes libraries on two different machines.
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I just loaded a few iTunes U files on my iPod (first generation Nano, software version 1.3.1), and now I can see no way to remove them. I manually manage all my music, but the iTunes U files don't show up in music. When I click on the iTunes U tab, I can see the series I want to remove in the Collections window, but it's faded and un-click-on-able.
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I have a playlist in my iTunes account with about 1000 songs in it. However there are many duplicates. When I use the inbuilt function to display duplicates or display exact duplicates it comes up with none. The problem is that the names and artist are different from each other. This can be seen in the image I have attached below.
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You can take a look at Dougs scripts…
http://dougscripts.com/itunes/scripts/ss.php?sp=removeduplicates
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The view menu should have options to enable different column headings.
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yesterday i trashed itunes. anyway got this program to recover the music from the ipod. went to transfer music and only did part of them because im out of disk space. so i went from having 35 GB empty to 3.6 MB.
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I have a MacBookAir that I would like to remove iTunes music files, but do not want to harm things. I use my MacBookPro to load my iPhone5 and never use the MBA. All MBP files are the only ones used and they are backed up to an external HD.
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Yes. Nothing in your home folder is necessary for iTunes or the OS to run.
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Backup issues. Trying to delete iTunes preference files, but Apple Computer folder is missing (should be in the roaming folder)

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i have two independent itunes libraries on my computer right now. how do i consolidate them into one library? how do i get rid of duplicate files?

Hello rmunsey,
Thank you for the question. It sounds like you have two separate iTunes Libraries but would like to add the music from one to the other to have one consolidated library.
If you know where the files are for each library, I recommend opening one iTunes Library in iTunes and importing the files from the other library using the following steps:
Open iTunes
From the File menu, choose one of the following choices:
MacAdd to Library
Windows
Add File to Library
Add Folder to Library
Navigate to and select the file or folder that you want to add
Adding music and other content to iTunes
http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1473
Next, you can search for duplicates:
Choose View > Show Duplicate Items to show duplicate items (matches are based on the song name and artist). If you have multiple versions of the same song (for example, live and studio versions, or versions from different albums) you can hold the Alt or Option key (for Mac OS X) or the Shift key (for Windows) and choose View > Show Exact Duplicate Items. This will show only duplicate songs having the same name, artist, and album.
How to find and remove duplicate items in your iTunes library
http://support.apple.com/kb/ht2905
This should help you identify the duplicates all at one time so that you can delete the extra versions of songs.
Thank you for using Apple Support Communities.
Best,
Sheila M.

Removing iTunes duplicate files

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