General Question

josie's avatar

What is the quickest way to get rid of duplicate music files on my hard drive?

Asked by josie (30934points) May 24th, 2013

Over the years, I have downloaded thousands of mp3 files on my computer(s) hard drive. There are so many, that I lose track, and so off and on I will copy some that are duplicates. Usually, they are in different folders (Example, Lady Gaga Folder, and also Girl Club Music Folder) so Windows doesn’t see the files and give me the over-write heads up when I copy them.

So what I am looking for is a way to reorganize all my music files so that there are no duplicates. The only way I know how to do it is to search mp3, list them all in alpha order, and one by one select and delete. Too tedious and time consuming.

Is that the only solution, or is their a Windows trick or some software to “gang” identify and delete duplicate files in different folders.

Thanks

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4 Answers

XOIIO's avatar

If you put them all into itunes then it has a remove duplicates option, there is also plenty of software available just by googling “remove duplicate music files”, it’s up to you to find one you like though, some only let you remove so many for free, others do all.

XOIIO (18328points)“Great Answer” (5points) Flag as…
rexacoracofalipitorius's avatar

http://dff.sourceforge.net/
This was the best option I could find for Windows after a quick googling. It’s Free Software but unfortunately unmaintained. It’s got a GUI, but no warranty, so be careful!

rexacoracofalipitorius (2985points)“Great Answer” (3points) Flag as…
josie's avatar

Thanks your help. I appreciate the effort.

josie (30934points)“Great Answer” (0points) Flag as…
elbanditoroso's avatar

The main problem is that the same file intellectually (i.e. same title, same artist) may have been given a different title when ripped from one place or another. And it was almost certainly encoded differently by the CD maker versus Itunes versus something else.

There are any number of “remove duplicates” programs, but they are imperfect. The check on things like file size (which may be different depending on encoding), creation date (almost certainly to be different), and title.

So a program will find some, but not all.

elbanditoroso (33187points)“Great Answer” (3points) Flag as…

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