Can one iTunes library be kept in sync between two computers?

Hi,
Just got a new Powerbook to supplement my iMac G5. I'd like to maintain one iTunes library on both. Is this possible? I understand I can copy my current library from the iMac to the Powerbook. But is it possible to then keep them in sync? That is, if I buy a few songs from the ITMS while traveling with the Powerbook, is there an easy way to sync with the iMac when I get home such that both libraries have the same songs, playlists, etc? I'm guessing one approach would be to copy the entire library over, but I'm hoping there's a way to just copy the updates/additions. Any advice?
Thanks!
Gary

discussing this right now at this link...
http://discussions.apple.com/message.jspa?messageID=1473705#1473705

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Can an iTunes library be copied and used on two computers?

Earlier this month I tried to get an answer to a problem I was having with using iTunes on two different computers. Stubaan, pqh and GregoryBurbidge tried to assist me (thanks, guys) but I did a poor job explaining my issue. I'll try again...
Several years ago, after running short of space on the internal hard drive of my 2003 iMac G4, I purchased a 250 GB iomega ext hard drive and moved the iTunes library to it. No problems, the songs played just fine.
I recently upgraded my old iMac with a 2.8 GHz Intel core 2 Duo. I added a 1TB external drive via Firewire to the new machine. I gave my old G4 and 250 GB to my daughter, but before I did that, I "clicked and dragged" the iTunes library from my old 250 GB hard drive to the new 1TB drive, hoping that all the songs we had on the original iMac/external drive could be used on the new machine/external drive. It appears that the library was copied over successfully, but iTunes in my new iMac can't locate songs when I try to play them (the dreaded ! sign). I've gone into the preferences and tried to choose the iTunes library folder on the new hard drive as the location, but "no go."
Is it even allowable to copy over the iTunes library and be able to play all the songs on both the "old" computer and the "new" one.

Chris, Roaming and Mike:
Thanks for your responses. To answer Chris' question, when I originally moved what I thought was the library from my old iMac G4 to to my first external hard drive, I did it using Preferences -- Advanced--Change Music Folder Location option. I renamed the Music Folder "iTunes Location" and "consolidated the library" onto my old external hard drive. That worked fine. It was that "Music Folder" (what I thought was the "library") that I copied over (clicked and dragged) from the old external hard drive to the new external hard drive. The problem arose when I disconnected the old external hard drive and tried to play songs on my new iMac. The songs came up as not being found.
Is it an "authorization" issue, or something else. Thanks again for your help.

Using ONE iTunes library on an external HDD with TWO Separate Macs

I have been battling for some time to run one iTunes library on my 160GB Passport between both my 12" iBook G4 and my 15" Macbook Pro.
While I understand the concept of using the SHIFT-key when booting iTunes to Choose the Library it does not appear to work the way I imagine it should.
The Library is managed on the Macbook Pro and merely used on the iBook.
Updates done on the Macbook Pro do not carry across without doing a full consolidation with the Library.
Please Help.

*While I understand the concept of using the SHIFT-key when booting iTunes to Choose the Library it does not appear to work the way I imagine it should.*
On a Mac you hold down the Option key:
How to open an alternate iTunes Library file
iLounge - Managing your iTunes Library on an External Hard Drive

Can Lion server keep my photos in sync between two macs?

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discussing this right now at this link...
http://discussions.apple.com/message.jspa?messageID=1473705#1473705

How to keep playlists in sync between two computers?

I have a MacBook Pro and a regular desktop Windows 7, and I have all of my music on both of them. However, I constantly keep adding new songs to different playlists all the time, and this makes it hard to keep everything in sync with both computers and my iPod because I usually sync from my Mac.
Right now I export the updated playlists on one of the computers and import it on the other, but it's quite the hassle just to keep some playlists in sync. I tried using home sharing, but it just keeps downloading duplicates everytime I try to import, I would've thought it was smarter by just adding the new songs but appearently it isn't.
So, anyways, is there any easy way for me to automatically keep playlists in sync between two computers?

I am indeed subscribed to iTunes Match. Are you saying that with Match, it will sync my playlists? I will have to check this when I get home. That would really be a nice surprise!
I sync my iPod to iTunes on my Windows 7 box, but use iTunes on my Mac for synching my iPhone 6 and iPad 2. Normally, I'd be modifying a playlist on the Win 7 box, adding or rearranging songs. However, occasionally, I might download a song to the iPhone while out and about. Then, when I'm back at the Mac, I'd do a sync and add that new song to one of the playlists. Should Match then be keeping the playlists on the two machines in sync?
As for the library replication, I had to do that when I first signed up for Match. I was WAY over the 25k song limit, so I made a copy of the library, and in that copy deleted enough songs to get me under the limit. Also discovered scripting and did some really neat things with that tool. Still have the option when I start iTunes to use the old library, just in case there's something there I need to copy to the smaller lib.

Share one iTunes library on a SMB share between PC & Mac

Hi,
Is there anyway I can share one iTunes library and the music files on a SMB share between a PC and a Mac? I assume there would be a problem with how the Mac and PC assign network drives differently would be an issue, or is there a way around this?
At the moment I'm only sharing the music files on the SMB share but with separately iTunes library on the PC and Mac.

