Consolidating two different iTunes libraries from two different accounts

My boyfriend and I have been living together for a while and we need to consolidate our music libraries. We have a new iMac, which we wish to use to house all of our songs. We would like to be able to play any song from either library anywhere in the apt. using our Airplay speakers. How is it possible to condolidate our iTunes library, given that we have different iTunes accounts?
Thanks!

These links should help:
Natalie Beresford: Multiple iPods/iTunes Installations
How to use multiple iPods with one computer
How to share music between different accounts on a single computer

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Moving iTunes libraries from one user account to another on same PC

My PC has 3 active User Accounts (wife, son, and me). My son uses itunes under my User Account and that's where his music library is stored (the iTunes account is his, but he accesses it from my User Account).
I want to remove the iTunes Library from my User Account and place it in his User Account so that he no longer has to use iTunes from my User Account. Remember, this is one machine with 3 separate User Accounts. I don't want to move these files to another computer, I'm just trying to get rid of them and put them in his account.
Can this be done and, if so, how? MANY THANKS. . .

Create a playlist in your iTunes library with his songs.
Select this playlist and select all the songs then drag them from the iTunes window to a Shared directory.
Then in iTunes, select all the songs in this playlist, select them again and *Shift Delete* to remove them from your library and your directory.
Open his login and add the songs from the Shared directory to his iTunes.

Sharing & Managing iTunes libraries from different countries

Hi Everyone,
I would like some help on sharing and managing content from different iTunes libraries from two difference countries please.
I have:
1 x iPod and its library from the UK (and its UK Apple ID)
2 x iPhone 5's and their libraries from the US (and their US Apple ID's)
I appreciate there are restrictions due to each country's laws so what I want may not work, however, ideally I want it so I can have all three of our libraries in one iTunes library and then both my wife and I can choose which songs we want on our iPhones and iPods.
Does anyone know if this is possible?
Any help much appreciated - cheers!

Y2J wrote:
Thanks Guys.
What you said worked - cheers!
The only thing that didn't was transferring my UK music to USA iPhone. Unless you know otherwise, I assume because I paid for UK music in UK, trying to then play it on a USA iPhone won't work......or is there a workaround?
The fact I've paid for it legally in one country surely shouldn't be a problem playing it on a device?
Or should I create a brand new Apple ID and library - would that help?
Your help is much appreciated.
Thanks.
Y2J,
The problem is much more likely to be the multiple Apple IDs than the multiple countries. Do not start yet one more.
If all the music is in one library located on your computer, but certain songs won't sync, pls post details of the problem and maybe someone here can help troubleshoot.

How do you combine 3 different itunes libraries from 3 different computers to one computer?

How do you combine 3 different itunes libraries from 3 different computers to 1 computer?
Can you keep it from creating duplicates? These libraries have some duplicates.
How do you deal with duplicates?
I'm talking 50GB.
All computers are authorized.
THANKS for any suggestions.

You can't.
If accounts could be merged, then everybody could merge their accounts with everybody and there would be no need for anyone to buy anything.

Two iTunes libraries one MacBook Pro account...

How do you make two itunes libraries on one macbook account? I've heard it's possible for PC so it should be for a Mac... If this topic has already been discussed sorry for the inconvenience...

Make sure iTunes is closed, then hold down the option key while clicking iTunes in the dock. Creating a new library should be an option in the window that pops up. To select a different library, just do exactly the same except you'll select the library you want to open instead of creating a new one.

HT1553 I want to do a clean install of Mountain Lion. Can I do this without a DVD version of the OS, and can I restore only specific things like iPhoto and iTunes libraries from Time Machine backup.

I want to do a clean install of Mountain Lion. Can I do this without a DVD version of the OS, and can I restore only specific things like iPhoto and iTunes libraries from Time Machine backup.

