Can the App Scan My iTunes Library for Duplicate Music?

Duplicate Detective can scan your Music folder for duplicate audio files, but we recommend using the built-in duplicate finder in Apple's Music app (formerly iTunes) for the best results.

Why Use the Music App Instead

The Music app maintains its own internal database of tracks, playlists, and metadata. Removing music files directly through Duplicate Detective could leave orphaned references in the Music app's database, potentially causing missing track errors or broken playlists.

The Music app's built-in duplicate finder is designed to work with its database and will cleanly remove duplicates without causing these issues.

Finding Duplicates in the Music App

Open the Music app (or iTunes on older macOS versions) and follow these steps:

1. Find all duplicates by the same artist: Choose File > Library > Show Duplicate Items from the menu bar. This will display every instance of a song by the same artist across your entire library, including copies that appear on different albums.

2. Find exact duplicates: Hold the Option key and choose File > Library > Show Exact Duplicate Items. This filters to songs where the title, artist, album, and version all match -- useful for finding files you may have imported more than once.

3. Return to your full library: Click Show All at the bottom of the window to exit the duplicates view.

Scanning with Duplicate Detective

If you still want to use Duplicate Detective to scan for duplicate music files, navigate to your Music folder (typically located at ~/Music) and add it as the scan location. Be aware that removing files this way may require you to update your Music app library manually afterward.

Before deleting any music files through Duplicate Detective, make sure the Move to Trash option is enabled in Settings so you can recover files if needed.