Top 7 Best iTunes Duplicate Removers for Mac and Windows

Find out the best iTunes duplicate removers, free and not free, to help you get rid of duplicates in your iTunes library.

An iTunes user asked this question in Apple Community – “How do I easily delete thousands of duplicates in my iTunes library?” This iTunes user is not alone at all. Duplicates in iTunes are very common and can be caused by quite a few things such as buying certain songs without realizing that you’ve already have them in your iTunes, importing songs from sources where duplicates already exist, iTunes glitches, etc.

iTunes duplicates are useless if not annoying. They take up precious hard drive space and make it less easy to organize iTunes music library. The best solution is to use an iTunes duplicate remover to find and delete the duplicates. What are the best iTunes duplicate remover available? Are there any iTunes duplicate remover free tools for easy, effective dupe removal? Let’s find out.

iTunes has a Built-in feature to find and remove duplicates

iTunes itself has a feature that allows users to identify and delete duplicate songs. It’s free and easy to use and works with both Mac and PC.

Step 1. Open iTunes. Click Songs in the Library section.

Step 2. Go to the menu bar on the top of the screen and choose File > Library >Show Duplicate Items. In this way, duplicates are identified according to song name and artist.

If there are more than one version of the same song (for example, studio, single, b-side versions) from different albums, hold the Alt or Option key (on Mac) or the Shift key (on PC) and go to File > Library. And you will find the Show Exact Duplicate Items option. In this case, it only shows duplicate tracks with the same song name, artist as well as album name.

Step 3. Select the duplicate track that you want to delete. From the menu bar, go to Song > Delete. If there are multiple ones, just delete them one by one.

By the way, if you want to remove iTunes duplicate playlists, you need to manually identify and remove them one by one.

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In most cases, however, we need a third-party iTunes duplicate remover

This free built-in iTunes duplicate remover is great and handy. It can be the best choice when there are only a few duplicates. However, when it comes to a large amount of duplicate items, the process can be rather tedious, and what’s more, very time-consuming.

Most of the time, especially with those who have a large music collection, there may be hundreds if not thousands (or even more) of duplicate songs in the iTunes library. It’s not a mission impossible to manually delete the massive amount of duplicates one by one using the said duplicate remover built in to iTunes. But, believe me, you won’t want to try.

This is when you need a third-party iTunes duplicate remover. There are quite a few software programs especially designed to find and delete duplicates in iTunes. In addition, some duplicate file finders also perfectly support identifying and removing iTunes duplicates directly. Best iTunes duplicate remover software is able to fast find duplicates and allow users to remove them all at once.

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Review: the best iTunes duplicate removers

#1 Cisdem Duplicate Finder | Mac

Cisdem Duplicate Finder is an easy-to-use professional duplicate file finder for Mac with support for all common file types and formats. It can also work as an excellent iTunes duplicate remover.

This iTunes duplicate finder:

• Efficiently scans your iTunes library to find duplicate songs and videos.
• Lets you to easily preview duplicates with its built-in media player.
• Allows you to mass select and delete duplicates in iTunes with one click.
• Provides three removal options.
• Also works if you have multiple iTunes libraries.
• Can detect and delete other duplicate audios scattered across your hard drive.

Free Download

The steps below show you how to use the best iTunes duplicate remover for Mac to get rid of dupes.

To get started, download and install Cisdem Duplicate Finder. Launch it.

Step 1. Find the location of your iTunes Media folder. If you have no idea where it is, open iTunes, select iTunes > Preferences in the top menu bar and open the Advanced tab. There, you will find the location.

Step 2. In the iTunes duplicate remover, click the settings icon in the top right corner. Make sure that the location matches the actual location. If not, click Change to change it.

Drag your iTunes folder into the app. Click Scan.

A dialog box will pop up asking you to keep iTunes open. Click Open to continue.

Step 3. Once the scan is finished, you can find all the duplicate iTunes songs under the Music tab and duplicate iTunes videos/movies (if any) under the Videos tab. There are three preview modes: Thumbnail, List and Info. You can switch to the List mode to play a song.

Step 4. By default, this iTunes duplicate cleaner will use Smart Select to automatically select duplicate copies for deletion. There are also other selection rules like Select Newest and Select Oldest. Make sure the unwanted items are selected and click the Delete button.

Step 5. When the process is finished, a window will pop up to show you how to complete the deletion.

In iTunes, on the left sidebar, select Cisdem Duplicate Media, which is automatically created to save the unwanted iTunes dupes for you to delete. In the window on the right, select all the items there. Control-click and choose Delete from Library.