Mountain Lion is only available as a download, so there is no DVD to purchase. What you can do is download ML and then stop it from installing as soon as it's on your drive. From there you can make your own bootable ML flash drive.
When your purchase and download Mountain Lion, it will end up in the Applications folder and automatically want to install. Press Command+Q to stop the install and exit. The installer will remain on the hard drive.
1) Right click on the installer and choose "Show Package Contents".
2) A folder will open on the desktop. Drill down to Contents > SharedSupport and double click the disk image InstallESD.dmg to mount it on the desktop.
3) From here you can either burn a DVD, or copy the contents to a flash drive. Personally, I would strongly suggest using an 8 GB flash drive formatted as Mac OS Extended. You will be able to boot to it in about 30 seconds instead of at least 10 minutes off of a DVD, and it will install MUCH faster. Make sure the flash drive is empty, or you've copied anything off it it you need as it will need to be erased.
4) Don't just drag and drop the contents you see in the open disk image to the flash drive. It won't boot that way as it will be missing some hidden files. Open Disk Utility. You will something similar to this:
5) To accomplish the above, highlight either the flash drive's single partition (as I did), or the item at the bottom (Mac OS X Install ESD), which is what you will see with the Lion disk image mounted. It doesn't matter which one you pick. You'll then have the option to select the Restore tab towards the upper right. Drag and drop from the left column into the Source and Destination fields as shown above. If you've already erased the flash drive, you can uncheck the box. Click the Restore button.
You've just made your own bootable Mountain Lion USB Flash drive installer. Once you boot to the flash drive, run Disk Utility first to erase the drive you want Mountain Lion on, then continue with the install.
As far as restoring your iPhone and iTunes libraries, I couldn't tell you. So I wouldn't do any of the above until someone else chimes in with a way to do that after a clean install of ML.

I How do I combine two ITune libraries from my laptop and home computers so I can download the songs to my IPhone?

I have two Itune libraries one on my home computer and one on my laptop. I have been able to download one library to my IPhone (home computer) but not the other. How can I merge these two so I can use both computers or can I???? Help! I called my Apple store for an appointment to figure this out and they aren't even answering the phone!!

Home Sharing:
http://support.apple.com/kb/ht3819

Combining purchased itunes libraries from two apple ids that were both created by me?

I created a new Apple ID. I have an entirely new Comcast account. The old comcast account has my username and all of my purchased iTunes music/videos/tvshows/etc. and now I am currently using a Gmail email account for my apple ID. I just would like to try and combine my old purchased media into my newly purchased media. I do not currently see a smooth transitional way to copy them over through iTunes. Any support/help/music suggestions are welcome.
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iTunes: How to share music between different accounts on a single computer
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1203

How do I set up AppleTV to share play iTunes libraries from the same Mac

I have a Mac Pro (2008), running Lion (10.7.3), Airport Extreme running 7.6.1 and a 2nd gen AppleTV running 4.2.1.
On the Mac Pro, I have 3 user accounts (User1, User2 and User3), each with their own iTunes libraries. I have enabled Home Sharing on each of the user accounts/iTunes with a same AppleID and enabled Home Sharing on the AppleTV with the same ID.
On the AppleTV, under Computers, I see the 3 'computers', but only 1 of them will play content, depending on the order that I start iTunes on the Mac Pro.
When I log in to the 3 users and start iTunes in each, only the first user I start will play. For example, if I start iTunes with User2, User1 and User3, then only User2 content will play.
The AppleTV reports, 'Cannot connect to User1 library' and to make sure that iTunes is running.
I have a seperate Mac Air, and when I setup Home Sharing on it, the AppleTV has no problem playing content from it and from the Mac Pro.
The odd thing is that when I first set it up, it worked as I would expect. Content from each library would play and could freely switch between them. But after playing a movie from User1, none of the other User's content will now play without shutting down iTunes in the 3 accounts and starting them back up in a different order. I have restarted the AppleTV, the Router and the Mac Pro and zapped PRAM.
Is there a way to be able to play from all 3 accounts/libraries on the Mac Pro?
Thanks for the help!

Welcome to the Apple Community.
Dont really have an answer for you, I've seen this reported before, it works fine for me and I can't see any settings that might make any difference.

