How to check USB Flash Drive Folders Side By Side for copied files

I hope this question makes sense to others reading it. Here is the issue I'm currently having. I have a "USB Flash Drive" with "THOUSANDS" of mp3 song files on it. Some are in a folder called "Artist" which is how I used to organize my music in a halfhearted way. It was just my "Favorite Songs" in folder named after my "Favorite Artists". But then I decided to get a bit more serious about my "Music Collection". So now I have folder called "Done" that has artists in it in full.

I have every albums by "Garth Brooks" and each album has the songs with "Albumart" and "Genre" set and "Release Year" set. so when I open the "Done" folder and click on "Garth Brooks" I see folders all named by "Album Titles". And then if I open a album I see the "File Name - Song Title">"Album - Title" >"Genre - Country" and so on. It all depends on how I have the "Music Folders" set up.

but anyways the "Artists" folder dose not have any songs from or artists for the "Done" folder. But I have a folder called "Random" that has many different songs inside that are all over the place.

For example I might have a song called "Garth Brooks - Thunder Rolls" and then "Artist might be already set or the song title might already be set. But the file name is incorrect. But since its already in the "Done" folder inside "Garth Brooks". I don't want multiple of the same songs that are not filed correctly. And at the same time there are random songs that I have downloaded in the past that I still want to keep that are just covers that don't have a album.

So what I would like to be able to do is something like this:
Find a way to do a side by side and search for specific things based on what I already have.

I already know about:
Open File Explorer go to the "Done" folder select all items "Folders and then right click and select "Copy as path"
And then I can past the list inside "Notepad++" and then I can do a search and "Delete The full File Location"
then I would end up with a list of the "Currently Completed Artists" and then I can just open the "Random"
music folder. And do a "Search" for each "Artist" by name. And that will popup each "Artist or Group" and then
I can just "Delete" all that shows from inside the "Random" folder. And then look to see if there are any "Artists
or Groups" that would match with the "Artists" from inside the "Artists" that I plan to finish at a later date.

Is there a easier way then to have to make the list of artists and then look for the artists one by one until I find them. Or is there a free program or a way to check on "Windows 11" for the same files by artists or something from flash drive. Because some of the "File Names" are incorrect but some of the file names have the "artists Names" or "Groups Names" or the "Artists or Groups" are already tagged.

I guess I'm just trying to find a easy way to remove duplicate files that have the same tags but not the same file names but have the same titles or something. If there is a easier way to do this please point me in the correct direction.

See if this third party software is useful:

Download and install: voidtools

SweetHeart88 said:

I hope this question makes sense to others reading it. Here is the issue I'm currently having. I have a "USB Flash Drive" with "THOUSANDS" of mp3 song files on it. Some are in a folder called "Artist" which is how I used to organize my music in a halfhearted way. It was just my "Favorite Songs" in folder named after my "Favorite Artists". But then I decided to get a bit more serious about my "Music Collection". So now I have folder called "Done" that has artists in it in full.

I have every albums by "Garth Brooks" and each album has the songs with "Albumart" and "Genre" set and "Release Year" set. so when I open the "Done" folder and click on "Garth Brooks" I see folders all named by "Album Titles". And then if I open a album I see the "File Name - Song Title">"Album - Title" >"Genre - Country" and so on. It all depends on how I have the "Music Folders" set up.

but anyways the "Artists" folder dose not have any songs from or artists for the "Done" folder. But I have a folder called "Random" that has many different songs inside that are all over the place.

For example I might have a song called "Garth Brooks - Thunder Rolls" and then "Artist might be already set or the song title might already be set. But the file name is incorrect. But since its already in the "Done" folder inside "Garth Brooks". I don't want multiple of the same songs that are not filed correctly. And at the same time there are random songs that I have downloaded in the past that I still want to keep that are just covers that don't have a album.

So what I would like to be able to do is something like this:
Find a way to do a side by side and search for specific things based on what I already have.

I already know about:
Open File Explorer go to the "Done" folder select all items "Folders and then right click and select "Copy as path"
And then I can past the list inside "Notepad++" and then I can do a search and "Delete The full File Location"
then I would end up with a list of the "Currently Completed Artists" and then I can just open the "Random"
music folder. And do a "Search" for each "Artist" by name. And that will popup each "Artist or Group" and then
I can just "Delete" all that shows from inside the "Random" folder. And then look to see if there are any "Artists
or Groups" that would match with the "Artists" from inside the "Artists" that I plan to finish at a later date.

Is there a easier way then to have to make the list of artists and then look for the artists one by one until I find them. Or is there a free program or a way to check on "Windows 11" for the same files by artists or something from flash drive. Because some of the "File Names" are incorrect but some of the file names have the "artists Names" or "Groups Names" or the "Artists or Groups" are already tagged.

