Hi all

Does anyone know of any apps/scripts for Mac/iTunes which let you root out duplicate songs on an iPod - that work? Found a couple yesterday after searching (YamiPod and iPodDuplicatesRemover) but neither seem to work.

I've got around 20,000 tunes on my Classic, and many are dupes, but takes forever just scrolling through when listed by track name.... need something to speed it up so I can free up some space!

Thanks!

Ben

iTunes>File>Show Duplicates

Doesn't work with iPods unfortunately, only the main library. Discovered that a long time ago.

Err...

Surely all the songs on your iPod are in your main library so removing them from there will remove them from the iPod when you next sync?

Nope, I manage it manually - don't like the auto sync, and it would use up too much space to keep them all on the Mac! (120gb!) (I do however rip them all to an external HD occasionally to back up...)

I see...

Not what you want to hear but IMO you've most likely got yourself into this situation through using your iPod/iTunes in a way that hadn't really been intended by Apple. Never having used the iPod this way how do you copy stuff onto it and remove tracks using your method?

BTW: I wouldn't consider a 120GB library large. Mine currently occupies a 250GB drive of its own and next year will be re-ripped as AIFF onto a 2TB drive. Time to consider getting a dedicated iTunes library disk for your system I think.

Yeah, that might be an idea, but would mean having to plug an external drive to the MacBook each time... which might be a faff. Could be worth considering though if I could get a decent wireless one. I prefer the manual way though really... I usually add tracks from my work Mac also though, so Auto Sync would prevent me from doing that.

It's easy to add stuff manually. You simply drag the mp3s etc from anywhere onto the iPod symbol or playlist on the sidebar (if you have it showing) and on it goes - no need to add to library first. To remove songs, just select the track(s) and hit delete.

I may retry those two apps I found at home. Maybe they might work there.

So the iPod acts just like another USB hard drive?

The surely you can open the Finder window for the iPod, do order by name in list view and track down the duplicates that way?

Yeah, basically. I guess that's what makes trying to work with iTunes on mum-in-law's PC with her iPad even more infuriating, when you can't drag an drop...

That's the method I had been using, but with nearly 20,000 songs, it takes a while, hence the post. I'm sure there must be a app or script somewhere that actually works....

TBH, without seeing how the apps work, or knowing your criteria for how close two tracks need to be to be considered duplicates, I personally wouldn't want to risk it. Having done my best to weed out duplicate tracks as I was ripping them when I found the only way to be 100% sure was to listen to the the tracks in question before hitting (or not) delete.

Having just played with the Find Duplicates function within iTunes itself, it appears to only use the song title and artist, and therefore can't distinguish between different length edits or live and studio versions if it isn't explicit from the name of the track. Of course using extra criteria is no guarantee of being any more accurate. I have encountered tracks that differ in length by a couple of seconds but are otherwise identical - which is insufficient IMO to be worth keeping both versions.