
Consolidate History Tool
Watch the Dupin Consolidate History Tool video.
The Consolidate History feature is a powerful tool to assist with managing your duplicate tracks. Because it writes new tag data to your iTunes tracks immediately its affects cannot be un-done. Be sure you understand how consolidation works before using it.
You can consolidate some of the tag data from among the tracks in a Dupe Group and apply that data to the one Keeper track in the Dupe Group. In order to use the Consolidate History feature a single Keeper for a Dupe Group must already have been selected, either manually by toggling tracks' checkboxes or automatically with the Filter Controls. Running Consolidate History on a Dupe Group with more than one designated Keeper or no designated Keeper will have no effect.
Consolidate History can be applied to a single Dupe Group, all Dupe Groups, or selected Dupe Groups. These options are explained below.
Specifically, you can consolidate the data from these tags:
- Play Count - The combined Play Counts of the tracks in the Dupe Group
- Last Played - The most recent Last Played date of the tracks in the Dupe Group
- Skip Count - The combined Skip Counts of the tracks in the Dupe Group
- Last Skipped - The most recent Last Skipped date of the tracks in the Dupe Group
- Rating - Your choice of the Highest, Lowest, or Averaged Rating from among the tracks in the Dupe Group
An example
Let's say a Dupe Group contains two versions of a song. One version has:
- Play Count 10
- Last Played Date March 1, 2008
- Skip Count 2
- Last Skipped Date June 30, 2008
- Rating 4 stars
The second version has
- Play Count 20
- Last Played Date October 1, 2008
- Skip Count 1
- Last Skipped Date April 30, 2008
- Rating 2 stars
If you were to Consolidate History on this Dupe Group, whichever track had been designated as the Keeper could be tagged with:
- Play Count 30 (the sum of all play counts)
- Last Played Date October 1, 2008 (the most recent last play)
- Skip Count 3 (the sum of all skip counts)
- Last Skipped Date June 30, 2008 (the most recent last skip)
- Choice of Rating 4 (highest), 2 (lowest) or 3 (the average) stars
(Average Rating is computed like so: Sum of Ratings of Tracks in Dupe Group/Number of Tracks in Dupe Group. As such, an average will consider tracks with no Rating.)
Note: By default Keepers are designated by being checkmarked. However, if you prefer the opposite configuration whereby a Keeper is designated by being un-checkmarked, you can toggle this behavior in Preferences. In any case, the text color of non-Keepers is always lighter than the text color of the Keepers. Throughout this help book, tracks will be referred to as Keepers and non-Keepers as often as possible to avoid any confusion with what is "checked" or "un-checked".
Consolidate History: Single Selected Dupe Group
A single Dupe Group can have its Keeper track supplied with a Consolidated History. Right-click any track of a Dupe Group has a single designated Keeper track to activate the contextual menu. Select "Consolidate History..." from the contextual menu.
The Consolidate History window will appear:
Click the checkboxes to enter a checkmark and indicate that you wish to apply the respective info to the Keeper track. Select which Rating (high, low or average) you wish to use from the Rating popup. When the settings are to your liking click the "Apply Now" button.
Notes:
- Track info is written to the Keeper track in iTunes immediately and CANNOT be un-done.
- The checkbox settings will be remembered for the next time you run Consolidate History.
- Info that is blank will not delete the corresponding tag data in the Keeper trackexcept for Rating when it is "none".
- DO NOT run Consolidate History more than once on the same Dupe Group. The "Count" tags will increase on each running; at the very least, toggle the "Play Count" and "Skip Count" options off on subsequent runnings.
Consolidate History: All Dupe Groups/Selected Dupe Groups
You can Consolidate History on all the Dupe Groups that have a single designated Keeper.
The one caveat to this feature is that, unlike the single Consolidate History technique described above, when you Consolidate History on more than one Dupe Group you cannot know the specific data that is being assigned to each Keeper track.
Make sure you have designated a single Keeper track for the Dupe Groups, either manually by toggling tracks' checkboxes or automatically with the Filter Controls. Any Dupe Group with more than one designated Keeper or no designated Keeper will be ignored.
Choose "Consolidate History..." from the Tools menu OR press Shift-Command-H shortcut OR select the "Consolidate" toolbar item (if you have assigned it to the toolbar). The Consolidate History window will appear:
Click the checkboxes to enter a checkmark and indicate that you wish to apply the respective info to the Keeper tracks. Select which Rating (high, low or average) you wish to use from the Rating popup. When the settings are to your liking click the "Apply Now" button.
Consolidate History: Selected Dupe Groups
Running Consolidate History on a selection of tracks works just like the technique described above except that only the Dupe Groups within a selection of tracks will be affected.
Notes:
- Track info is written to the Keeper tracks in iTunes immediately and CANNOT be un-done.
- The checkbox settings will be remembered for the next time you run Consolidate History.
- Info that is blank will not delete the corresponding tag data in the Keeper tracksexcept for Rating when it is "none".
- DO NOT run Consolidate History more than once on the same Dupe Groups. The "Count" tags will increase on each running; at the very least, toggle the "Play Count" and "Skip Count" options off on subsequent runnings.
- If you have any Smart Playlists set to "Live Updating" consider temporarily disabling "Live Updating" while you perform Consolidate History. Changing track information may cause Smart Playlists to frequently update and slow down the entire procedure.