Multiple PC's, 1 music library

This question seems to be asked a lot but from the search results I have seen, there has not been an answer to the question. The problem for me (and the other posts I have seen) is that I have two computers that I use (say a desktop at home and a laptop for travelling.) Now, although I use my desktop predominantly for my music and most of my music is there, I do occassionaly travel for extended periods of time where I make changes to my music on my laptop. I can easily network my laptop with my desktop but I have not found a way to sync the two libraries so that when I make changes, it will automatically change the library on the other computer. To add to the fun, since I have not synced the computers in a while, both computers have slightly different playlists with a few different songs. Is there any tools native to itunes that can be used to sync the computers? I found syncOtunes for users lucky enough to be on OSx, but the software is not yet available for XP. If itunes cannot natively do this, does anyone know of any 3rd party software that can do this?

select 'Share My Music' in sharing in itunes preferences on the library computer.
when this is set, the remote computers see your shared library, thru your wireless network, thru itunes running on each remote.
the remotes need to select 'Look for shared libraries' in sharing.
shared libraries on network show up in playlist
btw - this also works for multiple accounts on the same mac

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Having one iTunes music library for multiple computers via TimeCapsule

Hi there,
I'm just wondering how to best set-up my iTunes library. I want the library on my TimeCapsule wireless hard drive, and to be able to set this as the library for multiple computers at home. It's a waste of space to have duplicate libraries on both computers.I had this working with an earlier version of iTunes, but its not working now.
I also want to know how I can get the wireless device to fire up simply by pressing the iTunes icon. If I do this without, iTunes says it can't find the library.
Thanks.

Frank, yes. Only one library of the songs and content if it's stuff from the Music Store.
If the music is your own CD rips, then you can put all the music on a central server and have all the computers connect in on your home network.
You do NOT set your iTunes to share their libraries, or look for shared libraries, you manually do the drag-and-drop with your networked music folder into the iTunes library window and each copy of iTunes behaves as if the network volume is it's own.
The only shortcoming to this is if you add music with one machine, the others will NOT have the new songs added to their own library lists unless you drag and drop the songs into the iTunes library manually for each computer.
I have enough music that I have broken down the library list into five folders, A-E, F-J, K-O, P-T, and U-Z. When I add new songs, the folders they're in will be added at the root Music Library folder level, so I can refresh the libraries with the new music THEN manually file it into one of those five correct folders.
This is what my network library looks like:
http://home.comcast.net/~foodandart/Network%20Library.jpg - you can see that I haven't added the Clapton, BBC, Roxy Music, etc, to the library lists for the entire house.
The G4 frankenbeast computer in our living room, is the media server for the house and has the stereo system rigged through it and is used to rip vinyl and watch the video. I still have to refresh the libraries in my husband's laptop, and on my main internet computer, so those albums haven't been filed yet.
Of course the caveat here is that I haven't a single item that's purchased through the Music Store and thusly locked down, since I rip my own LP's and CD's, so everything is much more flexible in how I can handle it.
Deb.

Networked Music Library - How to refresh multiple machines' library window?

I want to have my iTunes music library on a network hard drive, accessed by multiple machines.
But, if I add / rip new tracks into the library, only the machine that ripped the tracks knows they are there. The others are oblivious to the new tracks.
How do I get the other machines to automatically check the library to see if any new tracks have been added, and add them to their respective library windows if they find any?
Thanks - Dave G.

Interesting question! And, one that I will use often, so I did a test.
My main library is on my iMac, my travel library is on my MBP. Once back home, simply choose File:Import:Library/Project. Now browse to the MBP (file sharing must be enabled), and select the travel library & import. I did NOT have Aperture running on the MBP during the import.
It works quite well.
Steve

How can I delete multiple duplicate songs at one time? I would really like to wipe out my music library and just reinstall all files. Any Help is appreciated.

I am trying to cleanout my iTunes Music Library. I would prefer to wipeout the music library and then reinstall my music. I do not know how to delete multiple files besides doing one by one. Any help is much appreciated. Thank You.

Dupin is for Mac. For PC users I've written a script called DeDuper which can help remove unwanted duplicates. See this thread for background.
tt2

Using one music library with multiple user accounts

I want to use one Music Library and be able to have all my computer user accounts be able to access it. Article 93195 does not work for some reason. It is easy to share music over a network but not on the same computer? This can't be. I have talked to several Apple "Geniuses" and they all scratch their head. One guy could do it in Leopard, but not in Tiger. Could it have something to do with the permissions of the Itunes Music Folder? Any help would be appreciated. This is driving me crazy.

