Apple is the most profitable company in the world, and its iTunes/Apple Music service makes up 7.6% of those profits. That’s nothing to sniff at, and it’s a reminder that — while you might know them as the company behind the Mac and iPhone — Apple have a booming business in services, too.
Yet, despite the scale and importance of Apple’s iTunes service, plenty of people around the world run into small but persistent problems with it every single day.
For example, how many iTunes users have run into issues with iTunes duplicates while they’re trying to enjoy their music libraries? It’s more than you’d think, and the process of manually fixing iTunes duplicate playlists is so laborious that many simply don’t bother.
But you don’t have to deal with it, keep reading for more on how to remove iTunes duplicates.
How Do I Find Duplicates?
The process of finding duplicates within iTunes is actually pretty easy. Thanks to Apple’s clever programming, the iTunes app has a function built right in that will let users identify and display duplicate entries with only a few clicks of a mouse (or trackpad).
Just open iTunes, hit ‘File’, then ‘Library’, then ‘Show Duplicate Items’. Provided everything is working as it should, you’ll be presented with a list of all the various duplicated items that are currently haunting your iTunes library.
But just hitting a button to display duplicates isn’t enough, we need to know how to disable duplicates on iTunes.
And that’s where things get interesting.
How Do I Fix iTunes Duplicates?
Of course, there’s always the manual option. Just go through that list of duplicates and click every individual song you want to purge.
But that’s time-intensive and, let’s be honest, pretty boring. There are far better ways to remove iTunes duplicates than just clicking your way through them.
For example, there’s third-party software out there that will comb your iTunes library and remove duplicates itself. You can read more about that over here.
But if you want to stop iTunes creating duplicate entries ever again, you need to hit up the preferences section of the app. Open iTunes, click ‘Edit’, then ‘Preferences’. Go to the ‘Advanced’ tab and then, finally, click ‘Copy files to iTunes Media folder when adding to library’.
That should take care of those pesky duplicate entries in the future and ensure that you never have to deal with this issue again.
Making Your iTunes into a ‘My Tunes’
So there you have it, a quick and comprehensive guide to sorting out those annoying iTunes duplicates that are clogging up your otherwise impeccable music library. Whether you have a few albums saved, or a library 10,000 songs strong, there’s something here to help make your iTunes experience a lot better than it used to be.
Now to get back to the important stuff: your music.
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