Apple Music 'splitting or duplicating albums'? Here's how to merge them

Apple Music, one of the leading music streaming platforms, has gained immense popularity among music enthusiasts worldwide.

Even the most popular platforms, however, are not immune to occasional problems and technical issues, such as the app seeming slow and buggy on iOS devices.

Recently, Apple Music users have been facing a particularly annoying issue where duplicate albums are created within their libraries (1,2,3,4).

Ideally, when a user adds a song to their library from an album they already have added a song from, the new song should seamlessly integrate within the existing album.

For example, if a user has added the song ‘Bad Guy’ from the album ‘When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go?’ by Billie Eilish, and then adds another song from the same album, such as ‘Bury a Friend’, it should appear under the same album in the user’s library.

Unfortunately, due to a bug in Apple Music, this is not always the case. Users have reported instances where adding a song to their library creates a duplicate album, even though the artist is identical to an existing album.

This bug has caused confusion and frustration among users who expect a seamless and organized music library experience.

Hey hey am I the only person who’s Apple Music has been acting funny for a few months now? Replay 2023 hasn’t updated in awhile and just recently the Her loss album splits into two artists. Any fixes or suggestions also would be dope!!!
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I’d love to use Apple Music but it has so many bugs/problems that it’s genuinely concerning. One of the problems is that it constantly splits one album into two. Some songs go into one of the duplicated albums and the other songs go to the other duplicated album.
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This is not the first time Apple Music has faced an issue with duplicate albums. Similar problems have been reported in the past, particularly with compilations (1,2,3).

However, it is disheartening to see this bug persist and even affect regular albums now.

Users have discovered a potential workaround that can help alleviate the issue. By following these steps, users can merge the duplicate albums within their library:

1. Access Apple Music on a PC or Mac.
2. Select all the tracks from the duplicate album and open the Song Info panel.
3. Modify a common field (e.g., adding a trailing “X”) to differentiate the tracks temporarily.
4. Apply the changes, which should merge the duplicate album into a single entry.
5. Remove the additional characters added in step 3 to restore the original album information.
6. It may be helpful to close and reopen the Apple Music application between the renaming operations to ensure the changes take effect.
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While this workaround is not a permanent solution and may require additional effort, it has provided relief for some users struggling with duplicate albums in their libraries.

That said, we’ll keep track of the situation and will post an update if and when there are any further developments regarding the Apple Music splitting or duplicating albums issue.

Note: We have more such stories in our dedicated Apple Section so be sure to follow them as well.

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