filtering itunes library items by file location

Posted by Cawas on Super User See other posts from Super User or by Cawas
Published on 2010-12-20T03:38:57Z Indexed on 2012/04/09 23:35 UTC
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3 answers and unfortunately no solution yet.

The Problem

I've got way more than 1000 duplicated items in my iTunes Library pointing to a non-existant place (the "where" under "get info" window), along with other duplicated items and other MIAs (Missing In Action).

Is there any simple way to just delete all of them and only them? From the library, of course.

By that I mean some MIAs are pointing to /Volumes while some are pointing to .../music/Music/... or just .../music/.... I want to delete all pointing to /Volumes as to later I'll recover the rest. Check the image below.

Some Background

I tried searching for a specific key word on the path and creating smart play list, but with no result.

Being able to just sort all library by path would be a perfect solution! I believe old iTunes could do that. PowerTunes can do it (sort by path) but I can't do anything with its list. I would also welcome any program able to handle this, then import and properly export back the iTunes library.

PowerTunes showing Path Column and duplicated items

Since this seems to just not be clear enough...

AppleScript doesn't work

That's because AppleScript just can't gather the missing info anywhere in iTunes Library. Maybe we could use AppleScript by opening the XML file, but that's a whole nother issue.

Here's a quote from my conversation with Doug the man himself Adams last december:

I don't think you do understand. There is no way to get the path to the file of a dead track because iTunes has "forgotten" it. That is, by definition, what a dead track is.

Doug

On Dec 21, 2010, at 7:08 AM, Caue Rego wrote:

yes I understand that and have seem the script. but I'm not looking for the file. just the old broken path reference to it.

Sent from my iPhone

On 21/12/2010, at 10:00, Doug Adams wrote:

You cannot locate missing files of dead tracks because, by definition, a dead track is one that doesn't have any file information. If you look at "Super Remove Dead Tracks", you will notice it looks for tracks that have "missing value" for the location property.

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