Accessing iTunes music from multiple computers, platforms?

Please accept my apologies in advance if this is a dumb question, but I'm a newbie and I need help.
I have a PC that I have been using as a storage drive for a (33GB +) collection of iTunes (recently upgraded to iTunes 8.02.20). I play those tunes on a 1st generation 4GB Nano, as well as at home on the computer. That PC is one of several that runs on a peer-to-peer wired and and wireless network in my house, the wireless part through several different access points.
All of my music was loaded into iTunes from recordings I own, either on CD or digitized from vinyl. None was bought on the iTunes store or downloaded from the web, so I don't think there should be any DRM issues, but I don't know if there are any limitations imposed by iTunes as a default.
I have two questions:
1 - I recently got a MacBook Pro, and I'd like to be able to duplicate a portion of my music onto its hard drive (but nowhere near all, as it would clutter up the hard drive unacceptably).
2 - I'd also like to be able to get at the iTunes files from all of the machines on the network, without duplicating the files themselves, if that's possible (to be able to include them in creating slideshows, movies, etc.)
Is there any way to make this possible? Are there any DRM issues that attend doing something like this? Thanks in advance for any help you can provide.

Here is the background article on that - if you look at the network share as the "publicly accessible music folder" while reading it.
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1203
So basically you have the network share. All the users drag files from it into their itunes library, so the database ITL file knows where to go to play it.
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1660
And make sure each user has the option for copying files turned OFF, or you'll get duplicate files on the share.
http://support.apple.com/kb/TA26579

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Accessing iTunes account from multiple computers

I added iTunes gift cards to my account from one competer but cannot see the balance when logging in from another computer - any help appreciated

You can access your account, but the music will only be where you put it.
It doesn't just magically appear on any computer that you log into. You would have to copy the music and put it on the computer.
You can use home share, your backup copy, cds, dvds, external drives,etc to copy and move music if you like.

How do I put all of my iTunes music from multiple computers / devices onto one external hard drive?

I have two desktop macs, a macbook air, two iPads, and two iPhones. I have one Apple account that I use for all music - including music my college aged kids download. My problem is that I would like to get all the music into one library, delete the duplicates, then have the external drive store all the music. Is there a practical way to do this? This way I can set up my devices so that they all have the same music and playlists. Is this the best way to handle this situation?

The cheap and easy way is to just add all the media files as new items to a new library configured to store all on the external drive (start iTunes with the option key held down and tell it to create a new library on the external). There won't be any automated way to prevent duplicates. You're doing manual spring cleaning. Of course if you add all the items as new items you will lose things such as playlists, date added, last played, etc.
I got these off the web so cannot rate them for you:
PowerTunes - http://www.fatcatsoftware.com/powertunes/ (commercial software)
syncOtunes - http://homepage.mac.com/oligrob/syncOtunes/syncOtunes.html

Can I access my itunes account from multiple computers?

Can I access my itunes account on multiple computers?

What do you mean access?
You can certainly sign into your account from any computer with itunes.
Your content will only be where you put it. You can put it/copy it wherever you like.
In some countries you can redownload some itunes purchased content:
Downloading past purchases from the App Store, iBookstore, and iTunes Store

FRUSTRATION - why can't I add music from multiple computers to my iPhone??

I use multiple Mac computers in my life. My home computer has about 30 gigs of music. My work computer has about half that. Therefore syncing in any case is not an option. I have added some music from home to my new iPhone, and I want to do the same from my work computer but cannot! WHY?? I can do this with my 5th gen Video iPod no problem.
Plugged into my work computer now, I try to set the iPhone again to "manually manage music," but it still tells me the iPhone is synced with another computer (it is not, since I immediately disabled the sync feature before adding music). Is this going to be the case if I want to add photos from multiple computers, etc., too?
WHY?? WHY??? WHY?????
SO FRUSTRATING...

