Another way you can improve your iTunes library – besides adding album artwork – is to delete any duplicate songs you may have. Duplicate songs in iTunes are very common, they may be:
- copies of the same song from different albums,
- copies of the same song from different compilations.
- or even different re-mixes of the same song.
The most efficient way to delete duplicates in iTunes is to use Rinse’s Fix Duplicates tool. It puts you in control of how to find duplicates and what to do about them. It lets you decide:
- whether to keep or delete versions of the same song if they are from different albums
- whether to keep the higher quality/bitrate or the longer length version)
Options for fixing duplicates
It also gives you a choice of how to deal with the duplicates. You can either delete them straightaway or add ‘duplicate’ to their name to help you easily identify them later should you want to delete them.
Perhaps most useful of all though, the Fix Duplicates tool has a simulator mode, that’ll show you exactly what actions would be taken if you went ahead with the duplicates fix.
Unlike the display duplicates feature built into iTunes which I will talk about in the next post, the Rinse Fix Duplicates feature will find duplicates even if they have misspelt names.
Finding and removing those duplicate songs that you no longer want in your iTunes library not only helps you save some hard drive space but it also makes your iTunes experience a lot more enjoyable. Without duplicate songs, your library is easier to browse through and you won’t ever have the same song play twice or more in a row, unless of course you want to and have turned on repeat mode.
Try Rinse to easily delete duplicates from your iTunes library the way you want it
