iTunes 4.7 includes support for copying photos to an iPod photo and a cool new feature: the ability to show duplicate songs in your library. It works like this, using iTunes 4.7 simply choose a playlist (or your library) and select Edit > Show Duplicate Songs. The main iTunes window switches to display all of the duplicate songs found in your selected playlist. Clicking on the Show All Songs buttons brings you back to the regular view. Read More…
iTunes 4.7 includes support for copying photos to an iPod photo and a cool new feature: the ability to show duplicate songs in your library. It works like this, using iTunes 4.7 simply choose a playlist (or your library) and select Edit > Show Duplicate Songs. The main iTunes window switches to display all of the duplicate songs found in your selected playlist. Clicking on the Show All Songs buttons brings you back to the regular view.
Finding dupes in iTunes is a truly great feature although it could be implemented better. Show Duplicate Songs reports that I have over 9GB of dupes in my 36GB music library. The problem with the feature is that it appears to only search for dupes by Artist and Song Name. In my case, I have a lot of music where I might have an album version, live version(s) and even a compilation version of the same song. Add to the mix a healthy dose of jam bands like Phish and The Grateful Dead and you’ll really confuse the Duplicate Songs feature. I never knew that I had nine versions of Pearl Jam’s Corduroy, for example. Duplicate files can easily be moved to the trash by pressing Command-Option-Delete
Duplicate handling could also be improved by adding a simple preference that asks you to select the duplicate matching criteria that you want to use with a series of check boxes for Artist, Song Name, Album, Time, Bit Rate, etc. The more of these that you check, the fewer (real) dupes that would be found.
Now I’d like to see a feature that automagically populates all of the Album artwork for my iTunes in the background (not manually or while playing each track). I know that there are third party scripts to do this, but most are cumbersome and unwieldy.
How many dupes do you have in your iTunes library? What other features would you like to see?