You're welcome.
Maybe I'm missing something, but i still struggle to see the connection. Disk mode is the iPods ability to be mounted as a disk on the desktop, allowing the free disk space to be used manually. It exists completely outside the iPods normal, iTunes-driven functions, right? What we are missing on the iPhone is a simple feature from inside iTunes – a feature that all other iPods (as far as i know) have. Strange that the "Amazing iPod" does not.
Disk mode has everything to do with the ability to transfer iTunes content to an iPod from multiple computers. This is not a simple feature from inside iTunes.
Do you have an iPod? If so, are you transferring iTunes content from more than one computer to your iPod? If so, do you have disk mode enabled for your iPod? If yes, turn off disk mode and test if you are still able to transfer iTunes content from more than one computer to your iPod.
Nothing prevents me from admitting when Apple goes wrong or disappoints, but this is not the place for it. This is a user to user help forum for technical support issues and questions only which has a terms of use. Discussing Apple's policies and procedures and ranting is specifically against Apple's terms of use for these discussions.
Since this is a user to user help forum only, no one here knows Apple's reason or reasons why disk mode is not supported with the iPhone. The only answer you will get here or anywhere else for that matter is someone's opinion, unless Apple makes an announcement or information is provided by an exec during an interview. IMO, there must be a valid reason or reasons why disk mode is not supported with an iPhone since it is supported with iPods. Since disk mode is supported with iPods, more than likely there isn't a technical reason why it isn't supported with an iPhone, so I seriously doubt that Apple decided not to support disk mode with the iPhone just for kicks, or for no valid reason or reasons whatsoever on their part.
Until I know Apple's reason or reasons, it is difficult for me to admit Apple has gone wrong in this regard, for it may make Apple right for a reason or reasons we don't know, which can be disagreed on. Once facts are known, just because you believe Apple has gone wrong and/or you are disappointed doesn't mean I believe the same, which may or may not have anything to do with being an Apple fan - maybe we just don't agree.
My brand loyalty goes only so far. I did plenty of research on the iPhone before making the decision to purchase one. Before purchasing an iPhone, I can count on one hand the number of MMS I had exchanged. I have used a number of Palm handhelds for business - before they began selling a Palm cell phone, and I don't recall editing a word or excel document once during all that time. I wasn't interested in doing so with such a small screen, and since I wasn't interested in doing any editing, cut/copy/paste wasn't critical to me either.
If these features were very important to me - features I used on a daily or very regular basis, I would not have purchased an iPhone regardless the other features it includes. I certainly wouldn't purchase one anyway knowing these things, followed by wasting my time at an Apple user to user help forum for technical support issues and questions whining and ranting about it, which is common here by an immature small percentage of users. There is nothing wrong with providing constructive comments here, which constructive being the key word. There are some folks here who don't know what the word constructive means and don't have a clue about how use it.

How to manage one iTunes folder from multiple computers via a network?

Hi there,
The Setup: I have a macbook air, my partner has a macbook pro, we both have iPhones with our own iCloud accounts. There is an apple TV and an Airport Extreme with an external USB HDD in there too (which could potentially be plugged into the ATV via ethernet if need be).
What I want to be able to do:
     1 - NOT have to store the music on my MBA
     2 - Still be able to add music to/alter playlists and movies in the iTunes library that my MBA uses, from my MBA (ie if I end up with new music or movies on           the MBA I need a way to transfer it easily, -keeping in mind that not all the video will fit on the MBP HDD)
     3 - Use the one iTunes music folder for both the MBA and the MBP (to avoid having to update both)
     4 - Sync my iPhone with my iCloud email and contacts etc...
     5 - Sync my partners iCloud with her own email and contacts etc...
     6 - Sync music from the 'common' iTunes folder to either iPhone
     7 - Use apps from my iTunesstore account on my both iPhones
     8 - Stream video from the 'common' iTunes folder to the ATV in HD
Can someone please tell me how I make ALL of the above possible?
Things i'm not sure of are:
     A- Where do I put my iTunes music folder? -Locally on the MBP, or on the External HDD in the airport Extreme?
     B- Which of the above would iTunes match help with?
     C- Would homesharing be used?
     D- What usernames/accounts do I have to put into the iPhones adn where? (itunes or icloud etc...)
For some reason I just can't get my head around how this setup will work.
Thanks in advance!

