3 Free Ways to Remove Duplicate Songs from iTunes

Those who like to use the old iPods to listen to music, myself among them, probably have collected many music tracks in iTunes music library. With a large music library, you may have many duplicate tracks. In this article, I will show you 3 free methods to remove duplicate songs from iTunes.

I know there is some paid software out there that is dedicated to doing such a thing. I don’t think it is necessary to pay for it since there are free methods out there. Let me break it down for you.

Delete Duplicate Songs in iTunes

iTunes actually has the option to show all the duplicate songs, so you can quickly remove all the duplicate songs altogether. Let me show you how to do that step by step.

Step 1. You can first select a playlist, a few songs, or the entire library that you want to remove duplicates from.

Step 2. Click File > Library > Show Duplicate Items.

Step 3. Right-click on the blank space to the right of the last column, and select “Date Modified” or “Date Added” to show Date Modified or Date Added column in iTunes, so you can better sort out the duplicate tracks.

Step 4. Select the recently added duplicated songs and hit Delete to remove all the duplicated songs from iTunes. You can use Ctrl + click or Shift + click to select multiple results to delete on Windows or Command + click or Shift + click on Mac.

Notes: If you only want to remove exact duplicate tracks, press and hold the Shift key while you click the File button.

If you only want to delete downloaded items, you need first click View and select Only Downloaded Music before showing duplicate items.

The option Show Duplicate Items only available to remove duplicated tracks imported to iTunes on this PC. You will see the option greyed out when you want to apply this to your iOS music library. If you login to your Apple Music accounts on iTunes, the songs you deleted from iTunes will also affect your iCloud Music Library on your iPhone.

Use a Script to Delete Duplicate Songs in iTunes

If you have a very larger music collection like thousands of tracks, you may still find it hard to do that manually. Luckily, someone has written a script to help you remove duplicates on iTunes automatically. You refer to the steps below to see how it works.

Step 1.  Download the script DeDuper from here to run. If it does not start to download, just copy all the codes and paste them on a new TXT file and then change the file extension to “.vbs”.

Step 2. Like the previous method, select the playlists or the entire library that you want to remove duplicates from. If you do not specify the music source, this script will check all the downloaded music for duplicates

Step 3. Double click to run this script and then can select to preview & confirm each action or let it process tracks automatically. My recommendation is to back up your library (make a copy of the iTunes Library.itl file) and let the script to remove duplicates automatically.

You can select the Music source in your library to run this script. If you do not select a music source, this script will check all the downloaded music for duplicates.

As you can see this method can only remove duplicate songs from iTunes library that are physically stored on your computer. If you want to remove duplicates from Apple Music, you can check the next method.

Delete Duplicate Songs in Music App on iPhone or Mac

If you want to remove duplicate songs in your music library on your Mac or iPhone, there is one pre-made shortcut. Shortcuts is a built-in app for automation available on iPhone Since iOS 12 and Mac since macOS 12 (Monterey). You can check this guide to learn to create your own Siri shortcuts.

This shortcut can help you isolate duplicates whether the songs are imported from other locations or tracks from Apple Music. Sound cool? You can follow the steps below to get started.

Step 1. Then open this link in Safari to download the Apple Music Check Duplicates shortcut.

Step 2. Tap to run this shortcut and it will start to check for duplicates.

Step 3. When the process is complete, open the Music app and you will find a new playlist called Redundant Songs.

Step 4. The tracks in this playlist are all duplicates in your music library. Now you can delete all songs in this playlist from Library.

If you find many duplicate songs in this playlist, I highly suggest you use iTunes or Music app on Mac to remove all tracks from this playlist. After that, you will find your music library has no duplicate songs.

Bonus: TidyMyMusic

TidyMyMusic is a third-party program for removing duplicate songs in iTunes music library. You can delete all duplicates automatically by one click. You can now download the free trial version of the program to see how it works.

Step 1. Click Import iTunes Library to let the program scan your iTunes library and collect all the songs to TidyMyMusic all by itself. You can also import your local music to TidyMyMusic.

Step 2. Click the Delete Duplicates button at the bottom left and then the program will show you all the duplicates. You can also specify the file info to compare if needed.

Step 3. The program will automatically select the best version of the song to keep, so you just need to click the Delete Duplicates button to delete all the duplicated songs in iTunes Library

More than removing duplicated songs in iTunes, the program can automatically fix mislabeled songs with song names, artist info, and so forth. If you use a Mac, you can get TidyMyMusic for Mac

Conclusion

That’s all the 3 methods to remove duplicates from iTunes music library. Now it is your turn. Which of these methods are you going to try first? If you have found a better way to do it, share it in the comments.