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Is there an easier way to delete duplications in iTunes?


VeekNYC

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Just transferred a large number of tracks (@ 30k) from a PC to a new Mac Mini and it seams that there are quite a few thousand duplications. Is there an easy way to perform mass deletions as opposed to actually clicking and selecting each one?

 

AR LS25MKII / AR PH6 Phono / Pass X250 / Mac Mini - Amarra / PS Audio Perfect Wave MK II DAC / VPI Classic - Dynavector DV20x2 / VPI SDS / Wilson Audio WITT's / MIT / Synergistic Research / Shunyata

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(Maybe this is obvious), but have you used the 'Find Duplicates' function of iTunes? It's under the File menu.

 

Once you isolate them it should be easy to sort on some column and delete the ones you don't want.

 

iMac/Pure Music => USB => Wyred 4 Sound DAC-1 => Van Alstine Ultra EC preamp + Ultra 550 amp => VMPS 626R + Adire sub

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It should be but as they were created at roughly the same time its almost impossible to separate the original from the copy en mass with out going album by album (over 1k albums).

 

AR LS25MKII / AR PH6 Phono / Pass X250 / Mac Mini - Amarra / PS Audio Perfect Wave MK II DAC / VPI Classic - Dynavector DV20x2 / VPI SDS / Wilson Audio WITT's / MIT / Synergistic Research / Shunyata

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As drystream said, the "Display Duplicates" function (in the File menu) in iTunes is helpful. I just had to do some of this last night (don't ask), and I found that if you display duplicates and then sort by "album" or "album by artist," that's a good way to isolate an album's worth of duplicates, which lets you crank through pretty quickly. Still grunt work, though.

 

--David

 

Listening Room: Mac mini (Roon Core) > iMac (HQP) > exaSound PlayPoint (as NAA) > exaSound e32 > W4S STP-SE > Benchmark AHB2 > Wilson Sophia Series 2 (Details)

Office: Mac Pro >  AudioQuest DragonFly Red > JBL LSR305

Mobile: iPhone 6S > AudioQuest DragonFly Black > JH Audio JH5

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Well I went in to the hard drive and got rid of all the redundant files (which had extra info on them as in ver1 2 or 3). Now in the iTunes window the deleted files come up with the !. Can I somehow sort for those and do another mass delete or is there a way to clean all that up another way?

 

AR LS25MKII / AR PH6 Phono / Pass X250 / Mac Mini - Amarra / PS Audio Perfect Wave MK II DAC / VPI Classic - Dynavector DV20x2 / VPI SDS / Wilson Audio WITT's / MIT / Synergistic Research / Shunyata

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Since the files no longer exist on the disk, you could drop the entire library and just re-import the files from disk. I would only do that if your metadata is clean though.

 

If you have all your music files under one folder, then this is a trivial task to accomplish. Otherwise, it is a bad idea! :)

 

To re-import about 40K tracks from disk takes about 10 minutes here.

 

-Paul

 

 

 

Anyone who considers protocol unimportant has never dealt with a cat DAC.

Robert A. Heinlein

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I agree with Paul that reimporting works great, but there are a couple of warnings:

 

1.) iTunes does not store all metadata within the music file. Deleting and reimporting will strip Rating ("stars") and possibly Album Art (if music was ripped with iTunes).

 

2.) Even if you music is stored in multiple subdirectories within a single root directory, iTunes will import them all just fine.

 

Another alternative to reimporting is to sort the music by "Date Added", usually the "!" versions will consolidate together so that you can at least use Shift-Click to select them and delete them in bulk. Still: lots of grunt work.

 

Peachtree Audio DAC-iT, Dynaco Stereo 70 Amp w/ Curcio triode cascode conversion, MCM Systems .7 Monitors

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I don't know if you are aware of Doug's AppleScripts: http://dougscripts.com/itunes/

 

I use several scripts for things iTunes doesn't do on its own. I think in general, you can avoid problems if you work within iTunes instead of the brute force method (although I've done that too).

 

iMac/Pure Music => USB => Wyred 4 Sound DAC-1 => Van Alstine Ultra EC preamp + Ultra 550 amp => VMPS 626R + Adire sub

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I have gone back to my original hard drive and discovered that there are multiples on there as well. Many living in a folder called "Bliss" of which I have no knowledge of. Planning to simply delete that entire folder.

 

AR LS25MKII / AR PH6 Phono / Pass X250 / Mac Mini - Amarra / PS Audio Perfect Wave MK II DAC / VPI Classic - Dynavector DV20x2 / VPI SDS / Wilson Audio WITT's / MIT / Synergistic Research / Shunyata

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When you want to remove from the iTunes library all the tracks that iTunes has marked with a "!" because the files are missing, you can do it with the following AppleScript:

 

tell application "iTunes"

set mySelection to selection

repeat with myTrack in mySelection

if location of myTrack = missing value then delete myTrack

end repeat

end tell

 

To avoid inadvertently removing tracks beyond those you intend, the script only operates on a group of tracks that you have selected (i.e., highlighted) in the iTunes browser window. In other words, within the set of tracks you have selected, the script will delete the subset whose file is missing.

 

Simply copy and paste the script into an empty window of the AppleScript Editor. Alternatively, open the attached file, which will launch AppleScript Editor. Either way, press the Run button above the script.

 

HQPlayer (on 3.8 GHz 8-core i7 iMac 2020) > NAA (on 2012 Mac Mini i7) > RME ADI-2 v2 > Benchmark AHB-2 > Thiel 3.7

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