I have a lot of duplicates (intentionally) - Once I perform a duplicates search and when I tell CLZ Movies Web to “Keep 2” (or however many) it does it. But, If I run the find duplicates feature again, it doesn’t remember that I told it to “keep 2” (or however many) - This is very frustrating because I have lots of duplicates (too many to sort in one go) and when I go back to sorting, all the titles I have previously sorted and told to keep are shown again!
Yes, that is how it works. The Find Duplicates tool is meant to go through your entire collection again, trying to spot possible duplicates.
Trying to understand your use case:
can you explain why you have so many duplicates? Many I can help you make the entries different so that they are not marked as duplicates again.
what is the reason that you need to run this tool regularly? This tool is mostly meant as a maintenance / problem solving tool, to run only when something went wrong.
If I own the DVD of a movie/show and i upgrade to Blu-Ray and/or 4K that means i have 2-3 copies of that movie. I know i can go to “Edition” and check all the versions for one title, but each of my titles has its own barcode ergo it deserves its own entry.
The reason i do it this way is simple - if i am in a store and need to know weather or not i own a particular title I use my app to scan the barcode on the back of the box to tell if I have the DVD version or Blu-ray version.
Also, there are instances where I own a TV Series by individual seasons each with their own barcodes, plus, I own “The complete series Box Set” with a different barcode. Again, it’s all about knowing where each of my unique barcode items are.
I know i could perform a manual search, but scanning the barcode is much, much more convenient and faster. Conversely, if a friend or family member want to borrow a movie and they specifically want the DVD version of a title ( because they don’t have a blu-ray player) then i can quickly scan the DVD barcode to lend it out but still have the title in stock on Blu-ray should someone else want it.
As i stated in my original post, i have so many duplicates due to the above reasons and i can not sort through the long list in one go! I like to sort the duplicates a few at a time whenever i have free time. Sometimes the duplicates were created by mistake but most of the times it’s because I own 2-3 versions of it.
I understand you would like to remember to ignore certain movies when they are dupes. That is easier than it sounds I think because what if you have 3 copies of a movie, which you deem “not duplicate” - but then you add another one from the same title by accident which is a duplicate? Would it be ignored as you said to the other 3 copies to ignore those in the “Find Duplicates” screen? (I’m just trying to find out what you would find logical here) - and would you need to be able to “disable the ignore on movies” (meaning an extra screen where you can uncheck all those “ignore” checkboxes for certain movies)? - Don’t get me wrong I get your reasoning, but I’m trying to dive a bit deeper into how a user would expect this to work (and how far the user wants to go here).
Tip: (perhaps you’ve already tried this) : When using “Find Duplicates” you have a dropdown at the top where you can make it find duplicates based on certain fields. Perhaps setting that to Title AND Format, already helps your issue a bit?
Well, the short answer is I don’t need to run the tool regularly. Once I’ve finished sorting my collection, maybe it would be just a once a year thing for maintenance reasons.
But at the moment because I haven’t sorted my collection I’m using it regularly until I do sort my collection. Does that make sense?
A search of my collection for duplicates returns what seems like dozens and dozens of results. I DONT HAVE TIME to go through every result IN ONE GO. So instead, I sort as many duplicates as I am able to IN ONE SESSION then I exit CLZ. The next time I have some extra time to spend on sorting I open CLZ again and perform the duplicate search to CONTINUE where I LEFT OFF.
A suggestion would be to have an option/check box in the options of the search to “Ignore previous duplicates marked as ‘keep’”
What if tomorrow you add another copy of a movie tomorrow, where you’ve already marked 2 other versions as “I’ve already checked this one” ? Would you want to be able to “undo” the “set to ignore”?
Tip: (perhaps you’ve already tried this) : When using “Find Duplicates” you have a dropdown at the top where you can make it find duplicates based on certain fields. Perhaps setting that to Title AND Format, already helps your issue a bit?
The list might just become shorter, and you can just go through it in one morning/afternoon/evening.
I would vote for a solution too. I have a similar way of working as the TS. I only have 165 duplicates, but still a lot to go through every time, only to try to spot the duplicate that is new. I use this feature only a couple of times a year. I use it because I sometimes forget to delete an entry when I upgraded or replaced a disc. In the find duplicates I can spot those. A lot of entries are intentional duplicates. I just have them more than once and I want to keep them (like the TS). If I don’t own it anymore, I don’t want it in my list anymore. But because I see the same entries as last time it is harder to spot the actual duplicate I am interested in. I find duplicates based on Core Movie ID, because the same movie might have different titles in my database. Like this (I put the actual name that is written on the Cover as the title):
I also see this is a had problem to crack because of the the functional issues you run into when you don’t see the entries anymore which you marked as “Keep …“. What to do if you make a mistake? Also the nightmare with the different ways to find the duplicates. How I would do it:
When you choose to ‘Keep …’ , store it so you don’t see them next time. Add a toggle at the top to see All duplicates or New duplicates. All duplicates just shows everything with the same buttons as you have now (Keep …). The New duplicates shows everything that is not saved OR if something changed, for example a 3rd entry, while the last time you had 2 movies. Or another entry but still 2 results. When you find duplicates again, you see the difference (now 3, previously 2) and present them again as new duplicates. Store the duplicates “for each way to find duplicates”. And add a reset button to delete everything you stored previously in case you made a mess of it and want to start over.
If I am in the right mood I think I can build this missing feature client side using custom code and local storage.
Note: I don’t expect an answer . Use it if you think it is useful.
@GuitarMan , did you find a solution to this issue? What you could do: write down where you left off. The next time you run “Find Duplicates” it is ordered in the same way. Use Ctrl+F to go the the place where you left off.
I can relate to the need expressed in this post. My workarround was to create a personal Field (as a yes/no) flag which sayes „has duplicates“. And I also define the duplicates i would like to keep as „ not in collection“ so i can easily blent them out. An example would be that i own the DVD with english audio track and and the bluray with only german soundtrack.
and want to start over.
. Use it if you think it is useful.