[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.

[sandceal]

The sheer amount of incompetence from Spotify is mind boggling. How is this still not fixed after, what, 10 years now? 

[amirbachar]

I can't stress enough how important this is! A lot of album versions are replaced and then songs I already liked show up in Discover Weekly. It became impossible to find new songs this way, since I keep running into the same songs.
Also, should be quite easy to implement, since listen count is the same for both versions, so there must be some existing mechanism that does it.

A very simple implementation would be a script that likes all "duplicate" songs and just a new attribute that indicated for the copies that they should not be directly included in "Liked Songs" playlist. Probably a few hours of development that improves the user experience drastically.
Even though I really like Spotify, I've started looking for competitors, it's that important!

[Ferastos]

I think spotify recognising the reuploaded version as different song is just stupid/buggy/incompetence. I have dozens or maybe hundred of songs that dont show as liked i check the artist and i liked it before, if i like the song that appears as not liked i have the song liked twice. Tell me if you think that make sense or if you think thats a good experience. From the moment the artist reuploads the same song(!), spotify should recognize it as already liked period.

[MKelley36]

This issue has seriously made me resent spotify as a whole. I use spotify frequently and used to enjoy the service. Along with listening to music I also like to use it to track when I first discovered songs through liked songs. I have ran into this problem with liked songs a lot where I have the song liked but it doesn't show up as liked on the artists page or on playlists made by spotify or other users. While trying to fix this issue I unliked and re liked a lot of songs removing my data and it frustrated me very much. This was especially annoying because when I re liked the song it doesn't show up as liked anywhere but the place I just liked it. My data dissipated in vain for an issue that is absurdly easy to fix. This problem also caused an issue where the same song shows up twice on my top 50 most played songs when checking my stats on stats.fm or any other website used for tracking stats on spotify. This is really not a hard fix to make. If its the same song from the same album and everything is the same, It should show up as liked everywhere. I know several people who have switched to other music platforms due to this issue. Please fix this issue to prevent other people from being hurt the way that me and many others have due to this issue.

[MKelley36]

The most impactful part of the bug at least for me is that the liked version and the non liked version are counted as two different versions of the song and there streams are not combined. Not a remaster or a reuplaod. The exact same song with zero differences is on my liked songs list but not in a playlist that I stream often. This is what caused duplicates of the same song to end up in my top 50. This should have been fixed the moment it got revealed to exist. This can ruin peoples spotify wrapped and many other things surrounding stats on listening history. Its really ruining the experience for me. I don't want to listen to my top songs of 2023 playlist because my number one song this year has this issue and I know the streams won't contribute to my overall listening stats or wrapped. If spotify would rather raise prices and make the service worse then fix the easiest of issues they will be replaced by a company who is willing to do more. Is it to much to ask that a song doesn't have duplicates?

[nimareq]

Guys, this is a joke 😂😂 Instead of addressing this issue, they removed the LIKE feature altogether!!!

It's even worse now! You don't even see which songs you liked in a playlist any more. 

BEFORE:

NOW:

[Salsicha93]

In my opinion, that is not a good user experience. Why doesn't Spotify handle all of the inconvenient work on handling the technical issues caused by artist legal disputes? That way people can enjoy their songs and have a better experience of their music without needing to constantly update their library

[UndeadWaffle101]

Is there no way to overwrite this so this issue doesn't happen? It's so annoying especially since both versions are still technically on the app. Lately there have been so many times where this has happened to me where a song or a FULL ALBUM I know I have liked shows up in a Daily mix or the AI DJ but shows I don't have it liked. I go to the artist, see I have the song liked but that this is another version of the same exact song again. This issue is clearly not "Solved" and I feel like it should be a priority as it makes Spotify seem a bit amateurish of a platform.

This is such an annoying and bad bug especially if we have premium and download the songs because this means Spotify may play the non-downloaded version of the song using our cellular data and playing at a lower quality. Not to mention re-liking the song can result to duplicates of the same song in your likes or just removing the history of when you either first liked it or discovered it, putting it back to the top of your likes.

Additionally, if there's a "deluxe" version or alternate version of an album, Spotify should take a note from competitors books and make it so there's just "one" version of the song so it likes all versions of that song into one. Utilize the database and metatags, identify songs from an artist that have the same name and just merge them all into one. Make it smart, use the technology like you are for the DJ!

I know it's not exactly you Alex who is responsible for this obviously but it's just such an annoying bug and I'm so tired of this happening over and over again for years now and would love if it can be focused on a bit more. Thank you. 

[UndeadWaffle101]

Is there no way to overwrite the metadatas with songs that have the exact same info as the duplicates so this issue doesn't happen? It's so annoying especially since both versions are still technically on the app. Lately there have been so many times where this has happened to me where a song or a FULL ALBUM I know I have liked shows up in a Daily mix or the AI DJ but shows I don't have it liked. I go to the artist, see I have the song liked but that this is another version of the same exact song again. This issue is clearly not "Solved" and I feel like it should be a priority as it makes Spotify seem a bit amateurish of a platform.

This is such an annoying and bad bug especially if we have premium and download the songs because this means Spotify may play the non-downloaded version of the song using our cellular data and playing at a lower quality. Not to mention re-liking the song can result to duplicates of the same song in your likes or just removing the history of when you either first liked it or discovered it, putting it back to the top of your likes.

Additionally, if there's a "deluxe" version or alternate version of an album, Spotify should take a note from competitors books and make it so there's just "one" version of the song so it likes all versions of that song into one. Utilize the database and metatags, identify songs from an artist that have the same name and just merge them all into one. Make it smart, use the technology like you are for the DJ!

It's such an annoying bug and I'm so tired of this happening over and over again for years now and would love if it can be focused on a bit more. Thank you. 

[NekoJash]

I would love to see this implemented. I have so many songs as duplicates in my playlists.