How to transfer iphoto and itunes libraries from NAS back to MacBook Pro

I recently upgraded my MBP hard drive, and decided I'd like to move my iphoto and itunes libraries back to my local drive from my Synology NAS. I thought this would be easily achieved by copying the libraries from the NAS and pasting them in the desired locations in the MBP, as I did to get them to the NAS in the first place. This will not work.
First off, when I try a simple copy and paste through finder, the transfer gets about half way through and suddenly stops with "You can't copy "iPhoto Library" because it has the same name as another item in the destination volume, and that volume doesn't distinguish between upper- and lowercase letters in filenames".
This occurs even if there is no Iphoto directory currently on the MBP.
I contacted Synology, and they attempted to have me use a windows transfer protocol to transfer the libraries, but when transferring this way I am stopped half way through with an "Error -8084" code.
I am aware that the MBP is formatted with MAC OS Extended (Journaled), and that the NAS is formatted differently, but there must be some way to get this back.
My itunes library contains all my family's ipad, and iphone back ups, in addition to around 35 gb of music. Additionally, I don't want to lose Event info in Iphoto.
Please help!
Thank you

Have you read for possible solutions over in the "More Like This" thread over here?----------------------->

Combining iTunes Libraries from laptop and desktop--duplicates?

I have been through an iTunes search, but can't seem to find an answer to this question. I want to combine all of the music on my laptop, with my mac-mini iTunes music file (on an external drive). I know I can hook the two together and do an "add to library," but I am running 30 gigs or so on the laptop, and more than 70 on the main computer. Will doing this add two copies of duplicates (which would create a "clean-up" nightmare), or will iTunes recognize and skip the duplicates? There is simply too much time involved not to know in advance. Any help appreciated.
Also, I wrote a year or so ago that I have ITunes start up immediately every tme I reboot and want to know how to turn it off. Other folks said they had the same problem, but no solution was ever offered. Anything new on this?
Thanks--

