Finding duplicate MP3 files

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I have a decent size MP3 library, 9,867 files in all. I know I have some duplicate files. For example, I have ripped all the CD’s from a few artists I really like and I know the same song can be on a regular CD and again on a greatest hits CD.

It would be easy to find and kill the duplicates if they had the same names and the same sizes but they don’t. I ripped them over a long period of time and my software, and so my naming conventions, changed. Plus, I started ripping them at a higher bit rate as storage space on MP3 players got bigger. To make matters more complicated still, I’ve purchased an iPod so I have to use iTunes to load files onto it.

Is there a good program that can help me clean up this mess of duplication while keeping iTunes straight? I know iTunes has a command to find duplicates but it is not nearly powerful enough to handle the different names and sizes. I have searched the Internet and find all kinds of programs but without some kind of recommendation, it is very hard to know what is safe and effective to use.

Ronny

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I use this program, never tried it with audio files though.
Duplicate File Detective

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Check out Similarity – find and remove similar, duplicate MP3,WMA,OGG,FLAC,APE,WV files by content or ID3 tags, Organize your music collection[/url].

Joe

--Joe

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The Easy Duplicate Finder that Brian advertises in the newsletter is a good way to go … it works on any files but has a setting for Audio Tags … Audio Comparer is another one I’ve tried and it has a mode that actually “listens” to each file to establish a basis for comparison … it seems like it would be slow but it’s not, especially with a smaller number of files …

Neal

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I’m now using Easy Duplicate File Finder, and it was easy to use. Still a ton of work to see how many times I’ve “copied everything” from one old computer (pre-W95) to the next (win95; win98; winXP; plus 3 work computers …), rather than a good cleanup. Haven’t finished, and, for hundreds of .doc files less than 1 MB, won’t.

Need to organize better DVD and hard disc backups. Should have done it long ago.

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TuneUp may be worth looking at. It’s not free, but the trial might last long enough to get the cleanup started and let you decide if it’s worth paying for.

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What I have done in Winamp is to ensure that all tracks are named with just the song title, then sort by the title and delete any duplicates I find.
I think it would hard for any software to find duplicates when the names and file sizes are different. I’m not sure how it could compare two files except by analyzing the contents but even that would be different when you have different sampling rates.

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I’ve been mostly using Duplicate Files Deleter to find mp3 duplicates, even if they have different names, and it worked fine for me.

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Try the Free Duplicate Finder by MindGems for exact duplicates and the dedicated Duplicate mp3 finder for audio.

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