A Guide to Remove Duplicate MID/ MIDI Audio Files

MID/ MIDI files are very much popular among musicians as these file formats are supported by all major music players without any extra codec download required. MID/ MIDI files are usually small in size, and they can be easily shared on the Internet, and transferred via floppy disks.

Many popular software programs including VLC Media Player, QuickTime, Winamp have the ability to decode and play MID/ MIDI files.

Using Windows Media Player

Windows Media Player comes preinstalled and bundled with the Windows operating system. It has the ability to build a library of all music files stored on the hard disk. This can be a great help to sort files alphabetically and identify the duplicate versions appearing alongside the original music files.

1. Click Start, scroll down to the bottom and expand Windows Accessories.
2. Look for Windows Media Player and select it.
3. Click on the File menu, point to Manage libraries | Music.

   

4. You’ll now be seeing the Music Library Locations window.
5. Your Music folder is added by default, as you can see. If you have saved songs on other locations also, use the Add button to select those folders.
6. After adding up all the desired folders, view your Music library on the left- hand side panel of your Windows Media Player screen.
7. Right-click any column head and select Choose columns.
8. Select the checkboxes for File name and File path, click OK to save the changes.
   
9. Drag both the File name and File path columns just next to the Title column.
10. Click the File name column-head to sort all files in ascending order.
11. Right-click the File name column-head and select Sort By File name.
12. You can now identify duplicates with different prefixes added to the original file names. (for example,  (1), (2) or – Copy (1), – Copy (2), …).
13. Select multiple duplicate files in rows using the left-mouse click + Shift key. To select duplicate files (in succession) across rows, use the left-mouse click + Ctrl key combination.
14. Right-click the selected area and choose Delete.

    

15. A confirmation prompt will appear on the computer prompting you whether to delete the selected file(s) from the Library only or Library and your computer’s hard disk. Select your preferred option, and then click on OK.

Drawbacks

• This method doesn’t support cloud scan. You cannot use this method to find duplicates music files stored on any of your Internet-based cloud storage such as OneDrive, Google Drive, and Dropbox.
• This approach is prone to human errors. It might be possible that you will wrongly judge a file to be duplicated when it is not. Deleting data that isn’t duplicate does harm only.
• It might not be possible to use this method if you have tens of thousands of files. It will take a really long time to finish the task.

Using Clone Files Checker

There is another popular way to find duplicates. The idea is to compare every single MID/ MIDI file on the hard disk using hash algorithms. This involves generating and comparing hashes of every single file to represent the original text in a much shorter form in size. Files with the same hashes are considered duplicates, and those with unique hashes are considered non-duplicates. This process is not prone to human errors and can be easily performed using a specialized software Clone Files Checker.

CFC allows you to find duplicates easily and smartly. CFC supports scanning of different file formats (such as documents, music, videos, archives, and images). It also contains dedicated Music Search and iTunes Search features to scan for duplicate music using their ID3 Tags.

Some of the distinct features of Clone Files Checker are as follows:

• Local Scan: CFC allows you to scan for duplicates on your local HDD/ SSD, USB stick, External Hard Disk and any other non-read only type of media.
• Cloud Scan: CFC supports popular Internet storage platforms like OneDrive, Google Drive, and Dropbox. Now you can search for duplicate files on your cloud storage without having to download a single bit of data. Remember, your data is truly yours. No data is shared with any third-party as CFC makes use of only the official APIs from the respective cloud service providers to access your data in a highly secure manner.
• iTunes and Music Search: Search for duplicate music using ID3 tags, also called as music tags. This is yet another simple way to free-up tons of storage space and enjoy your favorite music.
• Backup: The integrated backup feature in Clone Files Checker takes care of data security. If you have turned on the backup option, you can restore any files you had deleted at just a few clicks.
• Filters: CFC allows you to filter files by their size and types. This means that you can reduce the overall scan time and get customized results by opting to scan a limited number of files.
• Exclude Folders: Build a list of folder(s) to leave them literally untouched. This can be a great help to avoid potential data loss by excluding important directories that might contain sensitive information that you cannot afford to lose at all.