Apple Music is a music streaming and media service developed by Apple. It allows users to access a library of over 100 million songs as well as download music for offline listening. Apple Music libraries can grow very large for avid music listeners, especially since users can add songs they own themselves to their Apple Music collection.
As a user’s Apple Music library grows in size from streaming songs, downloading music, and adding personal files, it is common for duplicate songs and files to accumulate. Consolidating files in Apple Music is a tool to manage music libraries by finding and removing these duplicate tracks and files. It streamlines the library and reduces redundancy.
What Does Consolidate Files Do?
The consolidate files feature in Apple Music merges duplicate copies of songs into single files. When enabled, Apple Music will scan your library and combine multiple copies of the same song into one file. This helps save storage space by eliminating redundant copies of tracks.
For example, let’s say you downloaded the same song from the Apple Music catalog on both your iPhone and iPad. Without consolidation, you would have two copies of that song taking up space. Consolidating your library removes the duplicate so there is only one file for that song stored on your devices.
Consolidation does not delete or alter any of the original files. It simply combines duplicate tracks into a single file while preserving all metadata and play counts. The consolidated version will be stored in the designated Apple Music folder, which is usually inside the Music folder on your Mac or the On My Device section in iOS.
Why Consolidate Files?
Consolidating files in Apple Music is primarily done to save storage space on your device by removing duplicate copies of songs. When you add songs to your Apple Music library from multiple sources, like ripping CDs, downloading music files, or syncing from multiple devices, it can result in duplicate copies of the same song. Consolidation identifies these duplicates and removes the excess copies, while keeping one copy of each unique song file in the library.
This prevents songs from unnecessarily taking up double or triple the storage space. With large libraries, hundreds of gigabytes can be freed up through consolidation by removing these redundant duplicate files. Consolidating becomes especially important when storage capacity is limited, like on smaller SSD drives in laptops or mobile devices. Removing duplicates can free up precious space for more music and other files.
In addition, consolidate files cleans up clutter from having multiple versions of the same song spread across your library folders. It centralizes all the music into one organized folder structure while eliminating disorganization and redundancy.
How Duplicates Occur
There are a few main ways duplicate songs can end up in your Apple Music library:
Downloading the same song multiple times from the Apple Music catalog. For example, you may add a song you like to multiple playlists, not realizing it gets downloaded again each time. Or you may have re-downloaded it after deleting it previously. Over time, this can result in duplicates.
Adding songs to your library from multiple sources. If you sync music from iTunes or import songs from CDs, as well as add Apple Music streaming songs, you may end up with duplicate versions from different sources.
Having the same song stored locally on your device as well as available via Apple Music streaming can also create duplicates.
Apple Music’s syncing across devices can also lead to duplicates. If the same song is downloaded to multiple devices, it may show up duplicated in your library.
In general, duplicates occur because the same song makes its way into your library through multiple avenues over time. Apple Music does not have built-in duplicate detection, so copies build up.
Manual vs Automatic Consolidation
There are two main ways to consolidate your Apple Music library – manually initiating it yourself, or letting Apple Music’s built-in process handle it automatically.
Manually consolidating files involves going to File > Library > Organize Library in the Music app and selecting “Consolidate files.” This allows you to choose exactly when you want to consolidate your library and initiate the process. It can be useful if you want to regain disk space by removing duplicates or prepare your library before disconnecting from Apple Music.
In contrast, Apple Music has an automatic consolidation process that runs in the background periodically. This happens without any user initiation. Apple states that this process “updates your library by copying files to your Mac that are missing, misplaced, or corrupt.” [1] So you don’t have direct control, but it helps keep your library organized if changes occur.
The main difference is that manual consolidation allows you to choose when to run it, while automatic consolidation means you don’t have to worry about initiating it yourself. But both help coalesce your library so you have a single organized copy of every file.
