How do I delete duplicate files?

Not sure what I've done but it seems that many of my music files have
duplicated themselves in WMP 11. Is there a way to scan for duplicates and
remove them in bulk.

How do you know they are duplicated? Do they appear in WMP11 twice, or
have you looked in the filesystem and found two copies there? If you
found two copies in the filesystem, how did you know they were the same
music?

I'm not trying to be difficult (I don't usually have to try) but we have
to tread carefully, as there may be only one file, just the appearance
of two, and deleting one, your music just went.

When I enter the songs menu of the Media library, the same songs exactly are
repeated in the list, twice, three times and sometimes four times.

Looks like a corrupted library to me.
First step might be to follow Swiftys advice
- select all songs belonging to 1 album
- right click and choose open file location
- check if you have multiple versions

If this is not the case you can delete the library and do a rescan

A good way to do this is to delete everything from your library.
Make sure you choose the option "Delete from Windows Media Player Library Only" and not "Delete from computer and Library". After they are all deleted from your library go to the Tools drop down menu and the select "Search for Media Files" and then let that run.

If i get u right you should use a tool to delete songs duplicate from my music library, i use duplicate finder 2009 for such aim.

Right click one of the existing headers in a display that shows
replicated files, and add "File Path" as one of the columns. You may
have to scroll around to find it, or drag it leftwards to keep it in
view. Tell us the content of the "File Path" column for one set of
duplicated files, please.

Does anyone have a solution to scan for duplicates & remove in bulk?

That would depend upon how they were duplicated in the first place. A
library reset-
would get anything that isn't a path-based dupe.

It appears as though I have multiple versions of the same song coming from
several different locations including shared computers which were scanned at
some point creating duplicate songs. How can I remove the duplicates at this
point because deleting the library and then rescan might create same problem
right?

What version of WMP? You can use Folder-view to quickly remove all songs
that have the same location. Click Folder in the tree at the left-hand
side of WMP, navigate to the folder of which you want to remove all
songs from the library, right-click this folder and select Delete.

If you don't see a Folder-item in this tree, you may need to right-click
Library in the same tree and select Show More Views.

[mesteno1966]

If someone has Zune and iPod into same PC/Lap Top . . . Is this a posibility to get duplicate songs into library out of WMP?

I’m sure that Duplicate Finder will be the best assistant for you. It is an award-winning small shareware utility to find duplicate files and to remove duplicate files. It will help you search duplicate files. Try it.

[Ragtag]

I'd suggest trying this program for dupes finding. It helped me a lot and may be interesting for you too

The most complete duplicate finder and deleter I have found is "Duplicate Files Deleter".


I have found that, not only is it one of the fastest duplicate finders/deleters, but also is by far the most accurate one because of the way it's search engine uses MD5 info.