ITunes Library on one ext. HD, used by two computers -- is it possible ?

I "dittoed" my iTunes folder to an external FW hard disk. I then changed the location of the "iTunes Music" folder in the Preferences->Advanced. This worked OK for the original user (user "A") that built the library. For other users on the same computer, it only works if I share the library of user A.
Now I thought, if I hook the FW HD to another, regularly authorized Mac, I should be able to use the very same library, at least as a shared library. Alas, no dice. The second computer has no music. If I change the location of the iTunes Music folder for any user, nothing happens. If I turn on "look for shared library" nothing happens either -- well that's expected because the library is supposed to be shared by the other computer, which is off.
So, it's there any way around? I would like to listen to the same music on the two computers, which I use for different purposes, without replicating and synchronizing the library all the time.
Thanks!

Assuming you use the iTunes default settings where iTunes copied added items to your iTunes folder and organizes your library (meaning - everything is all self contained in the iTunes folder), then all you have to do is drag & drop your iTunes folder (not just the iTunes Music folder you find inside the iTunes folder) to the external drive and copy the entire thing.
If you want to test that it worked or would like to actually start using it from that location instead, use these instructions when you start iTunes to point it to the new location...
How to open an alternate iTunes Library file or create a new one
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=304447
On your OTHER computer, same thing. Plug in the external hard drive, open using the above instructions and point to the external drive to start using it from that location.
Cheers,
Patrick

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Copied itunes library from one ext HD to another - some music not playing

Hello,
I copied all my itunes library from one external hard drive to another. I backed everything up first then reimported into itunes. About 100 of my MP3 files are in Windows Explorer and the files appear Ok but they are not adding to itunes. The songs is listed in my library as if its there in my playlists but I click on it and nothing happens in tunes. The song won't play if any format from what I've tried. I have researched on itunes and looked on the boards here and I think it is something to do with the encoding of the files, as when I click on 'get info' for the song everything comes up the same as the songs that are working only there is no profile/channel/encoding on the first summary screen. I have tried to import again from my windows folder after changing the encoding 'Import Settings' but it does not work. I also get that (-50)Error when I try and change the settings on the file. Any help is much appreciated.
Thanks,
GH
Message was edited by: Garrett Holt
Message was edited by: Garrett Holt

It's probably corrupted mp3 headers.
Longer answer is here:
http://trevinchow.com/blog/2008/09/17/fix-for-mp3-songs-not-playing-in-itunes/

Any suggestions for running an iTunes library from an external hard drive on two computers?

I have two Mac computers: an iMac and a MacBook Air. My iMac has 1TB of storage space (plenty enough for my 200+gigs of music) but my MacBook Air only has 250gigs of storage space. I know I can access all of the music from my iMac on my MBA with HomeSharing. But that doesn't work when I take my MBA out of the house for work. I was going to switch over my iTunes library to an external HD but I don't know if I can access the library on the hard drive from my MBA, when the main library is on my iMac.
Any suggestions as to how to get two different computers to access an iTunes library from an external hard drive?
Thanks.

I am confused as to what you had or have where and when. The bottom line is, your library (for the standard user) is everything in the iTunes folder. As far as iTunes' organization and display is concerned, your library is a file called "iTunes Library.itl" which points to all the other host of files and folders normally in the iTunes folder which all work together.
What are the iTunes library files? - http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1660
More on iTunes library files and what they do - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ITunes#Media_management
What are all those iTunes files? - http://www.macworld.com/article/139974/2009/04/itunes_files.html
Where are my iTunes files located? - http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1391
iTunes 9 [and later]: Understanding iTunes Media Organization - http://support.apple.com/kb/ht3847 - plus supplemental information about organizing to new structure https://discussions.apple.com/message/26404702#26404702
Image of folder structure and explanation of different iTunes versions (turingtest2 post) - https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-7392 and making an iTunes library portable.
If you kept everything together in one place then you need to put the whole iTunes folder on the drive where you want it, start iTunes while holding down the option key and guide it to that .itl file. If things were split up and you had media on the external and the rest of the library on the internal you need to get them back to exactly where they were before. If you can't find that iTunes folder holding the critical .itl file anywhere then you have a bunch of media tracks and no organization and will need to rebuild the organization from ground level.

How to have one itunes library on one ext hd and two computers using it?