I'm sort of in the same boat. We've got an iMac with separate User Accounts set up and are currently sharing the same iTunes and iPhoto libraries along with streaming them to our Apple TV.
Right now I'm the only one with an iPod, however she'll be getting one in a couple of weeks.
We also just picked up a MacBook yesterday and I'd like to be able to sync certain libraries like iTunes and iPhoto so that no content gets duplicated on either the iMac or MacBook and so that we both have access to the current libraries for each program on our iPods and AppleTV.
I have an external hard drive that I back up the iMac on and I assume I could manually keep things current with that but there's got to be an easier way...that's why these are Macs right?
Bill

Accessing iTunes Account from Multiple PC's

Am I able to access my iTunes account (and my entire library of music) from more than one PC? If yes, are there risks or important things to know before doing so? thanks WFGP

You can access your account, but the music will only be where you put it.
It doesn't just magically appear on any computer that you log into. You would have to copy the music and put it on the computer.
You can use home share, your backup copy, cds, dvds, external drives,etc to copy and move music if you like.

Uploading songs to iCloud via iTunes Match from multiple computers?

I've already setup match on my Windows 7 Desktop, and have uploaded iTunes match and everything worked out well there.
The problem I have arises when I connect my second device (OS X Lion laptop) to the same iTunes match account. The library appears and I can download songs from iCloud just fine, but iTunes match does not try to upload music from the 2nd library that did not exist on the first.
Is this a known feature limitation? Was iTunes match only designed to upload from one and deposit on many? or is it upload from all download to all?

Thanks Mike.
I also called Apple support and got the same answer. Theoretically it should work, but if it isn't a few things might help:
1. try re-associating the iTunes account to the 2nd source
2. try updating the icloud via: Store -> Update iTunes Match
3. try removing the songs from your iLibrary (you may or may not get a "Delete from iCloud", even if the songs are not showing up in iCloud, and then re-add to your library by finding the files via Finder and dragging them into the library.
The 3rd step solved my problem. Apple support said this may be an issue but the manual re-addition is what fixed it for me.
Also, there is a 25,000 song cap and 250mb/file cap on any uploads.
Good luck others,

HT1751 Accessing iTunes Music from another media player

If I drag the whole iTunes Music folder (from Windows PC) over to an external hard drive, can the songs be played by any other media player apart from iTunes?

All the songs in your iTunes library can be played by non-Apple players. Just make sure your other player can handle all the formats that your music is in.
The only exception is any "Protected AAC" files, since they have DRM that prevents their use in non-Apple players.

HT1751 Is it possible to use single external iTunes Library from multiple computers (my mac book, pc, mac mini)

Hi,
I recently decided to maintain my itunes libraries distrubuted onto different computers. (such as mac mini, mac book, pc)
I am planning to consolidate one of my iTunes library, move it to external source and configure external hard drive to be used by my iTunes library permanently.
For this purpose, I bought 5big NAS pro network storage hardware. I completed all basic setup and now I need help on designing access methodology.
Question is : Does external iTunes library supports to be used by more than one iTunes application? if not what will be the closest solution to save storage and ease of library management?
Thanks in advance
Serhan

Hi,
I recently decided to maintain my itunes libraries distrubuted onto different computers. (such as mac mini, mac book, pc)
I am planning to consolidate one of my iTunes library, move it to external source and configure external hard drive to be used by my iTunes library permanently.
For this purpose, I bought 5big NAS pro network storage hardware. I completed all basic setup and now I need help on designing access methodology.
Question is : Does external iTunes library supports to be used by more than one iTunes application? if not what will be the closest solution to save storage and ease of library management?
Thanks in advance
Serhan

I deleted all my itunes music from my computer

I deleted all my itunes music from my computer

Is the music not on your computer?
It should be.
If not:
Downloading past purchases from the iTunes ... - Support - Apple

Manually managing music on iPhone from multiple computers

Everything I've read 'claims' this can be but I don't think the people who tell you how to do it even bother to see what happens. This is one of the things that really frustrate me about forums. It's the complete lack of thoroughness of the people who reply to a question without knowing the outcome.
It's a simple task. I want to be able to move music from multitple computers to my iPhone. When I go into iTunes and select the device, in my case it's the iPhone, and check the box to manually manage music and videos then click 'apply' I get a warning that everything is going to be erased from the phone. WTH!?! And no one on ANY forum who suggests this is the proper way manually managing music even has a solution to be able to do this WITHOUT erasing the phone.
C'mon Apple. It's a SIMPLE drag-n-drop implementation. How hard can it be? I'm not the least interested in syncing with some music library on the computer. In fact I don't even sync my phone with the iTunes Library. It's a waste of time because I can't even selectively sync music. It's either all or nothing. STUPID. I simply want to move music on and off the phone. You know, drag into the window to add and drag off to remove. And I want to be able to do it from any computer I want that's running iTunes. I shouldn't have to copy music from a different computer, carry it home and add it from the home system. That completely defeats the concept of portability. And if my home computer happens to go south for some reason then what? Even if I have all my music backed up, I have to wipe out all my music on the phone and start all over because I'm now using a different computer. Who was the genius that came up with that ludicrous idea?
Apple you really need to take a page from Sandisk and allow iPhones to be treated as external drives so we can drag and drop our music onto them. No muss no fuss. Simple and clean with no hair pulling. It's already established the you create some very pretty devices. Now let's work on improving usability. Because the way I see it, it's a bit backwards.