I have itunes match. its good but its not perfect. it downloads wrong versions of songs. for example it downloads the censored version of many of my songs. plus it doesnt do podcasts, movies, tvshows, books.
plus it doesnt show my smart playlists in the same track order as on my computer. its good but it has bugs and shortcomings.
thanks for the suggestion but i'd like to try the way i initially posted about.

HT1386 I have different songs on my phone than in my iTunes library, how do I sync the two without wiping my iPhone?

I have different songs on my iPhone than I have in my iTunes library. When I try to sync it says it wants to wipe my iPhone. How can I sync it and keep my songs on my phone?

It is from a different computer and includes songs from CDs that I created different playlists and items I purchased from itunes. The original computer crashed and I was able to restore the songs to my new computer from the backup on another backup drive but not all of the songs synced to the new computer. Now I have some songs on my iPhone that do not match the songs in my library on my new PC. This happened once before but I cannot remember how I solved for it.

Can someone help me on how to sync between two mac?

I am using a macbook and recently purchased a new imac. First. I want to know how can i transfer a copy of all my file/music/photo into the new imac?
and how can I transfer the whole itune library and keep both computer in sync?
and finally.. is there any software or easy way I can keep both document in sync between 2 computer? I have around 80G data in total ( music/ doc/ pic/ application)
Many thanks.

I have chronosync installed in my macbook since I use that for backup into external harddisk.. will that work if i connect my imac to my macbook?
I'm not familiar with the program. If it offers synchronization between folders then it should work: you need to decide which folders you sync, of course (don't try to sync the whole computer).
and how about itune libaray.. if I copy the whole itune library to imac.. when I start the application, will all the songs loaded up properly? or will I need to manually load all the songs again?
I would expect that if you synced (user)>Music>iTunes it would work provided both versions of iTunes are the same. However I would advise testing it: move this folder somewhere else temporarily on one machine, and copy the same folder from the other machine into the same position, and check that it works OK. If it doesn't you can always replace the original folder. If it does then syncing ought to work.
and can my Ipod and iphone only allow to sync with 1 computer?
In theory yes, though you might get away with it if both computers have the same name and the user name is the same. You might like to ask in the appropriate forums, someone may have tried this.

How can I best keep a current iPhoto file between two computers?

I currently have an iMac and a Macbook Pro. I would like to be able to use iPhoto on both computers, but what I do with one computer, it doesn't sync with the other (sorry I didn't get Mobile Me when I could!!). Anyone have an idea of how best to manage this? Mainly I spend time organizing the photos (1,000s of them, getting them all in order) on the Macbook, while I would edit and make albums on the iMac. THANK YOU!

This is an age-old question, and a tricky one. In theory, you could store the iPhoto library file on Dropbox or another service shared between both your Macs. However you'd have to be very diligent in making sure to never have both iPhotos open at the same time. I'm not sure what would happen if both Macs accessed the same file simultaneously, but let's just assume the universe would collapse.
Alternatively, if you primarily EDIT on one Mac, but only VIEW on another Mac, and if they're both on the same local network, you could set up local sharing between the two computers. You can do this in the iPhoto preferences > Sharing.
I'm sure there are other methods too, but the fact is iPhoto just wasn't designed for this.

No sync between two computers since last update

running Mail 2.0.5 (746.2) / 10.4.3 (8F46)
Did in the past: synchronize/copy (actually used rsync) all my Library/Mail files between two machines (including preferences asf) and have the same settings and mails on both machines.
Since the latest update this no longer works. Instead, each time mail starts on the machine onto which I copied, it complains that something is corrupt and that it has to update all the indices. (I have >100,000 emails; therefore, this is slightly annoying.)
any advice on how to synchronize between two machines (without going through .mac which is not an option for me due to the slowness)?

The fact of the matter is that PSE is aimed at the casual/hobbyist user, and will always have some limitations because of that. There are workarounds to "push the envelope", but they will always require constant vigilance and effort.
You can get some tips (and warnings) about storing the catalog on a network drive here:
http://www.johnrellis.com/psedbtool/photoshop-elements-faq.htm#_Storing_the_catalog
To answer your immediate concern, you basically want to have one and only one copy of the catalog somewhere that's accessed by both computers. That catalog should be listing photos that are stored in one and only one "master" image location. Then you can use SyncToy to keep the images in sync to that master image location, and use Organizer to update its thumbnails whenever the original images are changed. N.B.: the Organizer's catalog does not support multiple concurrent access.
Ken
P.S., I've never used the sync to photoshop.com, so someone else will have to comment about that.
Message was edited by: photodrawken to add postscript.

