[All Platforms] Consolidate duplicates

[Kerumen]

It would be nice if Spotify can recognize identical songs to avoid duplicates in your Liked songs and playlists.

This is pretty common for songs released first as a single then within an album.

For example, if you like the single one, the UI will not show the song as liked when you browse the album. And if you like the song in the album, you'll end up with a duplicated version in your library.

This also happens a lot for songs that you listen in Daily Mix or Discover weekly. If it's not the exact same song you have already liked before, the UI is inconsistent and you can save a duplicate.

Apparently, there is already an internal merge mechanism as the play counter is not split between the different versions of the songs. Maybe this can also be used to consolidate the UI.

Repost of https://community.spotify.com/t5/Closed-Ideas/Your-Music-Remove-Duplicated-Songs/idi-p/4546787 which didn't get enough kudos.

[davidatmilford]

would be more helpful instead of them all appearing separately

[agent-andy]

So many Songs exist on multiple Albums in the exact same form - e.g., original release, greatest hits, compilations, soundtracks.

This makes it difficult to avoid adding the same Song multiple times to Liked Songs. It would be amazing if Albums worked like Playlists, i.e., a collection of links to Songs rather than a standalone copy of files. Then a Song would show up as Liked regardless of which Album it was playing from, unless it was truly a different version than the one you already liked (e.g., a remix, or a remastered version).

If possible, this would drastically reduce the amount of storage necessary as each unique Song would only need to be stored once.

[partyingwithdragons]

Plan

Premium since 2014

Country

USA

Device

Desktop

Operating System

Windows 10 & IOS 16.6.1

My Question or Issue

I've noticed this for a few years now and always hoped Spotify would fix it, but here I am. I can only find threads about this from 2020...it's 2025...

On many occasions I know I've already liked a song (clicked the plus sign which turns it into a green check) but when I go to the album on the Artist page or listen to it in a different playlist (or even that same playlist sometimes) that green check doesn't show up. Which makes me think I haven't added it to my liked songs. If I'm not sure and I do add it to my liked songs it doesn't give me the prompt "this song as already been added, are you sure?" (even though it is, in fact, in my liked songs playlist already). Now I have two of the same songs added in my liked songs. 

To be clear this is the same exact song that shows up in my liked songs - not a different version or from a different album. 

I've included attachments of this with "Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa" showing this.

This is super annoying, especially when you can't search within a playlist on the desktop web player (I am unable to download the desktop app) so I have to pull out my phone and search there rather than scroll through thousands of songs on the desktop. Also, I pay too much for Premium for this stupid stuff to happen for years at a time.

Spotify - stop firing your employees so they can actually fix these problems. Have some respect for your employees and customers. I'm about to go back to my iPod classic from 2008 if you can't offer a decent platform. Not to mention the pennies you pay artists...but that's for a different thread... 

[xxxtemptation]

Hey Everyone,

I started cleaning my Liked playlist for duplicates. I noticed that while not every time, on several occasions deleting a duplicated song (that was re-released in an EP or album/ re-release) leads to deleting both of the duplicates, taking out the entire song in my liked playlists. I do not end up re-liking the song, because why bother? Is this a common bug? Thanks.

[rgibson27]

Album art can vary by location but the message is the same. When I am listening to music I could have saved in my library already it says I haven‘t so I panic and add it.

Then when I go to my library I see I have 2-3 versions of the same song saved. Can this be fixed?

Like a bubble or asterisk if this song is already in your library or something.

[blabala22]

Sometimes I have a one version of a song that has ten different versions, checkmark should be yellow for other nine versions of that song when I see them on other playlists and albums so that I know I have at least another version of that song in my playlists.

[DaveEric]

I found out you can remove most duplicates with the "Spotipy" module of Python, but it's certainly not the most convenient fix, especially for those who are new to programming. If Spotify wrote their own duplicate finder function which could be run on playlists, that would obviously be a big improvement for a stream service since duplicate versions of songs is a common music streaming annoyance. 

[Malic90]

Looks like im not alone.. When a song is released in multiple versions—album version, EP, a special mix, etc.—it appears as separate entries on Spotify. This means I can like the same song multiple times, and Spotify treats each version as if it's a completely different track.

The biggest problem? This messes with Spotify's algorithm.

Take the Daylist as an example.

Every few hours, it updates with around 50 songs, mixing new recommendations with songs I've liked before. But since Spotify treats different versions of the same song as separate tracks, I often get "new" recommendations for songs I already like—just in a different version. This makes it harder to discover actual new music and clutters my library with duplicate likes.

Another issue:

If I decide to clean up my library by keeping only the liked songs from an album and unliking other versions, this again disrupts the algorithm. Suddenly, Spotify thinks I’ve liked a bunch of “new” songs from the same artist—when in reality, I’ve been listening to them for years. This throws off my recommendations and means I get songs in my mixes that don’t really belong there. 

Wouldn't it make more sense if all versions of a song were grouped together under one "like"? That way:

• If I like the album version, and someone else likes the EP version, we both have the same liked song.
• Spotify's algorithm wouldn't get confused by duplicate entries.
• Artists wouldn't get inflated play counts just because the same listeners are playing multiple versions.
• Cleaning up your library wouldn't mess up recommendations and cause older tracks to suddenly reappear as "new" likes.

[ColonelSky]

It would be amazing to add this feature, there should be a button that says duplicated music and you can click it and see what songs are duplicated and then you can simply remove them 

[Purpleazalea5]

Spotify will say if there is going to be a duplicate of a song on your playlist only if it’s on the same album. With all these new deluxe albums and singles dropping Spotify needs a feature to tell you if the song will be a duplicate if it is not identical. I don’t need three of the same song on my playlist (because they are on different albums) no matter how much I like it.