How to Remove Duplicate Music Files from Computer?
If you are amongst many people looking for solutions to remove duplicate audio files from your computers, this blog is for you. We all love listening to music, laughing at our funny antics with our friends while hearing call recordings, and selecting a song snippet as our ringtone – all these things are possible because of audio files or the sound files playing a sound when we click on them. You play your audio files on Windows or VLC Media Player and repeatedly hear the same songs, ringtones, or call recordings!
We will discuss the reasons and solutions to delete duplicate music files, but we will begin with a quick introduction to audio file formats. Keep reading this blog to know it all!
Audio Music File Formats
Many music audio file formats have a common objective – storing digital audio data on computers and mobile phones. We will discuss a few major audio file formats used for storing digital audio data:
- WAV – Known as Waveform Audio File Format, this audio format was created jointly by Microsoft and IBM in 1991. Short-termed as Wave, it is used mainly by sound engineers due to the high rate of original data retention.
- MP3 – MP3 stands for MPEG-1 Audio Layer III and is the commonly seen and used audio format. The chief purpose of this file format is to remove sounds that are less heard or not heard by human ears. It makes the size of these files small and easily compatible with almost all devices.
- WMA – Microsoft’s Windows Media Audio is another audio format developed in 1999 to compete mainly with MP3. Being a proprietary audio format means that Microsoft has prevented or monopolized its editing and sharing. Hence, many devices and platforms don’t support it. Another thing to note is that its audio quality is lower than the MP3 format.
- AAX – Known as Audible Enhanced Audio, Audible (Amazon’s audiobook company) mainly uses this format and is compatible with audio players, mobile phones, and streaming media devices.
Let’s explore the reasons to delete duplicate audio files in the following section!
Reasons to Delete Duplicate Audio Files
There are many reasons for removing duplicate music files, and some of these reasons are:
- The audio files in your computers get duplicated due to the numerous backups you made, and these duplicated files occupy extra space in all your backups. Hence, saving space in our local and cloud backups is the primary reason to remove duplicate audio files from computer.
- We download audio files (songs and ringtones) from multiple websites without knowing their existence on our computers. And this duplication leads to the slow performance of your computers.
- Sudden computer crashes are another reason for the duplication of audio music files. Many people don’t know that duplication can happen when your computer suddenly crashes and creates more copies of the files you accessed before the crash. The same happens with audio files. You are listening to your playlist, and suddenly, your computer crashes. When it restarts, you are bound to see another copy of your playlist.
These reasons highlight the urgency for removing duplicate audio files, and we will now discuss the solutions, so keep reading!
Manual Solutions to Remove Duplicate Music Files
The manual solutions for deduplicating audio files involve using the following methods to remove them from your computers.
Method 1: Deduplicating Music Folder
The first solution to delete duplicate audio files is to sort out your computer’s Music folder. Every default system folder (Music, Pictures, and Downloads) has a file-sorting feature showing the files based on date, type, size, and other fields. The following steps describe the steps to find the duplicates in the Music folder and delete them:
- Open the File Explorer using the Windows + E keys and go to the Music folder from the left-side panel menu.
- You can see the audio files arranged by name and displaying more details like Albums, Artists, File length, and others.
- Select the duplicated audio files and click the Control + Shift keys to remove duplicated music files from Windows Computers permanently.
Method 2: Windows Media Player
Another solution for removing duplicate audio files is using the Windows Media Player application on the computer. It supports playback for audio and video files and the images saved on your computer. Use the following steps to delete duplicate music files using Windows Media Player:
- Open the Windows Media Player app by searching for it on the Windows search bar.
- Select Music from the left-side panel, right-click, and select Manage Music Library.
- Select the default Music app and other storage locations and click OK.
- Sort your music files by name and select duplicates by pressing the Control button.
- Right-click and select Delete. Confirm the deletion by checking the Delete from the library and my computer box. Click OK, and the duplicated audio files get deleted permanently from your computer.
These manual methods successfully fix duplicate audio files from your computer but prove ineffective in case of a hundred or a thousand music files waiting to get deduplicated. Hence, an automated tool is the best choice to remove duplicate audio files.
Automated Solution to Remove Duplicate Audio Files
An automated tool is the best solution for deduplicating the audio files on your computer since the manual methods prove ineffective in removing them in bulk. We will discuss one such tool that quickly eliminates duplicate music files in your computers, and the name is 4n6 Duplicate Remover Tool.
Music Audio Duplicate Remover Features
- Scan and find duplicate music files in bulk with perfect accuracy.
- Remove duplicate audio files from my computer, local drives, and selected drives and folders.
- Multiple filter options are available to eliminate duplicate music files by file name, extension, and size.
- Compatible with all Windows versions from Windows 11 to Windows XP.
How to Delete Duplicate Music Files from Windows PC?
- Install the Music Audio Duplicate Remover Tool on your computer, open it, and click Proceed to begin the removal process.
- Select the folder where the duplicate audio files reside from My Computer, Local Drives (C, E, and F), and Select Drives and Folders.
- Select a desired filter for duplicity checks: File name, File Extension, Ignore File, File Type, and Size Filter. You can also scan the duplicate files without applying any filter.
- Click Scan Duplicates to start scanning for duplicate audio files.
- This Music Duplicate Remover Software displays the duplicated audio files with size and file path, automatically selected for deleting them. Right-click and choose Open File to preview the duplicated audio files.
- Click the Remove box to begin deduplicating the audio files on your computer.
Conclusion
Audio files have helped us hear and store songs, ringtones, and call recordings in suitable file formats like MP3, WAV, and WMA. But they have also led to the duplication problem in your computers. We discussed the reasons and solutions to remove duplicate audio files. The manual solutions mentioned in the blog can deduplicate audio files perfectly, only when they are few or easily removable in number. On the other hand, the Music Duplicate Remover Tool helps you deduplicate the audio files quickly and in bulk, with a simple interface enabling you to remove duplicated audio files from Windows Computers.
