Open your music library, tap an artist, and find their albums scattered across two identical-looking entries. It is one of the most irritating quirks of iTunes: the same artist listed twice, with the same songs, because the hidden metadata tags don’t quite match — a quirk MacRumors forum regulars know all too well. The good news: merging those duplicates back into one entry takes less than a minute.
Why one artist shows up twice
iTunes groups music by the exact text in the Artist tag, not by what your eyes see. “The Beatles”, “Beatles, The”, and “The Beatles ” with a stray trailing space are three different artists as far as your library is concerned. Featured-artist credits, compilation flags, and the separate Album Artist field cause the same invisible split: two entries that look identical but refuse to merge on their own.
How to merge duplicate artists in iTunes
Do this on a Mac or PC in iTunes — or the Music app on newer macOS, where the steps are the same:
- Select one of the duplicate artists and press Cmd + I on Mac (Ctrl + I on Windows) to open the Info window. Confirm the warning about editing multiple items — that’s exactly what you want.
- Type one identical Artist name. In the Details tab, enter the exact name both entries should share. Copy and paste it instead of retyping, so no hidden difference in spacing or capitalization sneaks in. Click OK.
- Repeat for the other duplicate. Open Get Info on the second entry and paste in the very same Artist name. iTunes merges both entries into a single artist immediately, albums and all.
Still split? Open the Sorting tab in the same Info window and make the “Sort Artist” field identical on both entries too — a mismatch there keeps them apart even when the visible names match. Video walkthroughs on YouTube show the whole process if you’d rather watch it done.
Prevent it from happening again
- Fill in Album Artist. For compilations and featured-artist tracks, set a consistent Album Artist so guest credits don’t spawn new entries.
- Uncheck “Part of a compilation” on albums that aren’t compilations — the flag scatters tracks across entries.
- Tag imports consistently. Duplicates often sneak in with music added under a different Apple ID; if your library mixes accounts, here’s how to change your Apple Music account before syncing.
If it still doesn’t work
- Check for invisible characters. Paste both Artist names into a plain-text editor — trailing spaces are the classic culprit.
- Tracks greyed out after the merge? That’s a separate sync hiccup — here’s how to fix greyed-out tracks in Apple Music.
- Still stuck? Apple’s Music support pages cover editing song info in more depth.
Frequently asked questions
Does this work in the Music app on Mac, or only old iTunes?
Both. The Music app kept the same Get Info window (Cmd + I), and iTunes on Windows uses Ctrl + I. The steps are identical.
Do I have to fix every song one by one?
No — editing at the artist level applies the change to all of that artist’s tracks at once, which is why iTunes asks you to confirm editing multiple items.
Conclusion
Duplicate artists are a tagging problem, not a music problem — and one careful copy-paste of the Artist name fixes it for good. Once your library is tidy, take the next step and show only downloaded tracks in Apple Music to keep it lean.
