How do I resolve duplicate “in the cloud” songs in iTunes 11?

Question

When I installed iTunes 11, for some reason it re-downloaded all my purchased "in the cloud" songs even though they were already in my library. So now I have duplicate songs, one that matches the cloud, one that has my rating, playcounts, etc. For example:

I want to tell iTunes that they're the same songs- I tried to delete my old copy then, when it asks me to locate it, point to the new copy, but when I delete the cloud entry it doesn't realize that they're the same. Is there anything that I can do to fix this?

Note: I do not have iTunes Match, and this is on a Mac, if that's relevant.

Edit: Of course I could delete my local copy and download and use the cloud copy, but I want to keep ratings and play/skip counts.

Answer 1

Preserve meta data

Doug's AppleScripts for iTunes hosts a huge list if AppleScripts useful for managing iTunes. Of particular interest in this case are

• Copy Tag Info Tracks to Tracks
• New Last Played Date
• New Last Skipped Date
• Add or Subtract Play Count

Especially the first one seems to be very interesting in your case.

Replace tracks

You should be able to

1. redownload the tracks by clicking on the iCloud icon
2. transfer any meta data manually or with the AppleScripts listed above
3. delete the current copy (the one not marked yellow in your screenshot) from iTunes and your hard drive

General note

To be on the safe side, make a backup copy of the titles in question first and run some tests using just a few tracks

Answer 2

I solved this in the following manner.

Go to Preferences, then to Store, then uncheck the box that says "Show iTunes in the cloud purchases"