I found your post because im doing the exact same thing..sort of. I had a mac pro that was ahem taken from me about a year ago. Since then ive been using my macbook laptop for my itunes and my iphone syncing. Now that I have my Mac Pro back, im in the process of merging both to my mac pro and using the mac pro as my "primary" itunes library.
Here is my solution..
1) Make sure both versions of itunes are the same on each computer! Start Itunes, click Itunes>Check for Updates.
2) In Itunes, click File>Display duplicates. Clean up anything that needs it.
3) In Itunes, click File>Library>Organize Library then check the box that says "Upgrade to Itunes media organization." If you have already done this previously, you will only see a grayed out box and a message stating that your media is already organized as a itunes media folder. DO NOT CHECK THE BOX THAT SAYS CONSOLIDATE FILES.
(step 4 is optional, I've been using Itunes for many years and it seems every version they change their folder structure (eg, Audiobooks is now books, etc. also, in the past, the folder was Itunes Music, now with version 9 its Itunes Media) I decided I would start clean with the latest Itunes 9 folder structure so I did exactly that!)
4) In Itunes, click Itunes>Preferences>Advanced. Under Itunes Media Folder Location, change to your new path. for example, mine originally said /users/Geoff/Music/Itunes/Itunes Music. I created a new folder called Itunes Media in the Itunes folder so now mine says: /users/Geoff/Music/Itunes/Itunes Media. Like I mentioned before , the main advantage to this is to have the latest folder structure in itunes 9 and not have a bunch of old folders from previous itunes versions.
5) In Itunes do a File>Library>Organize Library then click the checkbox next to "Consolidate Files". When you hit ok what this does is copies all your music, etc to your new folder that you made in step 4. If you didnt make a new folder in step 4, it will simply just reorganize to the latest itunes 9 folder structure and leave the older itunes folders on your computer. (Im a neat freak so thats why I went with step 4 and made a whole new folder for my Itunes Music) If you did create a new folder called Itunes Media (or whatever you chose to call it) make sure you DELETE the old folder (itunes music or whatever you had originally) or you will have 2 folders with the same things in them, wasting alot of hard drive space.
6) Now you have to make a decision which library you would like to keep. yes, we will be merging, but we need to use ONE of the libraries in itunes. In my case, 75% of my stuff was on my laptop, so I decided to keep its library and use it on my Mac Pro (also, my Iphone is synced to my laptop as well so that was another reason I used that one. If one of the itunes libraries your merging is also used to sync your iphone I recommend using that library. ((just how I did it, YMMV)) For simplicity, lets call the library your going to KEEP the source, and the other copy the destination. Once you have decided which library is going to be the source, create a folder on the OTHER computer's desktop (the destination) and call it "itunes backup".
7) Start up Itunes one last time on the Destination computer and export any playlists you want with the new library. To do this, click the playlist, then File>Library>Export Playlist. When you export, it will ask you what format you would like. I just picked Plain Text. I exported my playlists to my desktop, but you can export them wherever you like.
Also, you need to check the movies, tv shows, podcasts, books and ringtones on each computer and write down a list of things you will need to merge from the destination computer to the new library. (eg, i had a few audiobooks on my destination machine that I didnt have on my laptop. I also had a few tv shows and podcasts on my destination machine I didnt have on my laptop. Since i will be using the library from my laptop on the destination machine, I wrote them down so that I could import them later and not worry about duplicates. (If you dont care about duplicates then I guess you dont need to write anything down and you can sort the dupes later in itunes when your done.)
8) on the destination computer (the one we created the folder on the desktop in the previous step), make sure itunes is NOT running, then open finder and go to the music folder, and then go to the folder Itunes. In this folder you will see a file called iTunes Library. Drag it to the folder you created on the desktop called Itunes backup. Next you will see a file called iTunes Music Library.xml
Drag this file as well to the folder on the desktop called iTunes Backup.
9) Now while still looking in the iTunes folder, you will see either a folder called iTunes Music or a folder called iTunes Media. (depending if you did step 4 or not above). Whichever folder you have, drag it as well to the folder on the desktop called iTunes Backup.
10) now, on the SOURCE machine (the one your going to use the iTunes library from) open finder and go to the Music folder, and then to the iTunes folder. Copy the iTunes folder and everything in it to the destination computer. In my case, since both my computers are on a network, I just copied it to the public folder on the destination computer. You can do this, or use a external harddrive, etc. Just make sure when you copy it to the destination computer, you DONT copy it to the Music folder.
11) After the copy is done, You should now go to the destination computer and go to the iTunes folder you just copied from the Source computer. We now need to copy 2 things (one file and one folder). Inside the iTunes folder drag the file "iTunes Library" to the /music/iTunes folder on the destination machine.
12) Lastly, now drag the folder "iTunes Media" (or iTunes Music) to the /music/iTunes folder on the destination computer.
13) start up itunes and go to iTunes>Preferences>Advanced and make sure the proper path is displayed in the iTunes Folder Media Location (it should be the path we copied the 2 files to, (eg, /music/iTunes.)
At this point, you should have a working copy of iTunes from your SOURCE machine running on the destination machine. next we need to merge the last few things to finish.
14) In iTunes, click File>Add to Library and browse to the folder on your desktop called "iTunes Backup". Inside the iTunes Music folder (or iTunes Media folder) click the music folder and then click choose to import the music.
15) next, if needed, in Itunes, click File>Add to Library and pick any Movies, Tv Shows, Books, etc that you didnt have and import them into your itunes library. If everything was the same on both machines, you dont have to do anything and you can skip this step. But if your like me, and had some things in your destination iTunes library you didnt have in your source, you will need to import them. This is where the list in step 7 comes in handy.
16) lastly, in iTunes, click File>Library>Import Playlist and import any playlists you exported in step 7
17) re download your album art and then the last thing you have to do is delete your music dupes and then your finished. To see a list of dupes, in iTunes, click File>Display Duplicates. You can either manually delete the duplicates (make sure you pick KEEP FILES when it asks if you would like to keep the file or delete it from the hard drive.) or use a 3rd party program like tidy songs or something.
Hope this tutorial was helpful, I spent way too long making it..lol..
And the answer to your second question... to stop auto start of itunes. Try clicking the apple logo in the top left corner, then click System Preferences, then click Accounts, then you will see a "Login Items" tab that shows whats starting up at login. Hope this helps.
If you have any questions or comments let me know, ill follow this thread for awhile to help if you need it.
Message was edited by: What2be1
Message was edited by: What2be1
Message was edited by: What2be1

Combining iTunes libraries from separate iPads or PCs

My wife and I both use iPads almost exclusively and only keep our old Windows PCs to basically house our iTunes libraries and a large no. of photos. Can I combine both iTunes libraries onto a Macbook Pro either from our iPads or our old PCs? And if so how?