1 Quit iTunes.
2 Drag your entire *iTunes folder* from /Username/Music to /Users/Shared.
3 Log out.
1 Log in on your other account(s).
2 Start iTunes and immediately press an hold the Option key.
3 iTunes will ask to *Create new library* or *Choose existing library*. Select *Choose existing library*.
4 Select the *iTunes library file* in the *iTunes folder* in /Users/Shared.
5 Now go to File -> *Add to library* and select the *iTunes music folder* located in /Username/Music.
6 - iTunes will add all the music in from this account to the main iTunes music folder/library.
7 Delete the *iTunes folder* in /Username/Music
8 Restart iTunes normally (don't hold Option). Everything should be there.
9 Quit iTunes and log out of the account.
10 Do the above steps for all users. Don't do the first 1-3 steps. Start at the second series.
Log into your account, start iTunes normally and all music should be there.
Whenever any of you do anything in iTunes, it will be seen by all since you are using one and the same iTunes library file.
Create a "main" playlist for each user with their own music. Create a smart playlist and set it to Playlist is not the playlist you created above. Select this and it will show you everything NOT in your playlist. Do the same for the others. This will help when adding only the music you want your own playlist.
Note that iTunes can only be opened by one user at a time. If you have Fast user switching enabled, the other users must quit iTunes in order for anyone else to use it.

Sharing Itunes Music Library among Multiple User Accounts on One Mac

I have 3 user accounts set up on the computer and one itunes account authorized on all 3 user accounts. I have the music library files placed in the shared folders and permissions set up to allow all users to read & write the music. However, only my user account (the main account with admin privileges) is able to access the music unless I log into my user account, run iTunes with sharing enabled, then exit to the login window. Then the other users can access the shared iTunes library. I have preferences setup to use the same library folders.
An earlier version of iTunes used to allow me to do this, and iPhoto still does allow a similar setup with my photo library.
Is there a way to fix this?
Thanks!

I have an iMac at home with 4 users. I've recently struggled with this and thought I had a working solution ...
I created a new iTunes folder off of root. I then logged in as each user and set the path on their Advanced Tab to /iTunes/iTunes Music/ and dragged and dropped their local iTunes Music folders (~/Music/iTunes/iTunes Music/) into iTunes. This copies files that aren't there but skips anything that might be in two peoples library.
Then iTunes 8.1 came out and now things are broken. I've rebuilt the index by doing an Add to Library but my Podcasts don't download any more. 8-(

Multiple music library issues

I have downloaded songs from my home computer to my ipod, but now I am on holidays and have bought some songs from itunes store, downloaded onto my laptop, but when I try to add them to my ipod I get a message that I can only use one music library, and must erase all the songs on my ipod if I want to add the songs from my laptop that I just bought!!?? How do I add them without erasing the 900 songs already on there?

Click on your iPod's name from under the Devices column and it should automatically place you under your iPod's Summary tab.
B-rock

Sharing Music Library with multiple accts on a computer

I've tried following the instructions to share a single music library between 2 users accounts on the same comupter. While I've moved the music library to the Shared Document folder, only one user can see the library.
Is there something else I can try/check?
Thanks!

Hi, jstock.
It sounds like you're following the instructions in this article in the Apple Knowledge Base.
Make sure you follow the steps in the last section To listen to another account's music files which brings the files from the Shared Music folder into the other account's iTunes Library.

Question: Multiple iTunes users w/ single music library on file server

My son and I (separate computers) host all of our music on a common file server. Initially, it was my music library...when he loaded iTunes, it imported everything and all was fine.
However, now if I add a few songs to the library (I can see them in the shared folders that we both have setup as our music folder within iTunes) they don't show up in his music library unless we either import them or drag them from File Mgr into iTunes.
There has to be an "automatic" way...doesn't there?
I'm eager for suggestions.
Thanks much,
Rick

Sorry to say, there is not an easier way and folks have been requesting it from Apple for years.
You are running into the situation noted in this article, towards the end
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1203
+When another user of the computer has imported new music from CD, repeat steps 6 through 8 to add the music to your library.+

Multiple users sharing one itunes library

i have multiple users on my mac, but i'd like us all to be able to access the same itunes library. when i go to itunes prefs on one of the other users accounts and redirect their music library to my folder, it says it is doing it, but itunes still goes to their own music folder instead of mine. i can share my library with the sharing pref, but while they can now listen to my music, they still can't use it in imovie. is there any easy way around this problem??
thanks for your help.

