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Some sub-folders from my iTunes music folder have been deleted from my hard drive, but are still present into my iTunes library (with a "!" sign next to it, showing me that there is a problem with that song). I have a lot of those unplayable songs on my library... Is there a way to rid of all those songs ?

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possible duplicate of superuser.com/questions/130633/… – Shevek May 9 '10 at 20:32
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@Shevek: it sounds like exactly the opposite problem. will the solution to that also work for this? – quack quixote May 9 '10 at 20:43
oops, yes, it is the opposite problem... sorry! didn't read it fully. My bad. – Shevek May 9 '10 at 20:49
MacOS or Windows? – Shevek May 9 '10 at 21:31
@Shevek: I made the exact same mistake after reading your comment voted you up, then read @quack quixote's comments and realized he's right. LOL. – Josh May 9 '10 at 23:05
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5 Answers

up vote 2 down vote

Scott Hanselman blogged a C# solution about this last week.

If you are handy with C# then its another good solution.

Source code is provided so if you have C# Express or Visual Studio then you should be good to go.

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No need to compile or program, since the binaries are provided with the download. – Daniel Beck Jan 26 '11 at 14:31
@Daniel - Ah! I didn't look in the bin directory. Good spot – Shevek Jan 26 '11 at 15:09
That's why I commented on the question. Let's see if it gets you an accept. – Daniel Beck Jan 26 '11 at 15:10
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up vote 1 down vote

Found this but it is dated 2004 so it may not work if the iTunes API has changed in between

You will need to have Windows Scripting Host installed.

http://ottodestruct.com/itunes/RemoveDeadTracks.txt

Save this file as RemoveDeadTracks.js

Launch iTunes

Double click on RemoveDeadTracks.js

Wait!

It will display a message box when done.

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I did this about 6 months ago, so the APIs are likely still good. – BillN Jul 7 '10 at 21:16
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up vote 1 down vote

Pardon my ignorance, but can you not just delete them from the library by right-clicking on them and choosing "Delete"?

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not when there are hundreds or even thousands of them! – Shevek Jul 8 '10 at 7:32
What if you just deleted the entire library from iTunes and then re-imported the folder that contains all your music? That's a sure-fire way to make sure you only have the right stuff in there. – jrc03c Jul 8 '10 at 13:09
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up vote 0 down vote

If you can sort the column (where the "!" symbol is displayed), then that'd be great, since you can just highlight from the very first track, down to the last (use SHIFT key to do this), and hit DELETE.

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Sadly, that column is not sortable, which is obnoxious. – Nathan Oct 4 '11 at 1:52
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up vote -1 down vote

http://www.dougscripts.com/itunes/scripts/ss.php?sp=removedeadsuper

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you are assuming that it's a Mac! – Shevek May 9 '10 at 21:31
You are assuming that nobody noticed you didn't even read the question before chiming in! – Hasaan Chop May 9 '10 at 22:30
Unfortunately this problem happens on windows. – Pierre May 10 '10 at 6:44
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