Step-by-Step Consolidation
Consolidating your Apple Music library is a straightforward process that can be done in just a few steps:
1. Open the Music app on your Mac and click on File in the top menu bar.
2. Select “Library” and then click on “Organize Library”.
3. In the organize library window, check the box next to “Consolidate files”.
4. Click OK. This will begin the consolidation process.
5. Wait for the process to finish. The time it takes depends on the size of your library. The Music app will remain usable during consolidation.
6. Once finished, a message will indicate that the consolidation is complete. All of your media files have now been copied into the Music folder.
And that’s it! Consolidating your library collects all of your scattered media files into one place for a more organized Apple Music experience. If you want to undo consolidation, simply go back into the consolidate files option and uncheck the box.
Consolidation Settings
You can customize consolidation preferences in Apple Music to better control how duplicates are handled.
Go to Settings > Music and select “Consolidate files.” Here you can configure the following options:
- Consolidate files: Turn file consolidation on or off.
- Match only by title and artist: Set consolidation to only match tracks with the same title and artist. This prevents remixes and live versions from consolidating.
- Location: Choose whether to copy consolidated files to the Apple Music folder or keep them in their original locations.
Enabling the “Match only by title and artist” setting gives you more control over which tracks actually get consolidated. It prevents alternate versions from consolidating even if they have the same name. Just be aware that fewer duplicates will be found with this option on.
The location setting lets you decide where consolidated files end up. The default consolidates everything into your Apple Music folder for simplicity. But you can opt to keep consolidated files in their original locations if preferred.
Take time to review the consolidation settings and customize them to best fit your needs. This will help ensure only true duplicate tracks are removed while important alternate versions are preserved.
What Gets Consolidated
The consolidation process in Apple Music is designed to merge identical audio files together while leaving other duplicates alone. It scans the library and looks for songs that have the exact same audio data, even if the metadata or file name is different.
For example, let’s say you have two copies of the same song – one from the Apple Music catalog and one imported from a CD. The consolidation process recognizes that the raw audio data is identical and will merge those into a single file. This saves storage space since it removes redundant copies of the song.
However, if you have multiple distinct recordings or versions of the same song, like live and studio recordings, those will not be consolidated. The process is intelligent enough to detect different audio data and will retain both files as unique. Duplicates with variations in metadata, file formats, or encoding may also be left intact if the audio itself is detectably different.
So in summary, consolidation aims to eliminate redundant identical audio files while preserving your library’s depth and integrity when variations exist across recordings.
Limitations
Consolidating your Apple Music library comes with some limitations that users should be aware of before proceeding:
One key limitation is that consolidation can result in loss of metadata for some files. Metadata includes info like song title, artist, album, genre, and more. When consolidation copies music files to the new location, this metadata may not get transferred over in full. This can lead to issues like songs showing up without proper labeling.
Another limitation is that consolidation only works for certain file types like MP3, AAC, ALAC, and more. According to Apple’s documentation, some proprietary file types may not get consolidated. So if you have unique file formats purchased from other stores, they could potentially get left behind.
In general, consolidation is meant to be used with files purchased or downloaded through Apple Music. Users with libraries containing lots of non-Apple files are more likely to encounter issues with missing metadata, unsupported formats, and incomplete transfers.
Alternatives
While Apple’s consolidate tool is convenient for managing duplicates directly in the Music app, there are other duplicate finding and removal tools that can be used as alternatives.
Some popular options include:
- Tidy Up – This Mac app finds duplicate files and helps you remove them while preserving metadata. It has tools tailored for finding song duplicates in music libraries.
- TunesKit Music Deduper – A specialized tool just for finding and removing duplicate tracks in iTunes and Apple Music. It scans for 100% identical duplicates.
- Gemini 2 – A duplicate file finder and cleaner for Mac. It has options to ignore certain metadata to find musical duplicates.
The key advantage of dedicated duplicate finders is giving you more control over managing duplicates vs Apple’s built-in tool.