Question about syncing between two computers

I feel a bit silly, because I feel as though I should know this, but I'm not sure because it has never applied to me until now.
My main computer is a Vista machine, and everything is sync'd with that. However, I bought a MacBook last night (WOO-HOO!) to use as a secondary machine, and I'd like to get all of my contact and calendar info into that machine as well.
I'm envisioning the following scenario:
1. I will put at least one contact and at least one calendar event into Mac Mail and iCal in my new, empty MacBook...
2. I will connect my iPhone to sync with the MacBook and iTunes will offer me the magic "merge" option.
3. All of the information in my phone will be sync'd to my new MacBook, and I will have two computers and an iPhone all with the same info.
Are there any holes in my vision? Will this work?
Thanks,
-SB

This should work as provided.
If something goes wrong with the sync process with your MacBook and this data is lost on your iPhone, you have your Vista machine with this data to recover from.
If you aren't already doing so, be sure to create a backup of this data on your Vista machine - contact information and calendar events - which should be done when syncing any device such as an iPhone with such important information stored on your computer.

Keychain syncing between two computers

I'm not sure where this post belongs as the issues seems to span different aspects of my computers. Originally I thought it was a mobileme issue but support was unable to help and over the last year I've tried many internet searches and asked many people, the latest of which is here
Basically, I'm trying to sync 2 computers and an iPhone with mobileme. I can sync 1 computer and the phone but never both computers and the phone. In fact the phone is always OK so I doubt that the problem is there. I've set up mobileme to sync various items but there are 2 issues that seem to relate to keychains being saved on only one or the other computers - never both:
iCal on computer 1 is totally blank no calendars or events are loaded from mobileme. Setting up the mobileme server is fine but NEVER allows the password to be saved - the password field is always blank after closing and opening iCal prefs. iCal on computer 2 works perfectly and has been set up in exactly the same way as iCal on computer 1.
I have 4 Mail accounts. Whenever I open Mail on computer 1 I need to reenter the passwords for Mail accounts a and b. Whenever I open Mail on computer 2 I need to reenter the passwords for Mail accounts c and d
Other than this sync between the 2 computers will collapse completely after a few minutes, hours or days and I will get Keychain Error message....
.... or sometimes a File Sync error relating to iDisk when I try to turn iDisk sync back on.
One or other computer will log out of mobileme and I will get a mobileme password error saying I've entered the wrong one. I then log back in which breaks the sync on the other computer. The longest I've had the computers syncing is a couple of days, but the keychain issues with Mail and iCal mentioned above are constant. If I get bored (as I often do) and just leave one of the computers out of mobileme sync for a while the 2 Mail accounts will ALWAYS need to have there passwords reentered. If the Save to my keychain checkbox is checked the error message will NEVER go away - the only way to get the Mail account to work for that session is to leave the checkbox unchecked. Quitting and restarting Mail will result in the passwords having to be reentered.
With both computers synced with mobileme I will get the error at some point and every time I get this error, I have to re-sync data with mobileme and restart iDisk sync.
I have deleted iCal prefs on both computers, deleted me.com keychains on both computers, repaired keychains on both computers, opened iSync and reset sync history on both computers, but nothing has done it yet.
Any help and suggestions will be much appreciated.

Couple suggestions
1. Disable Automatic Sync on both computers. So when you do connect it does not go into an auto sync right away and allows you to check all the proper tabs to ensure they are set correctly per computer.
When you connect iPhone and get a summary screen you should see advanced options below with a box called automatically sync, uncheck and apply.
2. On one computer if you go to the Music tab when Iphone is connected it should be set to sync music. Which will be fine for the computer you want music to go to and from.
As far as when you connect to the second computer
The music tab when iPhone is connected should be unchecked and should not really sync with music at all.
You can keep automatically synced checked if you like and prefer. The un-checking just gives you more time to check areas before you do normal syncing.

Sync between two computers

May I "sync" my iWeb entries so that I may update iWeb on either my main machine (a MBP) and my mini?
And, if so - how? Many thanks.

As long as the domain file is under 2 GB there's a way to automatically sync the domain file on two computers as your work. That's to use DropBox, a free service up to 2 GB. Old Toad's Tutorial #20 describes how to set it up (for iPhoto but it would be the same for an iWeb domain file). As you work on a domain file with computer A the file will be updated on computer B if it's online or as soon as it goes online the next time.
As the tutorial warns *you can't have two people working with the same domain file at the same time*. But for one person with two computers it would work very nicely. You can have two people editing a single document like a text document at the same time but not with packages containing many files that get changed within.
OT

Syncing between two computers

I have two laptops, one stays at home and one I travel with. I have my Itouch 2G synced with my home laptop and now I want to sync it with the one I travel with. The problem is, when I go to sync the applications on the travel laptop, it tells me all existing applications will be replaced with the one on this laptop. There are no apps on this laptop, I want to put them on there not remove them from the Itouch.
How do I resolve this issue?
PS. I've tried this before with a work laptop and it wiped out everything I had on my Itouch
Message was edited by: kurtstuhler

Use the Transfer Purchases command to move applications between the computers.
(44904)

Two computers..one itunes account ..different songs on the two computers

My windows laptop has a few of my itunes songs on it that i downloaded some time ago. My apple mac and iphone have a whole bunch of songs but not the ones on my windows laptop. I dont quite understand why there is a problem since they operate under the same id and password and are all supposed to be linked. Any ideas on what i can do?

iTunes prefs Store.
Uncheck Automatically download.

Can one iTunes library be kept in sync between two computers?

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