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Topic: script to remove duplicate files? (Read 6297 times) previous topic - next topic
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script to remove duplicate files?

Does anybody know of a simple and less painfull way of removing dupicate files from my library without manually going though and deleting the lesser quality version of the duplicates? I was hoping there was some kind of script or filter that would go through the playlist and search for multiple entrys of the same song and remove the ones of lesser quality.  I have tried the features in the Edit menu and those have not worked.

I am still not very comfortable with foobar although I have managed to customize it visually to my liking from reading all sorts of threads and viewing tons and tons of pictures of what other people have done.  If this is in the wrong section than im sorry. If this has already been asked and answered  then again im sorry I did a brief search but was unable to locate this paticular question.


Also I dont want the files deleted from my system just removed from the playlist itself  lol


Thanks

script to remove duplicate files?

Reply #1 –
Quote from: n0sig on
Does anybody know of a simple and less painfull way of removing dupicate files from my library without manually going though and deleting the lesser quality version of the duplicates? I was hoping there was some kind of script or filter that would go through the playlist and search for multiple entrys of the same song and remove the ones of lesser quality.  I have tried the features in the Edit menu and those have not worked.

I am still not very comfortable with foobar although I have managed to customize it visually to my liking from reading all sorts of threads and viewing tons and tons of pictures of what other people have done.  If this is in the wrong section than im sorry. If this has already been asked and answered  then again im sorry I did a brief search but was unable to locate this paticular question.


Also I dont want the files deleted from my system just removed from the playlist itself  lol


Thanks


In the menu click Edit and then click remove duplicates. I think it works by the files tags.
Someone correct me if im wrong.
 

script to remove duplicate files?

Reply #3 –
i tried that and i dont think it removed any to be honest. I can go through the library and manually remove them but that is going to take some time. I have multiple copys of albums and songs at different bitrates.

Is what im wanting to do even possible? I imagine a script would go through and check the tags and if it found matches it would automatically remove the lesser quality. It isnt a huge deal just would be a HUGE time saver

script to remove duplicate files?

Reply #4 –
First, why are you keeping the lower quality files?

The only lower quality files I keep are the ones I am currently playing on my mp3 player. They are kept in a separate folder and Foobar is told to stay away.

If you keep some lossless source and a duplicate lossy source you could tell Foobar not to look at the lossy.

Outside of that it sounds like some spring cleaning needs to be done.

script to remove duplicate files?

Reply #5 –
that is probably true but going through over 17000 songs is a daunting task.  a little effort long ago woulda saved me tons of work but back then  i didnt really care  lol

script to remove duplicate files?

Reply #6 –
Quote from: n0sig on
i tried that and i dont think it removed any to be honest. I can go through the library and manually remove them but that is going to take some time. I have multiple copys of albums and songs at different bitrates.

Is what im wanting to do even possible? I imagine a script would go through and check the tags and if it found matches it would automatically remove the lesser quality. It isnt a huge deal just would be a HUGE time saver


You might just have to go through and weed them out. Ive noticed that in a couple of the dupilcates i had, had lower bitrates than some of the others and were actually of better quality.

Quote from: zoofield on
First, why are you keeping the lower quality files?

The only lower quality files I keep are the ones I am currently playing on my mp3 player. They are kept in a separate folder and Foobar is told to stay away.

If you keep some lossless source and a duplicate lossy source you could tell Foobar not to look at the lossy.

Outside of that it sounds like some spring cleaning needs to be done.


He wants to remove the lower quality duplicate tracks from his DB.

script to remove duplicate files?

Reply #7 –
Quote from: n0sig on
i tried that and i dont think it removed any to be honest. I can go through the library and manually remove them but that is going to take some time. I have multiple copys of albums and songs at different bitrates.

Is what im wanting to do even possible? I imagine a script would go through and check the tags and if it found matches it would automatically remove the lesser quality. It isnt a huge deal just would be a HUGE time saver

foobar2000's title formatting does not have memory, so to speak; you can only do scripting on single tracks, not for a collection of tracks.

You could try saving a list of tracks as text files. If you know how to use Unix text utilities, you can use sort, uniq, wc, and diff to manipulate the text lists to find the duplicates.

To save text, you can use the "copy name"s feature or use foo_utils' "copy text" feature.

script to remove duplicate files?

Reply #8 –
Quote from: Neural_Overload on
Quote from: n0sig on

i tried that and i dont think it removed any to be honest. I can go through the library and manually remove them but that is going to take some time. I have multiple copys of albums and songs at different bitrates.

Is what im wanting to do even possible? I imagine a script would go through and check the tags and if it found matches it would automatically remove the lesser quality. It isnt a huge deal just would be a HUGE time saver


You might just have to go through and weed them out. Ive noticed that in a couple of the dupilcates i had, had lower bitrates than some of the others and were actually of better quality.

Quote from: zoofield on
First, why are you keeping the lower quality files?

The only lower quality files I keep are the ones I am currently playing on my mp3 player. They are kept in a separate folder and Foobar is told to stay away.

If you keep some lossless source and a duplicate lossy source you could tell Foobar not to look at the lossy.

Outside of that it sounds like some spring cleaning needs to be done.


He wants to remove the lower quality duplicate tracks from his DB.


That is exactly what I am trying to do.  This way i will have all the duplicates removed from db and I can slowly start to delete the lower bitrate ones and then not have to search for that one in the playlist.  Guess I was just hoping to make life a little simpler

script to remove duplicate files?

Reply #9 –
BTW, right-clicking on a track in my installation of foobar2000 0.9.2 shows me "Search for Same" -> "Album"/"Artist"/"Title" etc. etc.

Do you have foo_dbsearch.dll installed?

Quote from: n0sig on
That is exactly what I am trying to do.  This way i will have all the duplicates removed from db and I can slowly start to delete the lower bitrate ones and then not have to search for that one in the playlist.  Guess I was just hoping to make life a little simpler

You can delete the files from disk before you search them in the playlist. Just "Remove dead items".

script to remove duplicate files?

Reply #10 –
ive actually found a few programs that actually search folders for duplicate files based on  tags  filesize  filename and some will even search for similar tags and similar filenames. let me warn you. if you do it that way  better run it overnight if you have a rather large collection. mine has been scanning for over 5 hours now.  thanks for everyones suggestions. i will more than likely implement them once i get this under control.

script to remove duplicate files?

Reply #11 –
You should tell, after you’re done. The program that worked properly for you,
for other’s inquiry.

script to remove duplicate files?

Reply #12 –
I talked with someone about it before, because i also have some similar files (sometimes even identical) but with different tags. The Levenshtein distance was brought into the discussion as a possible way to solve this...

script to remove duplicate files?

Reply #13 –
well the levenshtein distance is way over my head lol. although i can kinda understand how it would  but like i said    way over my head.

I ended up using a program called Abee MP3 Duplicates Finder http://abeetech.com/mp3-duplicates-finder/    The trial only allows you to delete 10 of the songs it finds but i was able to find a "workaround" *coughs* that allowed me to do my whole library. It worked really well and it brought up all the songs that were duplicates in a nice window and I could go through and compare them and put a checkmark next to the ones I wanted to delete and once I was finished it deleted them for me. It worked out very well. I would say it got close to 85-90 percent of my dupes. The ones it didnt catch I found in the library and just manually deleted them.