Tips needed to remove thousands of dupliated tracks?

[Phototaker]

I have a huge mess, and I am trying to sort it out. To start I copied all music from different drives all into one new HDD. MM now knows where all of my files are located even though I don't know where MM keeps my library. Where is this located?

I can ask MM to find duplicates and as expected it's found thousands located on different drives. Is there some easy way to select from this list of thousands of track only ones on 1 drive or the other without having to select them individually?

Are there any other tips you can give me before I try to clean up this mess?

[Peke]

Hi,
Huh, difficult question, but let me try.

Most important thing is that you do all the managing within MediaMonkey and not outside as that way you will avoid loosing connection with MM library and physical tracks.

First, unfortunately there is no batch selection and it was deliberately designed like that to avoid accidental removals of duplicates user do not want to.
Second, MM lists all the duplicates so user needs to choose which ones to keep (one per track).
Third, under each collection you have Files to edit Tree node that will help you locate duplicates by title, content, Title/Artist (MM5) and they are essentioal to handle the mess. NOTE: that node also contain other tools to make your life easier in managing your media like dead links, Disconnected (MM5) and Others.

That said, you can add Path column to list and arrange it to be first in list (Drag and drop by header) so that when you list tracks in Duplicate titles you can sort by path and select only one drive to delete, then use F5 to refresh list in order to check what you missed and repeat.

Note: On deletion MM will ask you the way to delete tracks and if you remove them only from Library then on next rescan tracks will be re added back. So test and see what will be the best for you.

Let us know if you have more questions and finally once you get rid of duplicates in each collection under Location you can browse your drives, then select tracks and using right click -> Auto Organize move tracks to desired destination to give meaning of all that mess, but make sure that all tags are correct in order to make Auto-Organize more successful.

I hope I shread some light on the matter and HAppy Monkeying!