Duplicate File Deleting Software Inquiry

[illuminetics]

For various reasons (mainly my own lack of good file management), I have many songs duplicated on my music server. I'd like to remove the duplicates so I have only one of each song of a certain codec. I've looked on the web and there are numerous programs that will do the job. Before downloading any software, I wanted to get some recommendations from the good folks here at CA.

Thanks!

Randy

 

[tne]

in iTunes there is a Display Duplicates tab in the Files menu.

you then need to pick which copy(ies) that you want.

 

many duplicates are valid to keep, i.e. live versions of songs you have

studio copies of or, e.g., mono and stereo Beatles catalogs.

 

[illuminetics]

I should have mentioned more detail...

My OS is Windows XP and using Winamp (could do better, I know).

I only wish to remove exact duplicate files, not merely same song titles.

 

 

[Mister Wednesday]

illuminetics,

 

Here's an article on the Macworld website with a tip on how to identify exact duplicates in iTunes:

 

http://www.macworld.com/article/145919/2010/01/itunesdupes.html

 

Hope this helps.

 

Regards,

 

Mister Wednesday

 

[peterson]

Why don't you try Duplicate Files Deleter? It will do a thorough search of your hard disk and find out the two or more duplicate files of the same file which may be stored at different locations. It will give you a comprehensive list of all those files and you can decide for yourself what you want to do with them. It's easy to use. Hope it will help you.

[Ralf11]

I wonder if Show Exact Duplicates will show files in AAC, AIFF that otherwise match ones in Apple Lossless?

 

Anyway, can the OP tell us more about the files?  Are they exact or just similar versions with slightly different (1 sec) timing differences? or..?

[kumakuma]

8 minutes ago, Ralf11 said:

I wonder if Show Exact Duplicates will show files in AAC, AIFF that otherwise match ones in Apple Lossless?

 

Anyway, can the OP tell us more about the files?  Are they exact or just similar versions with slightly different (1 sec) timing differences? or..?

 

Hopefully the OP has been able to solve this problem in the last six years.  

[Ralf11]

it helps others, including me

[kumakuma]

3 minutes ago, Ralf11 said:

it helps others, including me

 

The OP hasn't posted here since 2012 so don't hold your breath about getting more information.

 

BTW, it's pretty easy to test how "Show Exact Duplicates" works.

 

Simply use XLD to convert some of your existing files into another format, add these new files to your iTunes library, and then see if they are treated as duplicates or not.

 

My guess is that the files need to be in the same format to match but who knows.

[Ralf11]

I'm not an XLDer

[audiventory]

8 hours ago, Ralf11 said:

Anyway, can the OP tell us more about the files?  Are they exact or just similar versions with slightly different (1 sec) timing differences? or..?

 

When song unpacked to comparion, binary content may depend on decoder, theoretically.

Such comparison is not simple binary.

 

If not binary exact files are detected as similar, these files should have especial marks. Decission about deleting shold be done only by user, because very probable mistake of detection.

Also metadata analysis may be useful.

 

[CuteStudio]

I had this exact problem, it's very easily done. 

I also ended up with a mix of MP3s of various rates, Flacs, the odd Ogg, m4a and WAV in a artist/album order. 

 

I tries iTunes for duplicates but didn't get along with it very well, and all my meta free tracks (all Wavs, a few others) were presented as a huge long list of filenames at the bottom. Windows 10 doesn't provide much of a solution either, although their Groove player is Ok.

 

All I wanted was for the music player to have a look at the directory structure, look at the meta data and for files with the same Artist/Album/Song name I wanted it to find the best meta data and the best (biggest) music data.

 

I also have a personal dislike of clipping and wanted to see the waveform of what I was playing too, and ideally have it declipped just before I listened to it. This was a simple request I thought, but Apple were capable of building a $5bn vanity HQ but not it seemed, of making iTunes do anything useful.

 

I also wanted to be able to play the music on the PC with the files on, or on a tablet, or a phone, or another PC in a different room, and have the option of controlling the music from a 3rd device as a remote control.

Currently a Linux PC in the garage is serving music to my Windows 10 laptop across the room via wifi in 'Slave' mode, and I'm typing this on an Apple Airbook on the same wifi which is using a(nother) Google Chrome tab as the remote control with all the song lists etc.

It's actually playing Dire Straits Sultans of Swing currently, so Audio Nirvana here . Next, random or I may slip in a couple of Rolling Stones tracks onto the song stack.

 

So from having duplicates I had by the time I'd thought about it, created quite a requirements list. Oh and I also wanted it to run on Apple, Linux, Windows and Raspberry as I had all of those.

 

So I wrote SeeDeClip4, and that remains the only program I'm aware of that deals correctly with duplicates and meta data, let alone my other requirements. It will literally fish out the metadata from an MP3 while playing a WAV if it needs to, for the old WAVs I made it has a peek in the album directory, so for albums where I only have the WAV it uses that cover art, and if empty I can drag-n-drop in some art straight from my browser.