I wrote a simple shell script that executes each time a user logs in (well, actually, each time I log in, coz' it's not really applicable to other users). It syncs my work and home addressbooks and iCal calendars to one another.
I named it "sync". Then I read somewhere that if you wanted to make it double-clickable (to launch it from the Finder), I appended a ".command" filename extension (so it's now named "sync.command"). I also did a chmod 755 to that file so that it had execute privileges. Depending on whether you give each user their own copy of this thing, or keep a single copy in, say, the /Users/Shared directory, you may have to play around with chmod. Whatever, just so long as the user that has just logged in has execute permissions to the file, and to the entire path to the file, you should be good.
Then, in SysPrefs > Accounts > Login Items, I added that "sync.command" file to the list. So, really the only difference is I'm not wrapping mine inside an Automator script like you are.
I had tried adding it to ~/Library/LaunchAgents and make a launchd plist for it, that would kick it off at login. But I didn't get that to work. Don't know why. But just adding the double-clickable executable unix script to the Login Items list did the trick. Whether the plist has to hang out there with it, I don't know. I still have it there, though, in case I ever get motivated to figure out what's wrong with my launchd plist file. So, if just adding it to the Login Items list doesn't do it for you, you could try making a (functional?) launchd plist for it and plopping them both in ~/Library/LaunchAgents, too. That's how I am now, and, like I said, it launches at user login as that user's process (not as a root process like the above referenced article said how login hooks worked -- although, you may want it to run as root since you want this to work with multiple users...in which case, you might want to listen to Cole and not me...).

How to sync iTunes libraries on multiple machines without copying music

Background:
I have 4 machines running iTunes 9, all authorized with the same account. All music is on a networked storage device (NSA). Each iTunes points to the NSA for music files. Each user on each machine has their own local iTunes library for individualized playlists, etc. When music is purchased, regardless of machine, it is automatically downloaded onto the NSA. We have deselected the Advanced preference "Copy files to iTunes Media folder when adding to library". Our goal is to have one live copy of our music rather than multiple copies sprinkled about all 4 machines. We do periodic backups of the NSA.
Question:
How do I get all the iTunes user libraries on all 4 machines to automatically reflect new music purchases? The library of the purchaser is updated just fine, but no one else's is. The Home Sharing Settings option updates the library, but it also copies over the music, defeating the purpose of one copy.
Thanks in advance!

When I first moved to OS X I decided that all of my/our music should be in one library, with one Apple ID for purchasing/playback and iPod syncing, located someplace other than each user's home folder. Using an alias of the destination folder worked as long as we were all on one machine.
Later when we acquired a second machine the setup was similar, except that the library was on an external HD attached to the newer/faster machine and accessed over our home network. The drawback of this method is that the machine with the library on it has to be up and running (of course).
We've finally moved further into the digital world by purchasing a network drive (NAS to be precise - a My Book World II for those who wish to know), upgraded our router and network switch to GB, and have a third iMac on its way (thank you eBay).
All of our music (the library we started years ago), all of our pictures, and other miscellaneous things reside on the NAS, which is also used for TimeMachine backups (on the non public volume). The idea being that any of us can access any of the media or documents as we need or want to.
Apparently (or I've missed something simple) Apple, in their wisdom, doesn't believe that a setup like ours (and apparently others as well) should exist. That each user and/or each machine, should have their/its very own music library that no one else can have FULL access to.
Home Sharing doesn't allow what I/we've been setting up from the first day we added music to our library. Sure it lets everyone with their own library to listen to other's library's that are up and running (i.e. the machine is on, and iTunes is running).
What we want to do is have all of our machines (the two, soon to be three, iMac's and one PC running XP) access the *same library* with full read/write/burn access AT THE SAME TIME! Hence the logic in purchasing a NAS. What we can't do is have iTunes running on more than ONE machine at a time since the other network users/machines receive this message:
The iTunes Library file is locked, on a locked disk, or you do not have write permission for this file.
Which is certainly not the case since each user/machine can access, read, write, and burn from the above library at will as long as they are the only person doing so.
Changing the permissions on the library file doesn't stick (probably because its on the NAS), otherwise I would have done that and you wouldn't be reading this.
Thanks for any help anyone can give.

One person, one iPhone, one laptop. Two homes in two states, two external drives, two identical copies of my music library. Many headaches.