I guess I'm just trying to find a easy way to remove duplicate files that have the same tags but not the same file names but have the same titles or something. If there is a easier way to do this please point me in the correct direction.

Click to expand...

I can’t help but assume from everything you have described is that you’re using unethical methods to procure the music, if you weren’t, I don’t think you would have any of these problems. If I am correct then I would say the answer to your problem is to perhaps obtain the music ethically and you wouldn’t have these issues.

You can have 2 explorer windows side by side by opening a second instance of explorer (Win key+e) Then use one of 3 methods to snap each explorer window to each side of the screen.

If you were to go to the topmost folder of the artist or album name, searched *.mp3, select the results and cut/paste into the top most folder then sort by file size. This would possibly make it easier to distinguish identical files with different file names. It would be rare that any two song tracks from one album would have the exact same filesize or track duration. But then you need to identify the track. Maybe you could by listening to it?

There is software available that can scan a folders contents and identify its artist/album/title but free versions don’t generally have the full options to identify.
Mp3nity is one such software, quite good at what it does. Identifies tracks by the attributes and renames and numbers them in the album folder you have chosen to view the files in, like a file explorer type setup. However I paid a minimal price for the full version and I can’t remember the differences. Also, I tried to contact the guy over the last couple of years without success so maybe he’s gone. But the software still works.
I found the software useful when I was ripping my CD’s, the end results were numbered properly but without song track filenames. Then I found Mp3nity, this software also enabled me to download the album art automatically as well as the lyrics. It’s pretty much an all in one software for albums.

You can read about what it does and download from here. Screenshots also to inspect.

There could be music players that could do it. I use AIMP. Not sure if it does it, I’ve never looked. I do know it does tag editing. But I am not sure if it can identify unidentified files.

Also…

How do I use CCleaner for Windows’ Duplicate File Finder?

I've also used CCleaner's Duplicate File Finder on music files and I've opened 2 instances of File Explorer and used some of the free and paid-for file managers such as FreeCommander, MultiCommander and TotatCommander [paid for] that give two panes for different folders or drives. Don't recall which version/s but Windows could Tile or Cascade drives.

OneCommander and the Microsoft Files app are also contenders.

However, rather than comparing them side by side, I suggest you look into a music database tagging program - specifically, I recommend Musicbrainz Picard.

The reason for this is that Picard is well above and beyond a simple tagging app. It will tag files, and even check their online database for file signature matching and verification, but it also will match with more obscure tracks - like live performance tracks, re-mastered tracks, tracks taken from different media (like, cassette / CD / LP), and such.

With my CD collection, I have a lot of duplicate tracks from artists because they appear in different places, like original album versus soundtracks versus a live performance versus a remastered greatest hits. Sometimes they seem nearly identical - sometimes they are wildly different. Sometimes looking at them side by side, I can see they are almost the same, and I need further analysis. Sometimes, they look so wildly different that I might think one of them is corrupted, or something similar, and toss it, not realizing that both are valid tracks - one the original, and one a live performance.

Picard comes through there - it is usually very good at delineating between these different types, so that even if you compare two tracks with the same ID3 tags, it knows when they are different - and will show you based upon what it finds in its (ever growing) extensive music database. But whats more, it can also re-tag incorrectly tagged items, add lyrics, album art, rename files, including using a specific structure based upon album type (collections / various artists, original albums, soundtracks, etc.), and even restructure the folders the files are kept in.

If there is one thing that you need to understand about Picard, though, it is that it is very, very powerful, and while it has a bit of a learning curve, you can easily figure out how to do basic file tagging and naming easily - and from there the things can get complicated. But they have a really good user support forum, too, and I won't use any other program now, for 2 main reason:

1. It handles a wide variety of music compression algorithms, including FLAC (my personal go-to for music files) and OGG, as well as the standard MP3 and (I think) even some proprietary ones.

2. Their music catalog database is very, very extensive, as every user of Picard in the world has the option to submit the results for any set of tracks or albums they scan for to the database.

I had, a long time ago, slowly but surely RIPped all my music CDs to MP3, but several years ago when I made the conscientious decision to move to FLAC, I started re-RIPping all of the CDs again into FLAC. I had about 600 to 700 GB of RIPped FLAC files from a lot of CDs - and the HDD I had them stored on was wiped. Long story short, I was able to get all the files back, but because I recovered them using a file recovery tool they were all named stupid names like F2424566.flac. Just as a test, threw almost 10K files at Picard. It chugged for a long time, but was able to identify the vast majority of the files and split them into respective albums, and rename them, and recreate the original folders, within a day.

Once you get the hang of it, you'll never look at anything else for managing your music. It's that good.