TERMinal In Association WITH ITUNes** Where Are The Answers CAPTAIN CORK&&&

Question

PLEASE HELP CAP
Im wondering if anyone can help me. I recently got a reply to a post that I wrote about deleting duplicated files. Mainly MP3s. I have not done this method yet though. Does it work? I have around 9000 mp3s that Itunes seems to always duplicate and I need to get rid of them. Can I open one of my ex-Harddrives that pretty much hold mp3s and run this command? Im looking for a completely faster method than individually deleting them in Itunes. One last question too. Where do I type this command? If anyone can help me Id greatly appreciate it. The reply is below my name
Jamie
posternut:
If none of the original filenames contains the lettering " copy", you can do what you want quite easily.
Open Terminal, navigate to the folder that contains the files, and enter the following command (exactly as it appears here):
rm *" copy"*
That's all there is to it. All 9000 duplicate files will be removed very quickly.
If you need help "navigating to the folder" or if some of your original filenames contain the lettering “ copy”, then post back here.
Greg

Answer 1

For starters, titling your post with something as inane as that will only get you inane answers.
You say that iTunes duplicated your song files, so the reply given by the advice is erroneous. If the files were duplicated by Finder the advice would be halfway valid, since it would only work for one folder. Ouch
There are 2 kinds of duplicates:
1) If you have iTunes set to "Keep music folder organized" and also "Copy song files when adding to library". Right? If so, iTunes will copy all your song files to a folder named after the artist and album in the song file's data fields. Problem is, iTunes will not delete the originals, that may be why you have 9000 songs you don't want. I typically see thousands of duplicated and unwanted song files clogging people's Macs, which is stupid.
2) Files actually duplicated twice or more in iTunes, This happens if you add the song twice or more, or different songs have duplicate names.
Type 2 is easy to delete. Open a Finder window and press cmd-f for "Find". A special window will open. Make sure the button "Home" is selected. For "Kind" select "Music". In the field in the upper right, type "1.m" (without the quotes). iTunes renames duplicate files with a number according to the number of duplicates, so this way you can check 1,2,3,4 or any number of suspected duplicates and drag them to the trash. In a Find window, you can select all, or bulk by using command and/or shift-up/down keys.
So try that and see how many you delete. If you have many after that I will answer the kind of duplicate #1.