I have two users on the same MAC and want to have separate ITunes libraries stored on my time capsule. what's the best way to ensure that is done?

Question

I have 2 users on a MAC each with separate accounts (email, photo, ITunes) and I want to migrate my ITUnes Library over to a time capsule so that each usewr still has their own library bu don't want to duplicate songs.  What is the best way to have both Itunes pointed to separate libraries both stored on the Time Capsule?

Answer 1

A bit of basics on iTunes.  iTunes does 99% of what you see through a library.itl file in the iTunes folder.  This file is a database and in it are references to the actual media files.  These files can be anywhere in theory, but if you have iTunes set to default then they are nicely organized in media folders in the iTunes folder.  You have probably moved them to some central shared location in the past, then built up two individual libraries around that central location.
iTunes is very fussy about a person dragging files to a different location, and that goes double if the other location is on a different drive.  You can move files, but it is best to let iTunes do it so it can keep track.  If this was just for one person I'd say go into preferences, select the other drive for media location, then close preferences. My understanding (never done this before) is iTunes will then ask you if you want to move your media.  Say yes and iTunes will move it and keep track of it -- for your library.  Now when you go to the other person's library, it opens and you see loads of ! because their library is still looking for the media on the same  drive as the library is located on.  I don't think it will work (but you could always try) to re-assign the media location to the external drive because the reference in the database is to look for such-and-such a file on the internal drive.  iTunes did that for the first library as part of the move, but not for the second one.  Note that typically when you want to move a single user's collection from drive to drive we advise moving the whole iTunes folder, library files and all, to another drive, but you don't have that structure.
So I'm not sure what to advise.  If it were me and I was absolutely gung-ho on doing this I would re-assign the media with one library.  Then edit the .xml version of the library file for the second library so it points to the new file locations and import this into a fresh iTunes library for the second user.  This isn't the perfect solution because nominally the .xml version does not 1005 replicate all the characteristics of the original .itl file (which cannot be edited).
Or maybe some other user bas a better idea.