On What Criteria Does RekordBox Consider A File A Duplicate?

I have run some of my own tests and can't work it out. I have found it is not:

1. Artist Name + Track Title
2. Filename

Because I have made a duplicate of a file, saved it to a different location and then imported into RekordBox playlist (which already has that file in) and it doesn't pop up the message which says "There are duplicated being added to the playlist. Would you like to add the duplicates or skip them"

Why am I asking this you may wonder...

The audio files on my harddrive are stored in:

1. Genre folders
2. Artist albums folder
3. Compilation albums folder

There are duplicate tracks in these folders however as I am trawling through various albums and compilations and spotting tracks I want to add to my collection I want (and would expect) RekordBox to notify me if I am dragging in a duplicate but it doesn't. I would expect Rekordbox to assess whether something is a duplicate by comparing Artist Name + Track Title data but it clearly doesn't. So what does it assess on?

Colesy January 13, 2017 15:50 Answered

Official comment

@Cosley > @Master G is correct; it's based on absolute path.

Personally, I would prefer if rekordbox didn't automatically detect duplicates living in another location based on the metadata; if I have a single and an album with the same track, I don't want one of them removed simply because I have one in another location. If I had several songs on that one album which were duplicates, thus removed, and the next time I go to listen to the album, half the songs are missing, I'd be pretty upset.

Honestly, it comes down to better music management on the user's behalf.

Pulse January 30, 2017 01:30

Post is closed for comments.

Date Votes

5 comments

They need to put an engine in that will catch this. I think they assume we're going to make sure there aren't duplicate files. But with massive libraries, there's bound to be files that will have the same names.

I think Rekordbox looks at the file paths more than it does the actual name. Obviously they need to add this feature, but the software is still young. Hopefully a developer looks at this and either lets us know how to kick on this feature or if its in the works.

Ren January 13, 2017 17:01 0 votes

The software isn't that young and they can be slow to implement simple features which is frustrating.

i think you are spot on with your filepath comment though.

It would also be nice to listen to tracks on your hard drive through RekordBox without it automatically adding it to your collection

Colesy January 13, 2017 17:25 0 votes

Rekordbox looks at the absolute path of the file and the track's length to decide if a track is a duplicate or not. if you just copy a track, the track name will be different, hence the absolute path is different and it wont be recognised as a duplicate.

if you take a file from you collection, change it's artist & title completely (but not its file name!) and reimport it to your collection it will be recognised as a duplicate.

I found out that just the path is not enough, the track's length (=playtime) should be identical to.

Mix Master G January 27, 2017 01:28 0 votes

Thanks for the comments everyone, useful to know how it works.

@pulse ah you see well I would prefer it does check on duplicated living in another location based upon metadata. This would then stop me having to check each time before importing something, which I have to do to avoid bloating my library.

In reference to removing files I haven't mentioned this I just want a check on import on those potential duplicates stored in another area. if you do remove a file from your RB collection the physical file is not deleted (an option I would like to see added but that's another issue) so it isn't lost.

Colesy January 30, 2017 09:12 0 votes