I feel like this question is asked endlessly on these boards, but somehow I still can't find a relevant answer... So, apologies for rehashing a variant of the same question!
I have one (ancient) MacBook Pro, and one (ancient) iPhone. I carry both back and forth between two states: the state where I work and the state where I live the rest of the time. My ancient MBP and my ancient iPhone are too small to carry my whole music collection (which is quite large—larger than a new phone or laptop would reasonably support, anyway). My mobile apps and my podcasts live on my laptop, but my music library lives on an external drive. I have two external drives now, one in each state where I live/work. I also have a copy of everything on my desktop machine at work, but I've given up long ago trying to sync to multiple computers. I'll settle for now for syncing to one computer (my MBP), which sometimes is connected to one copy of my library, and sometimes is connected to another copy of my library.
I know that I can make multiple iTunes libraries, with duplicate copies of my podcast subscriptions, my apps, and my playlists and music, and keep switching which one my phone is set to sync to (wiping it each time, and possibly losing some settings in the process?) But that's a pain in the neck. Plus, it's hard to keep my podcasts active in both libraries, because iTunes podcast subscriptions are like frail little tamagotchi critters that need constant love, nurturing, and encouragement, or else they wither and die.
Is there any way to have a single library, with my apps and podcasts on the laptop, which just happens to make use of the "local" copies of my music on whichever external drive happens to be attached?
Or do I need the google cloud + android if I want to unify my listening and syncing life?
Thanks!

Hi,
There are several reasons which may cause the backup to be full instead of incremental, such as source volume snapshot is deleted, from which the last backup was taken.
For more detailed information, please refer to the thread below:
control incremental vs full backup on W2k8 R2
http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/windowsserver/en-US/7820edc7-18ef-4f6e-bb50-f87f4a728597/control-incremental-vs-full-backup-on-w2k8-r2?forum=windowsbackup
There is a similar thread, please go through it to help troubleshoot this issue:
Understanding Windows Small Business Server 2008 Backup - Full and Incremental with 2 Backup Destinations
http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/bdb3c5ae-81dc-4f54-a39e-4b888ee52476/understanding-windows-small-business-server-2008-backup-full-and-incremental-with-2-backup
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How can I sync my old music library in my new nano to the new library???

CAN'T COMBINE MUSIC LIBRARIES:
Got a new 6th gen nano. X-ferred my old music lib to new nano. Gave my old nano to my hubs and he erased most of the music and added his own.(so, he has the same name for the old nano that I was using) Now, when I try to add more music to my new nano, I get a message asking me if I want to erase all the music content and add the new stuff. Well, of course I do not want to do this as I have hundreds of songs in the old music library. I also get a message saying that the old music lib is associated with a diff account name and I cannot have 2 music libs running on one iPod. Can anyone tell me how I an get the two libs combined? Do I need to back up the old music and add it to the new lib? Or, can I add the new music (only about 50 songs) to the old lib? (the latter would be much easier, as it would take 10-12 CD's to store my old lib and much time burning the cd's. I naively thot that I could add music to the new nano under the same music lib as the old nano. HELP!

iPod Nano: Multiple Users- Single iTunes

Sync multiple devices with one iTunes library without apps

Hi,
I've got multiple iOS devices in the house (not all are mine).
Each person has his own iTunes account with their app purchases, while we share the same iTunes music library under one account on the Mac.
What I want to do is to sync the music on all the devices but NOT sync the apps and NOT keep them on the Mac.
I want that every device has his own set of apps but they are not copied on the Mac. May I just disable syncing of apps and delete them from the Mac?
What happens if I want to restore my device? I should have the apps data in the backup right? But how can I restore the apps themselves? (if the answer is possibile only with iOS 5 and iCloud is fine, because all our devices are going to be updated to iOS 5 and I can wait until its release)
Thanks for your help!

Your iTunes collection is individual to computer, not in the cloud somewhere and synchronizing to your computer from there. In other words, if you delete a file on one computer it will still be on the others until you delete it from there. Likewise, if it is on one computer that is not a guarantee it will be on other computers. The closest to this is some of the automated downloading Apple does if you buy things from them. You will just need to make sure your desktop is really up to date before wiping your media from the other computers.

Multiple iPhones and one iTunes Library

I have a question about multiple iPhones and one iTunes Library.
Currently I have 3 PC's, 2 iPods and 2 iPhones.
My PC had the iTunes library on it and everyone was just listening to mine via the iTunes sharing.
Well I bought a Buffalo LinkStation and told itunes to move my library to M:\My Music\..... and then did a Consolidate Library which in turn moved all the music from my C: drive to the M: drive.
My wife's computer has it's own Library with no music (only app store apps, and ringtones).
Now my question is what happens if I tell my wifes computer that M:\My Music\....... is her new location of the library and restart itunes. I am pretty sure this will work fine. But what happens if she syncs her iPhone now? Will all my apps now be on her phone and she will lose hers? She does have her own itunes store account with her own apps. Is there a way to have it so only her apps are on her phone and my apps are on my phone? Can she choose different playlists to be synced than what I have?
Any help would be appreciated.
Thanks
Brad

Since the three of you are using separate iTunes accounts, then you each need to run your own itunes, which should be logged into the itunes store using each individual account. For that, on a laptop, you each need to have your own computer accounts.

Multiple PC's, 1 music library

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