iTunes 101: Display exact duplicate songs using the Option key

this is great news. however, how do I manage when I'm on Windows? yes, I could go out and buy a Mac, but it's not the right time yet. is there a solution in for the meantime? which button is similar to the Mac 'option' button? thanks and have a nice new year's eve!

What I don't understand is how I can then easily delete the duplicates. I still have to select the ones I want to delete as I visually compare them to each other. I wish there was a dialog box like when using iSync where it shows you the two versions and you pick by clicking, highlighting the differences... if any.

works for me on snow leopard even for the same songs that has different time lenght

Great tip and good to know it's available in Windows too!

Like many others I also despair at having the same file multiple times because there's no way to tag a file as belonging to multiple albums. There surely must be a way to do this.

If we as consumers have it bad, how must it be on Apples' iTunes servers? With the same exact same song appearing in EPs/Singles, Albums/Greatest Hits, and compilation albums of various artists. I wonder if Apple already have something for this to save unnecessary duplication?

Regarding putting music onto iPods etc, how does iTunes handle duplicate songs? I'm guessing if the same song is on multiple albums the individual copies of the files are transferred to the device. But if it's the exact same file in multiple playlists, does it only copy the file across once?

I usually "delete" songs from the compliation albums and keep them on the original album. So for example (not sure if this is the case, just an example), the Beatles 1s album would be not in my library IF all the songs appeared on previously released albums. Only the songs that were "new" would be in the album. Then I'd simple make a playlist that was called Beatles 1s.

Obviously, I'll delete these files from Itunes and not the folders that they are stored in

Caveat eliminator, indeed!

Been dying for something this simple to edit 37,000 + song library.

See, that's where I thought this tip worked very well. I have many songs which are a part of multiple albums, and I too don't like to wreck an album. However, when using display exact duplicates none of those songs showed up. I've previously kept my library free of exact duplicates 'manually' using the regular display duplicates feature, so this showed nothing as I expected it too. :)

As far as having a tag for a single song to be a part of multiple albums, that'd be great! I've wanted something similar for a while, but it's also very difficult with the way that iTunes keeps the library organized and that it can find the right songs based on file structure if it needs too. (Tags could get disorganized a lot more easily with a large library). Anyway, storage is cheap and while I've always liked a lean drive, I don't mind a few extra megabytes to keep things better organized.

Except this doesn't show "exact" duplicates. For some songs, I have different quality versions. It shows those as "exact" duplicates, even though they're clearly not exact duplicates. ;)

Be very careful using this tip! It does not appear to compare the bit rates of duplicate songs. Have the bit rate column turned on in the iTunes browser or you may delete high bit rate songs and keep low bit rate ones!