 

Download free trial of Cisdem Duplicate Finder to delete iTunes dupes all at once

#2 Tune Sweeper | Windows & Mac

Tune Sweeper is primarily an iTunes cleanup app and enables you to quickly find and remove duplicates songs in your iTunes library. It searches for iTunes duplicate tracks based on your preferred search criteria, such as matching track names, artist and so on.

This iTunes duplicate remover will list the duplicates found in your iTunes library in groups, suggest which tracks to keep based on your preference and then remove unwanted duplicates from iTunes library. Optionally, tracks removed from iTunes are backed up for safekeeping.

The app comes with an array of features and options, and new users may get a bit overwhelmed by the interface. Launch the app. From the menu bar at the top of the interface, click Duplicates. Click Search for Duplicates, and the searching process will start. When it finishes, you will be able to find the duplicate items in the results window. Click Remove Duplicates.

Download free trial of Tunes Sweeper to remove duplicates from iTunes!

#3 iTunes Duplicates Cleaner | Windows & Mac

As one of the best iTunes duplicate remover software, iTunes Duplicates Cleaner is made for cleaning up duplicated tracks in iTunes library and helps you get rid of iTunes duplicate tracks. This iTunes duplicate remover is one of the best among its kind and can sort duplicated tracks into groups according to user defined various conditions and checks those tracks should be deleted smartly. Then you can delete and remove thousands of duplicates from your iTunes library in less than one minute. With iTunes Duplicates Cleaner, all iTunes duplicate tracks will be removed with just a few clicks.

Buy iTunes Duplicates Cleaner for Mac!

#4 Dupe Away | Windows & Mac

Designed to be a dedicated iTunes duplicate remover, Dupe Away is available for Mac and Windows PC. It comes with four features: Dupe Files, Missing Files, Playlist Dupes and Abandoned Files, with dupe removal being the primary ones. It can quickly scan and find dupes in iTunes based on users’ preferences. In addition, it will also go through your playlists and remove the detected duplicates in your playlists.

After you launch it, the app will automatically locate your iTunes library and start the scan. In the result window, you will find all the detected dupes. The duplicated copies are automatically marked in red based on the default settings. Users can change the settings.

Get Dupe Away to look for and eliminate the unwanted duplicate songs in your iTunes

#5 TuneUp | Windows & Mac

TuneUp is one of the best iTunes duplicate remover tools. This iTunes duplicate cleaner can help you remove duplicates and also repair mislabeled songs and add missing cover art. There's a free trial that allows you to fix 50 tracks, but the full version of this iTunes cleanup software program will cost you $32. TuneUp seems to be a little pricey and less automatic. The iTunes duplicate finder does save a lot of time, but you still have to finish some operations to utterly clean up your iTunes library, such as manually dragging files to this program from iTunes.

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Download free trial of TuneUp to remove duplicate tracks from iTunes!

iTunes Duplicate Remover Free

#1 ManyProg iTunes Duplicate Remover Free | Windows

This iTunes duplicate remover freeware is designed exclusively for PC. As one of the best iTunes duplicate remover software for Windows, it allows you to accurately identify and delete duplicates in iTunes. Before you use iTunes Duplicate Remover Free, allow this best iTunes cleanup software program to connect to your iTunes library. And it will automatically find the library and build a connection to it.

Press Start, and it the process to find duplicates songs will start immediately. The results will be displayed once this process finishes. Remove the duplicates and leave only the original files. By doing so, you can make your iTunes clean and more convenient to manage. This free remover fully supports Windows 10/8/7 and even XP.

#2 AllDup | Windows

AllDup is another freeware tool that can find and eliminate iTunes duplicate tracks on Windows. It also supports various types of files including audios, videos, documents and pictures. It does a good job of searching for the double, triple (or even more) tracks in iTunes. When using AllDup, you will be impressed by the efficiency it has to offer. However, the interface is not as user-friendly as the ones recommended above.

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Comparison: Which iTunes duplicate remover suits you best?

Wrapping up

If there are only a few, say ten or less, duplicates in your iTunes library, it’s recommended to use iTunes’ Show Duplicate Items feature. Why not? It’s handy. If you have a big iTunes library, the best iTunes duplicate remover software recommended above can do a good job of searching for duplicates and removing them all at once.

You can choose the iTunes duplicate remover suits you best according to the review and the comparison table. If you need to get rid of tons of duplicate songs in iTunes and also want to locate and delete duplicate photos, documents and other duplicate files scattered all over your Mac to free up space, you can use Cisdem Duplicate Finder which can fast find and eliminate duplicates regardless of file type and location.

Do you find this article helpful? Is there another best iTunes duplicate remover that you’d like to recommend? Welcome to leave a comment and share your thoughts and opinions.