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How to Solve Duplicate File Problem on iTunes

I find that I have three or four copies show up in my itunes folder for just about every album I have. Itransferred all my CDs to itunes (Apple Lossless format) a couple of years ago. The only exceptions are recent files I added (new CDs). Is there a way to remove these duplicate references? I'm not sure why they're showing up. I have had one or two harddrive fails, and I created a backup directory for music at one point, which have have had something to do with it - but it should be a backup, not a duplicate.

Any help would be apprecaited in knowing how to remove these dupes, and on keeping proper backup going forwrd.

Am using a PC, iTunes, all Apple Lossless files. Am also open to changing to another interface as long as it's convenient. I do like the itunes remote access via iphone though..
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onhwy61's avatar
onhwy61
5,141 posts
 
Outlier, do your duplicates show the same "play count"?
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ncarv
983 posts
 
Albert, have you compared Audirvana to Pure Music or Amarra?
Maybe you could update us on a new thread when you figure this all out. I'm anxious to get on with it, but the tinkering is daunting.

So far, all I've tried, in addition to playing iTunes through my Squeezebox 3 to my DAC, is playing the HDTracks FLAC samples from a folder separate from iTunes. But, I have to change the library in the SB program to access it, then switch back to choose iTunes.

I was thinking of using the Squeezebox Touch as an interface, but, as Jax2 notes, it won't pass higher than 24/96.

Needless to say . . . I'm a bit confused.
waltersalas's avatar
waltersalas
942 posts
 

Outlier,

I may have found a way out of this mess. I used Mackeeper (which I downloaded) to scan my external hard drive for duplicates, and then simply removed the duplicates there. Then I wiped out everything from iTunes and started over from scratch. Finally, I pointed iTunes to the external hard drive through Preferences, and when the playlist repopulated, it showed only one file per song, as it should. So far, so good...

I hope you get it worked out soon.
albertporter's avatar
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albertporter
4,949 posts
 
06-14-11: Ncarv
Albert, have you compared Audirvana to Pure Music or Amarra?
Maybe you could update us on a new thread when you figure this all out. I'm anxious to get on with it, but the tinkering is daunting.

I have Pure Music and Amarra, I'm told that Amarra is better but it's harder to implement with an iPad or iPhone with Apple Remote app.

I'm hoping for simple elegance with decent sound when everything is complete and I'm trying hard to get a combination of convenience and high performance. So far I have no idea how this will do, not until the DAC is running and all this is in my system.
outlier's avatar
outlier OP
381 posts
 
Hi Onhwy61, the duplicates do not show the same play count - if I play a music file, just that 'version' shows the additional play count.

Waltersales, thanks for the tip although I think that software is only for the Mac, and I'm using itunes on a PC. Also, I'm really not keen on uploading all my music again as it's quite an undertaking - am hoping to somehow bulk remove the duplicate references. Worst case, I'll just ctrl-c the dupes, which should at least be faster than uploading all my music again.

I'm amazed that aa mature and hugely popular software like itunes can be so flakey. The interface and other features have a lot to be desired too.
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