I Need To Merge Music Files That Are All Over the Place...

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I Need To Merge Music Files That Are All Over the Place...

Over the years I have accumulated several folders in various versions of iTunes that contain my music files. These folders range from 100GB to 400GB in size, so I am sure that there is some duplication of songs. How can I combine all of the music in these various folders into one location that does not contain duplicates?

Do I need to use third party software to combine without duplicating, or can I do it some other way?

Thanks

iMac Line (2012 and Later)

Posted on Mar 8, 2020 4:56 PM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

Rysz

Level 8

44,421 points

Mar 8, 2020 5:50 PM in response to donhoos66

" The same menu also has a > Consolidate Files function."

Choose or create an iTunes Library, then add/import/consolidate all the other folders into it. Everything should be done from within the iTunes interface, not by dealing with music files or folders directly in the Finder.

Also make sure your Preferences are set correctly.

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Answer 2

donhoos66 Author

Level 1

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Mar 8, 2020 5:46 PM in response to Rysz

Thanks, I'm aware of that....but my question is more about how I get all of my music files into one folder instead of in various folders on various external hard drives etc. I want to be able to point my iTunes to one music folder that I know contains all of the music that I've downloaded and ripped. Right now, I'm not confident that there is one file that contains it all. Hopefully this makes sense.

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Answer 3

donhoos66 Author

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Mar 8, 2020 5:53 PM in response to Rysz

So if I am pointing iTunes toward a music folder with 150GB of music in it and then I import all of the music from a different folder that has 400GB of music, will that work? Will I have 550GB of potentially duplicative music that I need to comb through?

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Answer 4

Rysz

Level 8

44,421 points

Mar 8, 2020 6:02 PM in response to Rysz

Alternative method if the music files are not in sub-folders:

Drag all the files from the smaller folder into the larger folder. Since Finder doesn’t allow two files with exactly the same file name to exist within a single folder, it will move only those that are not duplicates, leaving the others in the original folder.

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Answer 5

donhoos66 Author

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Mar 8, 2020 10:11 PM in response to Rysz

I think the music files are in subfolders, meaning that each artist has a folder. So when I drag files from one into the other I think it recognizes the artists as duplicative even if the albums under each artist are different.

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Answer 6

Rysz

Level 8

44,421 points

Mar 8, 2020 5:42 PM in response to donhoos66

iTunes has a basic duplicate search function.

iTunes > File > Library > Show Duplicate Items.

The same menu also has a > Consolidate Files function.

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Answer 7

Rysz

Level 8

44,421 points

Mar 8, 2020 5:57 PM in response to donhoos66

With the prefs set as shown, the files will be combined into a single iTunes Library. Then you use the duplicate find command. You go thru the list and mark which files to keep or delete.

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I Need To Merge Music Files That Are All Over the Place...

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