Hello Chet Black1,
Thank you for the question. The article below outlines several methods to transfer your music from your previous computer to your new computer.
Home Sharing is the easiest way to transfer your music from one computer to another, but I recommend reviewing the options available in the table to decide which method would work best for you:
The following table compares the methods to move music from your old computer to your new computer.
Method
Considerations
Home Sharing
The easiest option, as long as your new computer is already connected to the Internet.
External drive
Requires additional hardware but backs up your iTunes library.
Transferring purchases
Fastest, but only moves the content you purchased from the iTunes Store. Also requires an iPhone, iPad, or iPod with the content on it.
Windows Migration Assistant
Works best for migrating from an old PC to a new Mac, and transfers more than iTunes.
You can find the steps for each of these methods in the article:
iTunes: How to move your music to a new computer
http://support.apple.com/kb/ht4527
Thank you for using Apple Support Communities.
Best,
Sheila M.

Copying iTunes Library from one user account to another on the same MacBook

I recently purchased a new Macbook running 10.4.8 and transferred my iTunes library from my G5 via firewire.
The problem is that I started using one user account and
when the library transferred over it went into another
user account. Is there a way that i can take the library
and put it under the user account that i had established
prior to the transfer or do i have to import each MP3
(via the HD) separately?

Does this article contain anything useful?
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Itunes libraries on new user account on Mac

Hi everyone, got a complicated one for you, or I think so. I bought my Mac from a relative. I set up users for all the family but I kept his user account and just changed it to be mine as an administrator. All was fine and managed to transfer my itunes data and sync my iphone and then it was the primary itunes library for it. But as time went on I was fed up having his name appear on the system when it should have been mine as I now owned it so I created a new administrator/user account for me and deleted his. Worked fab.
But then I tried to sync my iphone and it wont do it. It comes up with the message that my iphone is already associated/synced with an itunes library on the Mac and can only be associated with one library. The problem is I have no idea what to do now. Ive deleted the old user account, ive no idea where I can find out where on the Mac that library is etc etc. I have tried to transfer purchases from the iphone onto the Mac but it only picks up a very small amount of the music I ave on it. Can anyone help please. Hope this makes sense and thank you in advance. Operating OS X 10.9.2

The library was in the user account you deleted. You should have transferred the iTunes folder before deleting the account.
Your i-device was not designed for unique storage of your media. It is not a backup device and media transfer was planned with you maintaining a master copy of your media on a computer which is itself properly backed up against loss. To use a device with a new computer you transfer the content from the old computer (or its backup) directly to the new computer, not the device to the new computer. Syncing is one way, computer to device, updating the device content to the content on the computer, not updating or restoring content on a computer. The exception is iTunes Store purchases which can be transferred to a computer.
iTunes Store: Transferring purchases from your iOS device or iPod to a computer - http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1848 - only purchases from iTunes Store
For transferring other items from an i-device to a computer you will have to use third party commercial software. See this document by turingtest2: Recovering your iTunes library from your iPod or iOS device - https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-3991

Can my husband access my itunes library from his user account on our shared mac?

My husband and I share the use of our iMac and both sync to my itunes library. Because we both want to use the Cloud we've just set up a separate user account for my husband but I believe there is some way he can share my itunes library under his User Account. Can anyone tell me how to do this please? I've looked at the instructions to share the library with other devices that I may have but this doesn't seem to apply to sharing with my husband as he now has his own user a/c and he has his own Apple ID.

Does this article contain anything useful?
(20198)

Consolidating two different iTunes libraries from two different accounts

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