Delete Duplicate Songs

SongKong can identify and remove duplicate songs in our music collection, tidying up our song library and freeing up space on our computer or device.

It can find duplicates tracks in a variety of ways, including how they sound and it lets us decide what to do with the duplicate songs once they are found.

It then use a list of configurable preferred criteria to decide what duplicate file to keep, for example we can opt to prioritise particular file formats or select the earliest version found.

SongKong lets us delete duplicates immediately, or move them for review - giving us complete control.

What is a Duplicate?

Whether we are interested in creating a jukebox of songs or preserving the integrity of albums the different options will help us. We may wish to keep multiple versions of the same album, or only keep one version. Or restrict duplicate searching to one format because we have a lossy copy of our lossless collection.

For example when Yesterday And Today by The Beatles, was released in 1966, the stereo album had three tracks that were duophonic mixes: I’m Only Sleeping, Doctor Robert and And Your Bird Can Sing. In 1971, a new pressing came out that replaced those three tracks with true stereo versions.

In this example if the delete duplicate criteria are set to Same MusicBrainz song and same album (specific version) both the original and improved versions of the songs would be kept because they are on different releases of the same album. Whereas if it was set to Same MusicBrainz song and same album (any version) then only one album would be kept.

What to Delete?

The Preferred Deletion Criteria is used to control exactly how SongKong decides what songs to delete and what to keep when it finds duplicates. The criteria are compared in order and when a difference is found the song best matching the criteria is kept

Criteria include Audio Format, Bit Depth, Album with Most Tracks and File Creation Date

Going, Going, Gone?

What happens to the duplicate music files once SongKong has found them?

By creating a Duplicates folder we build in a safeguard that permits you to keep our duplicate files for review before final deletion or alternatively to restore them to your music collection if we change our mind or wish to adjust our criteria for identifying duplicates, alternatively we can delete the songs immediately.

We can also configure SongKong to delete any folders that are now empty, and we can also configure any files to ignore.