Deleting iTunes Duplicates Using iTunes Library Updater
iTunes has always been plagued by its lack of ability to monitor folders for new media. Although Apple encourages users to get media files through any other channel as opposed to using iTunes exclusively, many people still do not like managing every aspect of their music from inside iTunes manager.
Many hands on users prefer to manage the files and folder structure by their selves. The problem then comes after adding, moving or removing any file from the ‘my music’ folders. iTunes gets very confused not knowing what happened to the files and it also ignores new music unless you manually add it to the library.
Even with the down sides, iTunes still has its advantages, so instead of deleting iTunes, this article will show you how to synchronize iTunes with any folders you want. This will be accomplished using a software known as iTunes Library Updater. After you complete using iTunes Library Updater (iTLU), missing media dialogs will be a thing of the past.
A fantastic feature of iTunes Library Updater (iTLU) is that it synchronizes both music and video files with iTunes. This means that even if torrent sites are the major source of your music or TV shows, iTLU will sync up the folders with iTunes.
To get started, you need to download and install iTunes and iTunes Library Updater (which requires at-least Microsoft .NET 2.0 to work)
The simplest way to use iTunes Library Updater to sync your music and video folders with your iTunes library is the simple graphical interface that comes bundled in the software. It lets you choose the folders you want to synchronize to and also allows you to select how iTLU handles the missing media files.
The iTLU with the graphical user interface (GUI) works very well, unfortunately, you still have to run it manually every time you need to update or sync your iTunes library, which could be a bit of a burden
The other way is to run the iTLU from the command line. First, download the iTunes Library Updater batch script then edit it to your computer’s configuration, which is not complicated at all.
All you have to do is replace the directory with all the media directories you have, separated by a space.
When you run the batch script, it opens iTunes and scan your iTunes database and your music/video directories for problems/ differences and makes changes to entries in your iTunes library as is appropriate.
Instead of running the batch script every time you load iTunes, it would be recommended to create a scheduled task to run the script. This is useful because running the batch script every time will reduce loading times for iTunes considerably.
iTLU script will add new songs and videos from your specified directories to your iTunes, delete iTunes duplicates and remove entries of missing songs or videos from iTunes. To see the other options available configuration wise, please read the iTunes Library Updater (iTLU) user guide which is a PDF file in the iTLU installation directory.
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