Music Duplicated on iPad but not on iTunes or iPhone

Question

Level 1

13 points

Music Duplicated on iPad but not on iTunes or iPhone

Music on my iPad Pro 3G (iOS 14.6) has been duplicated. I just bought it a few months ago (May 2021), so maybe that is the reason.

How do I remove the duplicates?

Details:

The storage occupied by music in iTunes (version 12.11.3.17) and iPhone Xs Max (iOS 14.7) are roughly the same, give or take a few GB. But music takes up about twice as much space on my iPad.
Oddly, not all the songs are duplicated. But most of them are.
The iPad syncs without error with iTunes on my Windows 10 PC. In iTunes, "Sync Music" and "Entire Music Library" are checked.
I've considered deleting the Music app on my iPad and reloading it, but text in Settings says, "This will delete the app and all related data from this iPad. This action can't be undone." That's kind of scary.

iPad Pro 11-inch Wi-Fi

Posted on Jul 19, 2021 1:24 PM

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Answer 1

JJRASC

Community Specialist

Jul 20, 2021 10:02 AM in response to trb75252

Hello, trb75252. Thank you for posting your question to the Apple Support Communities.

We understand your situation and how you are noticing that some of your music library appears to be duplicated on your iPad only. We know that keeping your library organized must be important to you and we can certainly help with this.

To get started, we have several questions to ask that should help us understand the situation better.

From what we gather, it sounds like you are only syncing music from your PC to your iPad and iPhone. Is that correct? Do you also have an Apple Music membership that you use to add music to your devices directly?

It sounds like you have the settings enabled to sync the entire library from your PC, to your iPad and iPhone. To learn more, can you tell us if this music library on your PC is made up of purchases from the iTunes Store? Or did you purchase this music from other sources?

Finally, we’d like to provide you with an Apple Support article. This article explains how you can remove music from your iPad’s library. You can follow these instructions to remove duplicated songs from your device:

Delete music, movies, and TV shows from your device - Apple Support

We hope this answer helps you and we look forward to your response.

Cheers!

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Answer 2

JJRASC

Community Specialist

Jul 21, 2021 8:57 AM in response to trb75252

Thank you for replying back with more information, trb75252. We understand that most of your music library is made up of iTunes Purchases and songs that you purchased from other sources.

To continue from here, we’d like to find out if the entire music library is currently downloaded and syncing locally to your iPad. The music app should display status icons next to your songs in your library. The following Apple Support article explains more about the icons that you may see:

Identify cloud status icons in your music library on your Mac or PC - Apple Support

Can you tell us more about the upload status of the duplicated songs in your iPad’s music library?

We look forward to your reply!

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Answer 3

JJRASC

Community Specialist

Jul 25, 2021 10:54 AM in response to trb75252

Hi, trb75252. Thank you for providing more information about your music library and the storage the library is using on your device.

To move forward from here, we would suggest that you disable the music library from syncing in the iTunes settings. Once this is done, please sync your iPad again with iTunes. This should remove the music library from your iPad.

Once you have confirmed that all music has been removed from the device, you can enable "Sync Music" and "Entire Music Library" before syncing your iPad. This should copy the music library from iTunes to your iPad again.

Once you have had time to complete a new sync, please check your music library on the iPad to confirm that there are no duplicated songs present.

The following Apple Support article explains how you can mange the content that syncs from iTunes to your devices:

Sync your iPhone, iPad, or iPod using your computer - Apple Support

Please let us know what you find out here.

Have a great day!

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Answer 4

trb75252 Author

Level 1

13 points

Jul 20, 2021 12:01 PM in response to JJRASC

Thank you for your response.

To answer your questions:

It is correct that I am only syncing music from my PC to my iPad and iPhone.
I do not have an Apple Music membership
The music in my PC library is made up of songs I've ripped from CD's and from songs I've purchased from the iTunes Store.
I may have purchased some songs from other sources, but I don't remember that I did. I've been collecting songs for many years and have thousands of songs. It is hard to remember where each of them came from.
I have previously seen that Apple Support article. Unfortunately, it wasn't helpful. I have thousands of duplicates. It would take me a very long time to delete each duplicate one-by-one.

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Answer 5

trb75252 Author

Level 1

13 points

Jul 21, 2021 11:45 AM in response to JJRASC

All of the songs listed in iTunes on my PC are indeed on the PC.

As far as I can tell, all of the songs listed in the Music app (including duplicates) on my iPad, are on the iPad. Download status isn’t as clear in the Music app as it is in iTunes. However, I put the iPad in airplane mode and was able to play a random sample of the songs on my iPad. That indicates they are indeed on the iPad and not streaming.

As mentioned previously, the songs in iTunes and on my iPhone take up a similar amount of space. Songs on my iPad take roughly twice the space used on my PC or on my iPhone.

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Answer 6

trb75252 Author

Level 1

13 points

Jul 25, 2021 9:55 PM in response to JJRASC

Thanks for your suggestion. Unfortunately, it didn't work.

I disabled the music library from syncing in the iTunes settings. Then I synced my iPad again with iTunes. This did not remove the music library from my iPad. It did remove the duplicate songs, but other songs remained. I'd be happy to remove all of those remaining songs if there is a way to do so without having to delete them one-at-a-time.

After the failed attempt, I re-enabled syncing on my entire music library in iTunes. Then I synced the iPad with iTunes. The duplicates were re-installed on my iPad. So, I repeated the procedure. I disabled music syncing in iTunes again and synced my iPad with iTunes. Once again, the duplicates were removed from the iPad and a substantial number (thousands) of songs remained on the iPad. In other words, I tried your procedure twice and it failed both times to remove all the songs on my iPad.

It was a good suggestion, but I'm still stuck with a bunch of duplicate songs. I hope you have more suggestions of things to try.

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Answer 7

JJRASC

Community Specialist

Aug 9, 2021 9:46 AM in response to trb75252

Hello, trb75252. Thank you for providing us with more details about what you have tried so far when managing your music library. We understand that you are noticing the duplicate songs are removed after you sync your iPad with the music library option disabled in iTunes.

To continue from here, we’d like to find out where the music library is originating from after you have disabled music syncing in iTunes. Next, on your iPad, please open Settings > Music. Do you see that the “Sync Library” or “Show Apple Music” options are enabled here?

We look forward to your reply!

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Answer 8

Aug 9, 2021 7:58 AM in response to JJRASC

I have the same issue and in addition, I was formerly an Apple Music subscriber. Could that be the issue?

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Answer 9

Aug 9, 2021 9:57 PM in response to JJRASC

Yes, Show Apple Music is enabled on iPad. Also, downloaded cover art on iPad differs from iTunes on PC for some albums with duplicate songs.

Thank you.

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Music Duplicated on iPad but not on iTunes or iPhone

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