ITunes library on one computer with multiple users

Question

Mom, Dad, and kids each have their own log-in to this computer. Mom is the main administrator and when we downloaded all the CDs to iTunes, it went to Mom's iTunes Library. Dad has logged in under his name and purchased items from iTunes store which are now in his library. We now have 2 separate iTunes Libraries. How can we make the iTunes library the same for both Mom and Dad?
Dad just got iPhone and wants to be able to sync his apps to his computer login as well as having access to Mom's iTunes library - it would seem to me that the easiest way to do this is to copy the library from Mom to Dad or somehow be able to have Dad share the itunes library. Can't figure out how to do this. Any help would be appreciated.

Answer 1

To share an iTunes library among multiple users, put the iTunes library in /Users/Shared/Music/iTunes, and for each user, make an alias from ~/Music/iTunes to /Users/Shared/Music/iTunes. Set permissions on /Users/Shared/Music/iTunes (and everything inside it) to give each user read and write permissions, and you're all set. My wife have been sharing our iTunes library this way since 2005, without a hitch.
Also, you'll have to import the contents of one library into the other, to make one big library, which is an extra step, but there's no way to avoid this now that you have two libraries.
Here are step by step instructions:
1. Figure out which library is larger, and start with that one. I'm going to guess it's Mom's. Log in as Mom.
2. In the Finder, make a folder called /Users/Shared/Music.
3. Move the folder ~/Music/iTunes (that's your iTunes library) to /Users/Shared/Music/iTunes.
4. Select the folder /Users/Shared/Music/iTunes, and make an alias of that folder. (In the Finder, click on File->Make Alias.) The alias will be called "/Users/Shared/Music/iTunes alias".
5. Move "/Users/Shared/Music/iTunes alias" to "~/Music/iTunes alias". Rename the alias to ~/Music/iTunes.
6. At this point, check your work: start iTunes while still logged in as Mom. Mom should see her iTunes library, just as before, as if it had never been moved.
7. While still logged in as Mom, go to /Users/Shared, select the Music folder, and give Mom and Dad read and write permissions on that folder and all its contents.
8. Log out as Mom, and log in as Dad. In the Finder, move Dad's iTunes library from ~/Music/iTunes to the Desktop.
9. As Dad, repeat steps 4 and 5.
10. Now Dad should check his work, by starting iTunes. Dad should now see Mom's library instead of his own.
Congratulations! You now have a shared library. You not only share content, but all playlists, artwork, etc. As Dad, create a playlist, fill it with romantic music, and call the playlist "To My Beautiful Wife". Log out as Dad, and log in as Mom, and Mom will see the same playlist. Crack open a bottle of champagne.
But Dad's content is still in ~/Desktop/iTunes. You'll have to add it to your shared libary:
11. Log in as Dad, and in iTunes, turn on the preference iTunes->Preferences->Advanced->Copy files to iTunes Music folder when adding to library.
12. Still in iTunes, choose File->Add to Library and start adding all the files in ~/Desktop/iTunes. They'll be copied from Dad's desktop into the shared library. Try importing a couple of tracks, and log in as Mom and confirm that both Mom and Dad see the imported content. (I myself have never done this, so I can't give you much guidance about importing, since I started our iTunes library as a single shared library from the very beginning. For all you know, you can just select every folder in ~/Desktop/iTunes and import everything at once. I would imagine you might have to futz around re-organizing everything nicely once you've imported all Dad's stuff, but once that's done, it's done.) Once everything is imported you can trash ~/Desktop/iTunes.
That's it. Any content you add will be instantly available to both users without having to sync or copy anything ever, because both users are always looking at the same library. (If one user deletes something it's gone for both users too, so be careful!) The only trouble you could possibly have are permissions issues, depending on how your system and users are set up. On my computer, after setting it up once, we never had to think about it again. However, we set up a separate account to be the administrator, and neither my wife or I have admin privileges. Since Mom is an administrator and Dad is not, you might find that OS X treats you differently when you create new files in your library. You'll have to try it and see. Good luck!
Message was edited by: dgauthier