[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.

[thq5twdv56ge3cbt83vg]

Auto remove duplicate songs from a playlist. Said implemented, but duplicates are still getting added to playlists. 

[SimonTr]

Welp, this thread has been open since 2014. Doesn't look like they'll ever fix it. Very disappointing...

[toastybuns]

I've been getting email updates on this thread for YEARS. Meanwhile Joe Rogan has signer 450 million worth of contracts with Spotify. At this point the priorities of the business are clear, and it isn't this

[fotsclarke]

It's frustrating when I go to an artist page and it shows songs that I already have both in my Liked Songs and Playlists but it doesn't show the check mark suggesting that I have not already liked or added it. Unless I have my massive song catalog memorized or click back and forth, it causes me to sometimes add it again as a duplicate. I believe this is because it is a new/different version legally or digitally or in some way and there is probably dozens of comments about this already but I could not find those either. In the attachment, I have all 10 popular songs showing on the artist page in both my playlists and in my liked songs but there are no checkmarks except the 1. Please please please transfer the check mark to new practically identical replacement versions of the same song. xo

[ptins]

Currently, Spotify has a check to make sure you don't inadvertently add the exact same song to a existing playlist. This is done via confirmation window, effectively saying "Song X is already in this playlist. Are you sure you want to add it?" This is a great feature... everyone knows this.

However, this only pops up for exact duplicates of Spotify files (something about databases and pointers likely), and does not extend to different versions of the same song. There are definitely instances where I don't want multiple versions of the same song in my playlist. A relevant example (especially now) would be original Taylor Swift songs versus new "Taylor's Version" songs. If I were to add both "You Belong With Me" and "You Belong With Me (Taylor's Version)" to the same playlist, no warning message would be thrown, since the songs are different (different sounds, occasionally different lyrics, different source albums, different source audio files, etc). This also happens with 7" / remastered / single versions of songs.

It would be super useful (when adding single songs at a time) to show a similar message, saying "It looks like you have a similar song already in this playlist. <List song>. Would you like to (a) keep the version of the song you already have, (b) replace the song with the new version you're trying to add, or (c) keep both?"

This could also be an automated process for origin album consistency in playlists. When not playing in shuffle, I like having my playlists reflect the original album release, meaning I preserve order and (more relevantly) album source. I'm sure a song title + artist name similarity score would be easy enough to implement, with a nice UI to help users more thoughtfully curate their playlists. Thank you for your time.

🙂

[22yfb4ll4e4ma7cxfn7y]

It helps to avoid the same song being saved multiple times unnecessarily. For example, when a song from an album is saved, it is also saved in another version of the album. And when you save the album to the library, the song is also saved, and not the same song in the library again.

[needforname]

Why won’t it let me vote? It shows ‘not right now’ when I attempt to upvote. Also, why isn’t Spotify doing anything about this blatantly obvious problem? I can’t imagine a single reason why this duplicate song issue isn’t addressed. I’m constantly having to deal with multiples of the same songs, despite them being the exact same. Offer an option to automatically clear these duplicates. There’s no reason anyone would want duplicates in their liked songs or playlists.

The only exception should be live tracks & remastered tracks. There should also be an option to replace tracks with remastered versions, since it’s obviously better to have higher quality versions of a song. These oversights are ridiculous & incredibly time wasting. It shouldn’t matter how many upvotes there are with obviously necessary features like these, but you’re making it impossible for any changes to be implemented when we can’t even vote. Please fix this post so we can at least do that!

[needforname]

There should be a global option allowing users to replace all tracks with the remastered versions (when they exist), and also an option to remove duplicates of tracks that are the same but on different albums (ex: greatest hits collections etc). At least have some visual indicator letting us know when the same song has already been saved in a playlist or has been liked (even if it’s a live version of the same song).

I find it dumb that multiples of the same song are always ending up in my playlists, because Spotify chooses to not show them as liked even when they are. This oversight makes zero sense & is such a huge waste of time having to constantly check for duplicates. 

Also, it won’t even let me upvote this feature request, preventing it from receiving enough votes for consideration! Come on Spotify!

[NazimHatipoglu]

This issue is NOT solved. Please reopen the ticket.
This issue is still happening. Though it is definitely not something like this. 

This is absolutely OK and normal, artists release their tracks on different albums, compilations all the time. Spotify does not need to and should not merge those.

The real problem is that some tracks/albmus get removed and added later on again.
For an example (among many others) This song by maceo plex is added in 2020 to my playlist and shows a liked symbol.

But it is actually removed from Artist's page. Instead We now see another "version" of the same album :

As you can see that song in there does not have the "like" symbol, because as described above this is a "new" upload of the same song and the system treats it uniquely.
It also extends into the Album itself. When I click on the name of the song (my old version) I land on the previous version of the album, somehow still preserved for me to see 

Note the new one in artists discography list :

Same "plays" same licensing yea but the missing of -original in the name is another indicator besides the missing "liked" button.

This is extremely annoying as it makes it impossible to find songs. For an example , I have around 100 playlists and I want to know where this song is saved in. I search it in the upper bar and it appears but does not have the "liked" button, which is a very helpful feature, which shows the user where the song is :

But the new version , which is the only one appearing in global search , does not have the "liked" tag and it creates the illusion that I have in fact not saved the song in my playlists. In confusion now , I need to go and manually search up to 100 playlists for the song. 

What spotify needs to do is to "darken" the old version so the user is somewhat "notified" that this is indeed an old version, Spotify already does this when a song is not available at all : 

To create another distinction the UI team can find a solution but the status quo is unacceptable!
Also Spotify should regularly clear their databases of "old versions" of songs after a given time and make an effort to automatically exchange the old versions in user's playlists with the new version.

[DrizzyDrake14]

For many songs, there are multiple "songs" for the exact same song. For example, "Red Button" by Drake, as he released it twice - once in the main playlist and once in the deluxe edition. Now, for people who go through new playlists on Spotify, this makes it hard to identify if the song is already liked or already in my playlist. 

Please make it so when I add a song to a playlist or like, it shows as such for all duplicates of the song. This is a very common and annoying problem