I have seen one topic on this problem but noone answered it
Here is my question:
we have an imac g5 and a powerbook. there is music on both but it is becoming too big on both: a total of 60gb of music
we want to put it on an ext hd and have access to it whenever we want with any of the computers
but we also want to continue to read and/or import some music on both computers (mostly the laptop) with or without the ext hd mounted
what is the easiest way to do it?
I am not an expert and also I am French so do not understand all your englishor american terms
thanks for any help or clues

Simplement dit je pense qu'il n'est pas possible d'avoir une seule discotheque (? library) car ce "file" doit rester sur votre "c drive". Mais il est possible d'avoir une suele hard drive avec une connexion sur les deux ordinateurs. (dans les preferences il faut simplemnet diriger iTunes a ce drive) Pour eviter la duplication de vos chansons il faut laisser itunes organiser la discotheque sur un des ordinateurs et le pas faire sur l'autre
Le probleme ici c'est que vouz devriez ajouter toutes les nouveautes manuellement a la discotheque de l'ordinateur qui n'est pas l'importeur.
J'espere que mon francais est pas trop dificile a comprendre (ca fait une vingtaine d'annees que je m'en sers pas)

Moved iTunes library to an ext hard drive to make space on my int drive... Followed steps from apple. Now I cannot access my music... It says: "File could not be used because the original file cannot be found. Would you like to locate it?"

Moved iTunes library to an ext hard drive to make space on my int drive... Followed steps from apple. Now I cannot access my music... It says: "File could not be used because the original file cannot be found. Would you like to locate it?"
I moved my iTunes library to my external hard drive some time ago and I followed the directions listed here on the apple support page. It did copy my library and now is on my hard drive... I can open iTunes and use it to sync all of my devices but I would like to play my music... I can see all of my music files but can not play them if I click on an album or song it says the following: "(file name) could not be used because the original file cannot be found. Would you like to locate it?" I click locate but do not know where to go from there? I need a way to access all files and not to hunt down one at a time on my hard drive... I am pretty sure I deleted the original library to make space on my internal drive which was the reason for moving it. I have tried and tried to fix it and do not have a lot of time to do so with a one and two year old at my house who do not like it whenI sit down at my computer. What to do??? Any help is much appreciated!!!

See Make a split library portable. Move all of the bits of the library together in the the correct shape and it should work. Or undo exactly what you did and then start over.
If you're a former Windows user don't try merging two folders together that have the same name by dropping one into the same folders as the other, as that goes badly on a Mac.
tt2

HT3819 How do I share just one movie (not my entire library) from my itunes library with an authorized computer using home sharing?

How do I share just one movie (not my entire library) from my itunes library with an authorized computer using home sharing?

many thanks.
That should be possible.
From his library connect to your library via Home Sharing.
Select the name of the shared library in the source pane of your itunes, and click on the wee disclosure triangle to the left of the name of the library. Does "Films" appear beneath the name of the library?
Here's a screenshot of what I mean.
Select "Films". In the right-hand pane you should see the item you want to transfer. Just select that item, and click "Import".
Use the same basic technique to get one or a few songs from your library transferred to his library. (The only difference is that you would have "Music" selected instead of "Films".
If you don't want him to have access to other items in your library, you could just switch Home Sharing off on his library after you've done the transfers.

I am in the process of trying to transfer my iTunes library from one computer to another. Some of the music/film info has been edited (by me) in my library (using get info). When put onto new computer the info has gone back to before i edited it.. Help!?

I am in the process of trying to transfer my iTunes library from one computer to another. Some of the music/film info has been edited (by me) in my library (using get info). When put onto new computer (following apple's instructions- using an external hard drive) the info has gone back to how it was before i edited it.. Help!?

Hello,
I would recommend taking a look at the article below for more information about migrating your iTunes library.
iTunes for Windows: Moving your iTunes Media folder
http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1364
-Griff W.

How can i move my iTunes' library from one mac to another without losing playlist etc???

how can i move my iTunes' library from one mac to another without losing playlist etc???

Use migration assistant, email it to the other computer or transfer the file using iChat.

Sharing an iTunes Library on one Mac?

I've one Mac on which Bob would like to use the
iTunes Library of Alice with Alice agreement.
Alice has already enabled the sharing on her account.
But Bob doesn't see anything when looking for shared
Libraries.
How is this possible?
dan

Josef Kowalewski wrote:
hI,
Tell Bob and Alice to follow Apple's advice - http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=93195
Thank you for this great piece of documentation
which help to find a path to stop stupid duplication
of huge libraries. A search within the Apple Support
with the string "Sharing iTunes Library same computer"
gave no useful information.
Now I have a mostly similar problem I don't find a
word about in the Apple web support.
Bob is able to add to his Library any number of
piece of musique from Alice. But when he wants to add some
albums, the albums aren't imported. The pieces
of musique included in all the albums are included
in the "Library" but the albums contents definitions
are lost.
How is it possible to access to a large set of
well organised albums from another user's account?
dan

Can I stream and sync from the same itunes library to one AppleTV?

Can I stream and sync from the same itunes library to one AppleTV?

From what I can tell this is a bug.
A very Frustrating bug. When the take 2 update launched I was streaming movies via "shared movies" from my synched computer without any issues. However after a couple of recent iTunes updates all the "shared" menus stopped appearing and I can no longer stream anything from my main computer.
When I open up my macbook though everything streams fine, all the "shared" menus immediately appear.
Numerous restarts, factory resets and reinstalling the 2.0 software have done nothing to help this issue.
If anyone has any more light on the subject it'd be great to hear. Also I'm not sure which update broke it because I went about a month not using the apple tv.

