Remove duplicate playlist from iPhone
How to delete duplicate songs in iTunes and MusicLearn how to remove duplicated song files on your Mac, iPhone and iPad. Here's the best way to delete duplicate music in iTunes or Music. Free up space and tidy up your music library with this guide.By Karen Haslam, Editor| 14 Jan 20 Show
Whether youre using iTunes or the new Mac Music app to manage your tunes on your Mac, PC, iPad or iPhone one problem persists: that of duplicated music and other audio files. Sometimes iTunes and the Music app end up with multiple copies of the same song, or even two copies of an entire album. This might be because you have imported an album from a CD and also bought a greatest hits album from the iTunes Store. Or perhaps you have downloaded a version of the track from the Apple Music subscription service despite already owning the track. You might want these duplicate files: perhaps you have an acoustic version and an album version, or even a concert recording. But sometimes its exactly the same track and duplicated files are annoying because they waste space, make searching more complicated, and sometimes you end up playing the same song repeatedly. In this feature, we show you an easy way to delete unwanted extra copies of songs and albums from your music library. Before you start deleting there are a few things to be aware of: The tracks might not actually be taking up any space on your computer, iPhone or iPad: If you subscribe to iTunes Match or Apple Music your entire music collection could be stored in the cloud thanks to iCloud Music Library. In that case only tracks that you choose to download (perhaps so you could play them offline) will be stored on your Mac, iPad or iPhone. If you were to delete those tracks theyd be deleted from the cloud - which would mean you wouldnt be able to play them on any of your devices. If you are trying to save space then right click on one of these downloaded tracks and choose Remove Download, that way you wont be removing the track from iCloud Music Library. If you want to just see the tracks that are actually stored on your Mac go to View > Only Downloaded Music. Alternatively, when you look at the All Music view youll see a cloud icon beside any tracks that are in the cloud. You may also want to be cautious about deleting what might actually be two different tracks. As we said above, you could own an acoustic version as well as the album and want to keep both. In that case. If you follow our steps below for identifying duplicates you should be able to avoid this. However, because mistakes happen it would be wise to back up your library before you start. Heres how to back up your Mac. For more general deletion advice, take a look atHow to find and delete duplicate files on Mac and How to save space on a Mac. How to delete duplicated music on a MacThe good news is its really easy to delete duplicated music on your Mac. Well show you how to identify the duplicated tracks in iTunes and in the Music app as well as how to make sure that they really are the same so that you dont accidentally delete something you want to keep. 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However, the problem with this method is you cant see enough information about the tracks to know if they are really the same. Luckily there is a way to get your Mac to identify actual duplicates. Using Show Duplicate Items in Music or iTunesIf you have updated your Mac to Catalina your iTunes app will have been replaced by the Music app. Theres not actually a huge difference between the two apps but you can read about how to use the Music app here.
You'll see all the duplicated tracks, however there are a few things to note:
The big problem with this method of identifying a duplicate is that if can show you duplicates that arent true duplicates. For example, there might be two versions of the same track but they might be quite different versions that came with different albums. Luckily there is a simple way to avoid this as well explain next. Using Show exact duplicates in Music or iTunesWhat if you dont want to delete tracks that arent really the same. There is a simple way to get iTunes and Music to just show the tracks that really are identical but you need to press an extra key.
This will still show you two versions of a track on two different albums, but it should avoid the issue where two very different tracks are incorrectly identified as the same (such as the concert version of the Red Hot Chilli Peppers track mentioned above.) Show Exact Duplicates returned 87 items on exact duplicates and Show Duplicate Items returned 685 items for us, so its probably wise to start here if you are pushed for time. How to decide what to deleteDont just delete everything you see. Apples not showing you the duplicates you can safely delete. Its showing the duplicates and letting you choose which ones to get rid of. Here are a few tips to help you decide what to delete:
How to delete musicSo, now you have identified your exact duplicates how can you remove them from your library? As we mentioned above these tracks will not be taking up space on your Mac (or iPhone or iPad) if they have an iCloud icon beside them, so if your motive for doing this is to save space then you wont be helping yourself much by deleting them. Also remember what we said about being careful about which tracks you delete - you might also be removing then from playlists, or you might have a rating or other information associated with a track. Deleting is simple though: You can delete one track at a time by clicking on the track and then pressing the Delete key on your keyboard. If the song is stored in your Cloud Music Library youll see a warning that Are you sure you want to delete this song from your Cloud Music Library? Which will mean you will no longer be able to access it on any of your devices. If the song is stored on your Mac youll see a similar warning: Are you sure you want to delete this song from your music library? This could be a pretty time consuming process if you had to delete each track individually. Luckily there is a simple way to delete more than one track at a time:
If the music is housed on your Mac rather than in iCloud you will still be able to recover it from the Trash/Bin, but if your music is stored in the Cloud then it will be deleted - so beware. If you have music stored on your Mac and also have iCloud Music Library then you can remove the download from your Mac to free up space. Just right click on the downloaded track and choose Remove Download. The track will stay but youll see a download icon beside it. If you do delete something by accident that you bought from Apple iTunes Store or downloaded from Apple Music you will easily be able to download it again without paying anything. How to delete duplicated music on an iPhone & iPadThere is no equivalent to Show Exact Duplicates or Show Duplicate Items on iPhone or iPad but you can still clean up your library on your device. However, wed advice that, assuming you sync your library between all your devices, you use your Mac or PC to delete items because it will be simpler. Having deleted the tracks on your Mac or PC the music library will either sync automatically with your iOS devices (if you have iCloud Music Library turned on) or you can sync with your iPhone or iPad over Wi-Fi or your USB cable. However, if you want to delete music from your device, perhaps to make some space there are two ways:
The other way to delete music from your library on your iPhone or iPad is via Settings:
Best third party options for deleting duplicatesWhile iTunes and Music both offer a simple way to locate the duplicates you still need to delete them manually. Are there solutions that can do the hard work for you? Luckily there are and we have listed a few options below. Gemini 2: The Duplicate Finder TuneUp Tune Sweeper Tidy Up |