# Creating a unique ID for each song to avoid duplication
**URL:** https://community.mp3tag.de/t/creating-a-unique-id-for-each-song-to-avoid-duplication/61144
**Category:** Support
**Created:** [June 1, 2023, 9:40am UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/creating-a-unique-id-for-each-song-to-avoid-duplication/61144 "2023-06-01T09:40:49Z")
**Posts on this page:** 6
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@t800](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/t800)
#### Post date: [June 1, 2023, 9:40am UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/creating-a-unique-id-for-each-song-to-avoid-duplication/61144/1 "2023-06-01T09:40:49Z")
Hi everyone, this is my first ever post, so please excuse me if it was resolved already before.
I have a huge library of 1000s of songs. I also have 100s of duplications. Annoyingly, so many of these songs has slightly different title names, so it's almost impossible to detect and remove the duplicated ones.
For example:
**01 - song - artist**
**song - artist** or **artist - song**
Is there a way to assign each song a unique ID or hash value and show those values in a column so I can easily spot and remove the duplicate songs?
I feel like this topic might be related to what I'm trying to achieve but looks a bit complicated to me:
> [@uniqu song ID](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/uniqu-song-id/11546):
>
> I'm looking for a way to be able to create a unique song ID and put it in the tag. It would be created from the file name so if I were to use the same file again it would create the same number/entry. I use radio software called station playlist and they use ape v2 tags Is there a way to do this in mp3tag??
Thanks in advance 😊
---
### Author:  [@ohrenkino](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/ohrenkino)
#### Post date: [June 1, 2023, 9:45am UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/creating-a-unique-id-for-each-song-to-avoid-duplication/61144/2 "2023-06-01T09:45:51Z")
> [@t800](#):
>
> **01 - song - artist**
> **song - artist** or **artist - song**
This does not look like the title to me.
This looks like the filename.
Check which data you already have in the tag fields. If they are empty or filled only with parts of the data that is visible in the filenames, then first import the data from the unstructured filename into the structured tag fields.
> **[First Steps – Mp3tag Documentation](https://docs.mp3tag.de/getting-started/first-steps/)**
>
> A collection of tasks with step-by-step instructions intended for novice users of Mp3tag. Mp3tag is the universal Tag Editor.
From there onwards, you can sort, filter, rename the files and see whether you really detect duplicates in that way.
See also this discussion about duplicates:
> [@Find Duplicate Files in Different Music Directories](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/find-duplicate-files-in-different-music-directories/47952):
>
> Can MP3TAG be used to identify duplicate files in different sub-directories if a listing is done from the top level Music directory? If not, this would be a great feature that would help to further cleanup and organize a music library by matching all tags in duplicated files and would attract many DJs like me. It would be worth the cost. DJ Blade Sparx
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### Author:  [@t800](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/t800)
#### Post date: [June 1, 2023, 9:48am UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/creating-a-unique-id-for-each-song-to-avoid-duplication/61144/3 "2023-06-01T09:48:19Z")
Yes, you're right, sorry. I meant filenames.
I tried to create filenames from title - artist but then it says it couldn't create because there are files with the same filenames already ☹
that's how I noticed I had many duplications.
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### Author:  [@ohrenkino](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/ohrenkino)
#### Post date: [June 1, 2023, 9:51am UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/creating-a-unique-id-for-each-song-to-avoid-duplication/61144/4 "2023-06-01T09:51:39Z")
I think that was quite nice of MP3tag to tell you that there would conflicts.
I would now sort by ARTIST and TITLE and then see if the similar ones are really duplicates or whether the metadata is not complete as you may have the single, the maxi, the remix, the live version, the version from a particular year or a re-release and so on.
There is also a tool out there in the internet "Similarity" that has a function to scan for duplicates.
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### Author:  [@t800](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/t800)
#### Post date: [June 1, 2023, 10:19am UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/creating-a-unique-id-for-each-song-to-avoid-duplication/61144/5 "2023-06-01T10:19:32Z")
Thank you mate, I will give that tool a try.
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### Author:  [@system](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/system)
#### Post date: [July 1, 2023, 10:19am UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/creating-a-unique-id-for-each-song-to-avoid-duplication/61144/6 "2023-07-01T10:19:52Z")
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