I meant to get in on this ITunes discussion a while ago. As mentioned before by someone else, iTunes has a "Show Duplicates" option and I'm mentioning it here in case anyone wants all the advice possible (that I can offer) in one document. The "Show Duplicates" option is not fully trustworthy because I've tested it and known duplicates did not show up in the list of duplicates. iTunes ONLY looks for dupes by exact name.
To PREVENT or resolve duplicates in iTunes: 1. Always import music while connected to the Internet so that "Get Info" metadata tags for the tracks has a better chance of being accessed 2. ACCEPT the Internet-standardized "Get Info" metadata tags for the album as iTunes finds them on the Internet or on the CD/DVD, unless it's just plain wrong, because if you start using your own names, you're simply going to have trouble avoiding dupes when merging libraries later. Just GIVE UP on being a control freak and wanting things named your way! If you recording or created the file, that's fine, but not if it's commercially produced and published recordings. You simply should accept the metadata that "pops in" automatically. You can fill in MISSING data, but don't change album, artist, or track names! 3. LET iTunes manage how your library is ordered- by artist, then album, etc. This will put a lot of people in the "unknown" folders until you correct the "Get Info" metadata, but if you try and manage it then you'll have to keep track of everything in your head and trust me you will make mistakes... 4. Let iTunes copy all music into it's main folder- IF you can. Some of my clients leave their iTunes library on an network based iTunes file server because they can't survive without 9 billion songs, one for every starving child in Africa... 5. Keep all of your songs in only ONE FORMAT. Try not to get confused and convert songs twice or into several different formats! If you have to convert a song to mp3 or AAC so that iTunes "takes it", then delete the non-iTunes useable version (you can always keep a backup offline somewhere). If you need two file type versions for a song IN iTunes, accept that it will be there "appearing" like a duplicate. 6. When combining libraries, you can use the iTunes "Consolidate Library" option under the File menu, or to avoid THAT uncontrollable mystery if it's a big merger, you can do a little extra work: 6a. First combine the iTunes Music folders outside iTunes, in Finder, using a folder comparison utility. For my photos I used, I think, the Developer tool "Filecompare" which tells me what's on the left and what's on the right and what's on both sides. I also just bought a folder synching tool called "YouSync" or something like that. 6b. Second, still in Finder, not iTunes, use a duplicate-finding tool like DupeGuru to look for duplicates after the iTunes folders are merged. A good dupe-finding tool will actually look at the binary data in the files and will find duplicates even if they are not named the same! However I did have DupeGuru crash badly a couple of times with a client, so it's not the BEST one! 6c. If you want a really pristine collection, do a final review to make sure that all folder in the iTunes Music library folder REALLY ARE organized by Artist then Album then Track. Correct any obvious situations where the Artist is named inconsistently. For example, correct "Four Tops" and "The Four Tops" and "Four Tops, The" so that there is one folder that best matches how iTunes would find the metadata on the Internet if you import a new cd from that artist (you may have to guess that in this case it would be "The Four Tops", or just look on the Apple store to see how the performers are listed)... 6d. Now inside iTunes, Hose/Delete the active iTunes library completely from within iTunes- but before you do it make sure that you set your preferences so that the files themselves are not deleted! KEEP FILES if asked! There are two questions: remove from library? YES. KEEP FILES? YES. You just want to delete the (xml library data file) references to them, not the files! 6e. Now, when you have a pristine iTunes folder without dupes, completely rebuild the iTunes library by using "Add to Library" under the file menu, and simply add back the WHOLE iTunes Music folder. Don't point to more places and don't SEARCH for media EVER. 7. Once you have a pristine library, TURN OFF the auto-importing of inserted media. You always really want to be there watching when it happens. For one thing you can stop it if everything is coming in as "track one" etc and "unknown artist"! Auto-importing seems like it makes life easy but it really poses problems because the process is imperfect and occurs best when manually managed. 8. Now, when adding music later, it's common sense to search for whether the album, the artist, and the songs are already in your library before adding the album because your spouse or roommate or children might have done that even if you didn't. Also, you want to import with the correct artist names to avoid having one artist represented in two different ways. 9. It's safer in general to import from the cd or dvd rather than via a file copy because that's when the Internet-checking of data or the dvd/cd-checking of data occurs. I know this document is not perfect but I hope it helps. --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed Low End Mac's G3-5 List, a group for those using G3, G4, and G5 desktop Macs - with a particular focus on Power Macs. 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