AIF, also known as AIFF, is an Audio Interchange File Format. It is a music file format developed by Apple Incl in 1988 to store music in electronic forms. AIF file formats borrow extensively from Interchange File Format. These are uncompressed stereo file types and as such they take much larger disk space than any other compressed music formats. Windows Media Player, VLC Media Player, Winamp and Apple’s QuickTime are among some of the standalone music players that support playing AIF audio files on Windows.

There are two ways of finding duplicate AIF audio files. They are as follows:

Method # 1: Using VLC Playlist

VLC Media Player is a freeware player. Using VLC, you can build a playlist of songs that you want to search for duplicates. Then sort the music list by ascending order of their title to differentiate between original AIF files and duplicate versions.

1.Download VLC Media Player.

2. Install and open the program.

3. Click the Media menu, followed by Open Multiple Files. Alternatively, you can use the keyboard shortcut Ctrl + Shift + O.

4. You should now be able to see the Open Media dialog on your screen.

5. Click the File tab, and then Add button.

6. Open the Music folder.

7. Type *.aif in the File Name textbox and press ENTER. Only AIF files will now appear on your screen.

8. Select all of your AIF audio files, and click Open.

9. Click the Play button to add all of these files to your VLC Playlist.

10. VLC will automatically start playing the first song in sequence. Stop the playback, and look for the Playlist option in the View menu.

11. The list of all the songs in your playlist will appear on your screen.

12. Right-click on an empty area in the Playlist, and select Sort By | Title Ascending.

13. VLC Player will display your files in alphabetical order, allowing you to identify duplicates by certain prefixes (such as – Copy (1).aif, – Copy (2).aif, – Copy (3).aif, and also sometimes (1), (2), (3)).

14. Right-click each of the duplicate file, and select Show containing folder.

15. The file will be displayed in File Explorer (earlier known as, Windows Explorer).

16. Delete the duplicate file.

17. Repeat the process for each of the duplicate files.

There are some drawbacks associated with this method. VLC does NOT allow you to directly delete a file from the Playlist. This is why you will need to open each duplicate file into File Explorer and delete it manually. There is no easy way to batch delete multiple selected files into the Playlist.

Method # 2: Using Dedicated Tool Clone Files Checker

Clone Files Checker is a dedicated duplicate finder tool that supports finding duplicate AIF and other music files on your computer. CFC uses unique algorithms to scan and fix duplicate music with 100% accuracy.

Here are the detailed steps to find duplicate AIF music using CFC:

1.Download, install Clone Files Checker. Get its’ user guide here. 

2. Make a list of all folder(s) that you want to search for duplicate AIF audio files. To do so, first click the Add button under Include To Scan category.

3. Locate your Music folder using the Browse for Folder dialog.

4. Your Music folder will now be added to the folders list. Follow the step over again to add other music folder(s), if any.

5. Now, set the scan filters in place. Use the Custom scan checkboxes to select file type(s) of your choice. For example: Music

6. Set the file size filters to specify a size in KB, MB or GB. This can be a great help to ignore a range of files based on their sizes. (Optional)

7. Click Start Search to begin the scan.

8. Please wait while CFC scans your music files for duplicates.

9. When CFC is done scanning your files, two options will appear on your screen namely Quick-Fix and Review & Fix. Choose the latter.

10. Review & Fix will display a complete list of all duplicate AIF audio files, enabling you to review them one by one. Use the checkboxes to mark or unmark files. Marked files will be chosen to delete/ move. Unmarked files will be kept unchanged.

11. Use the Select Duplicates button to choose files in bulk with different selection criteria- Newest files in each group, Oldest files in each group, Files by their location, etc.

For instance, to mark/ unmark files located in the directory C:\Users\Vikas\Music\Favorites, do the following:

a. Click on Select Duplicates button, and choose Select by File Locations.

b. In the new dialog, click on the Add button.

c. Click on Browse and select your preferred folder.

d. Click on Add.

e. Use the Mark button to batch mark or Unmark button to batch unmark all files stored in that directory.

12. Once you’re done selecting your unwanted files, click the Select Action button and choose whether to move all duplicates to a single folder of your choice or to delete them permanently.