Sync iPod/iPad/iPhone with two computers
Although it isn't possible to sync an Apple device with two different libraries it is possible to sync with the same logical library from multiple computers. Each library has an internal ID and when iTunes connects to your iPod/iPad/iPhone it compares the local ID with the one the device normally syncs with. If they are the same you can go ahead and sync...
I have my library cloned to a small 1Tb USB drive which I can take between home & work. At either location I use SyncToy 2.1 to update the local copy with the external drive. Mac users should be able to find similar tools. I can open either of the local libraries or the one on the external drive and update the media content of my iPhone. The slight exception is Photos which normally connects to a specific folder on a specific machine, although that can easily be remapped to the current library if you create a "Photos" folder inside the iTunes Media folder so that syncing the iTunes folders keeps this up to date as well. I periodically sweep my library for new files & orphans with iTunes Folder Watch just in case I make changes at one location but then overwrite the library with a newer copy from the other. Again Mac users should be able to find similar tools.
As long as your media is organised within an iTunes Music or Tunes Media folder, in turn held inside the main iTunes folder that has your library files (whether or not you let iTunes keep the media folder organised) each library can access items at the same relative path from the library folder so the library can be at different drives/paths on different machines. This solution ensures I always have adequate backups of my library and I can update my devices whenever I can connect to the same build of iTunes.
When working with an iPhone earlier builds of iTunes would remove any file not physically present in the local library, even if there was an entry for it, making manual management practically redundant on the iPhone. This behaviour has been changed but it will still only permit manual management with a library that has the correct internal ID. If you don't want to sync your library between machines on a regular basis just copy the iTunes Library.itl file from the current "home" machine to any other you want to use, then clean out the library entires and import the local content you have on that box.
tt2

Can I access music from multiple accounts on one cpu?

Can I access music from multiple accounts on one cpu

Here's one option: http://support.apple.com/kb/PH12366
But frankly you'd be better off creating unique user accounts on the computer and having seperate iTunes libraries for each user as described here: http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1495

Administrating iTunes Library by from multiple computers pc/osx

Hello.
I need to find a way to administrate same Library from multiple computers. What I need is a opportunity not only to listen my media (that's why original iTunes sharing suit me), but to Add, organize, create playlists e.t.c.
I want my Playlists be available and editable ( ! ) for all my computers.
I want to add music from any of my computers and to have all the rest app to date.
All the data will be stored on a Server computer. So what the OS is needed for the solution?
In addition I have both PC and OSX computers at home and It'll be bettor if the solution will suit this.
Thanks.

iTunes doesn't support this much syncing. Yes you can have all machines saving media files to same location (server) but each machine/account will have different iTunes libraries. Changes made on on will not be reflected on others. This is intentional so that different people would not interfere with libraries of other users.
This is especially needed for podcasts. Each account downloads/deletes podcast episodes independent of other accounts. This allows one to delete an episode without making making another account lose the file.
Message was edited by: camoracer

HT204406 I am having a very difficult time with accessing my music from the cloud. I need to have itunes open on my laptop in order for it to work. And as soon as I close out itunes on my laptop, it gives me a warning that all users will be logged out.

I am having a very difficult time with accessing my music from the cloud. I need to have itunes open on my laptop in order for it to work. And as soon as I close out itunes on my laptop, it gives me a warning that all users will be logged out. Help!!!

Where are iTunes files located?
No, I do not mean just the music. Copying just the media/music files or the media folder creates problems.

Accessing iTunes music from multiple computers, platforms?

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