HT1918 Is there a way to transfer iTunes Store purchases or an iTunes library from one user to another?

Is there a way to transfer iTunes Store purchases or an iTunes library from one user to another?
Historically, I have my own laptop and my 8 year old daughter has a laptop as well. I also have an iPad and iPhone. In the past, I have managed all devices with the same apple ID, and used my laptop as the main library, storing all music, apps, video, etc. I then just selectively copied things to the other authorized devices, so my daughter's laptop has a copy of her music under my apple ID. Now she has her own iPod touch, so I would live to move her music and apps to her own iTunes library with a name I create for her on her laptop and iPod.
Is this possible without having to repurchase all of her media?

Welcome to AD!
You can try these Apple directions
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1329
Or buy a 3rd-party ipod manager such as CopyTrans.

Transferring external iTune library from one computer to another

I am having great difficulty in changing my external iTunes library from my old MBP laptop to my new iMac 5k.
My entire iTunes library is stored on an external drive and can be accessed directly with my MBP. When I started up iTunes on my new iMac, it created a new empty library in the MUSIC folder. What I want to do is connect my new iMac to the external library directly. I can see it when I turn on HOME SHARING but only when iTunes is running on my MBP, which is useless since my MBP will now be seldom used. I have of course on the iMac, changed the library location in the advanced preferences to the external location, to no avail. I do not want to keep any media files on the iMac for capacity reasons.
To compound the problem, I cannot seem to sync my new iPhone 6+ to the original external library, only the new empty one!
Surely this ought to be a simple job, transferring an external iTunes library from one computer to another! Am I missing something obvious here?

Wow, what a quick response! Thanks, Limnos. I guess it was bleeding' obvious, and I should have thought of it before. Such a simple solution!
On a related matter, I also have just realised that the iTunes iOS backups are saved on the internal computer drive in a folder called MOBILESYNC rather than on an external drive, thus chewing up a lot of capacity on my SSD. Others reading this response may be interested to know that it is easy to have iTunes save the iOS backups to any external drive using a symbolic link in this directory. Go to
http://support.digidna.net/hc/en-us/articles/203504123-Storing-your-iPhone-Backu ps-on-an-Alternate-Location
for the details.
However, note that iBooks will NOT let you use this work-around, pathetic app that it is.

Moving iTunes library from one Windows PC to another

How can I move my iTunes library from one Windows PC to another using iTunes 11.0.1.12?
I seem to lose my playlists and more oddly some track meta-data and settings - can anyone point me to a good guide as the search hasn't turned up anything that's worked for me?
Thanks

Thank you so much for replying! I'm not sure I quite understand, though. The media folder is in (2TB) /iTunes/iTunes Music/Music currently, cloned from (1TB) /iTunes/iTunes Music/Music. If I copied the /iTunes/ folder from 1TB to the 2TB, I'd be doing the exact same thing as when I cloned it, which I'm willing to do if I'm understanding you correctly.
Or are you asking me to copy all of the files (minus the /iTunes Music/ folder) in the (1TB) /iTunes/ folder and replace all of those files in the (2TB) /iTunes/ folder?

The operation can't be completed because the item "iTunes Library Extras.itdb" is in use.

I am trying to transfer my iTunes from my PC to my new Mac. After reading through this forum a bit, I followed the instructions at: http://www.macworld.com/article/146958/2010/03/move_itunes_windows_mac.html
I backed up my PC's iTunes folder to an external drive after selecting to consolidate files, etc.
I connected the external drive to my Mac and did a copy and paste of the iTunes folder. I have not put any music into the iTunes on the Mac, so I just said Yes to overrite (it said there are 2 files that will be overwritten- I think they are apps I downloaded this weekenad i am fine to overwrite them). It starts to copy and then I get the error message: "The operation can’t be completed because the item “iTunes Library Extras.itdb” is in use." I verified that I do not have iTunes open on the Mac and made sure that when I backed up from PC, I did not have iTunes open there either.
Any ideas?
Thanks
Katie

I figured it out!
There was an iTunes folder on my new Mac. I may have installed it. I just deleted the whole iTunes folder under Music. I then tried copying and pasting from my External Drive again and now it is copying the data as I would expect.

How do i transfer my itunes library from one macbook to another?

hi,how do i transfer my itunes library from one macbook to another?

From your OLD computer...
Copy your ENTIRE iTunes FOLDER to an External Drive... and then from the External Drive to your New Computer..
Full Details Here > http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1751
An Added Bonus is that you will have a Backup of iTunes.
Also... have a look at these 2 Videos...
http://macmost.com/moving-your-itunes-library.html
http://macmost.com/moving-your-itunes-media-to-an-external-drive.html

ITunes Library on one ext. HD, used by two computers -- is it possible ?

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