Separating one iTunes account into several

We have four iPods tied to one iTunes account and all four of us like different music. Syncing can be tricky and we sometimes get each others' songs on our iPod. We also have an iPad and an iPhone to add to one of the accounts. The kids have their own gift cards they want to use also. How do I separate one iTunes account into four separate accounts?

Any music purchased after about 2009 can be played on any computer with the file on it. That's the easy part. Oh, I don't know if syncing present problems but I'm guessing it won't since people often have multiple Store accounts and shared music on family computers.
Movies require the computer be authorized to the account used to purchase the content. This is where you will have to come to an agreement not to change the password or de-authorize each other's computers for that account (there could be a scenario where this is done unintenionally but it shouldn't normally arise unless you have lots and lots of computers).
One tip is to make sure you always have all content present on a local drive. Do not put yourself in a position to ever need to re-download media from the Store. I am presuming you will have your own account after this and the main problem people seem to have with using multiple Store accounts on a computer is being prevented from changing accconts more than once every 90 days for the purpose of re-downloading. Otherwise families often have multiple AppleID users on a single computer with shared media.
You may have to ease up on doing anything such as using iTunes Match or iCloud downloads with this particular account, but we're talking trying to rescue what you can.

Similar Messages

Separating one iTunes account into 3 different accounts

I have both of my kids iPods (and my iPhone) all sharing one iTunes account. Is there a way to move them to their own iTunes account without losing all the apps and music they have on their devices?

Any music purchased after about 2009 can be played on any computer with the file on it. That's the easy part. Oh, I don't know if syncing present problems but I'm guessing it won't since people often have multiple Store accounts and shared music on family computers.
Movies require the computer be authorized to the account used to purchase the content. This is where you will have to come to an agreement not to change the password or de-authorize each other's computers for that account (there could be a scenario where this is done unintenionally but it shouldn't normally arise unless you have lots and lots of computers).
One tip is to make sure you always have all content present on a local drive. Do not put yourself in a position to ever need to re-download media from the Store. I am presuming you will have your own account after this and the main problem people seem to have with using multiple Store accounts on a computer is being prevented from changing accconts more than once every 90 days for the purpose of re-downloading. Otherwise families often have multiple AppleID users on a single computer with shared media.
You may have to ease up on doing anything such as using iTunes Match or iCloud downloads with this particular account, but we're talking trying to rescue what you can.

I have one itunes account, but several itouch apparatus that belong to kids, how do I keep their cloud stuff separate, or does it all go into one cloud?

I have one itunes account, but have several itouches that belong to the kids. How do I keep the cloud's separate, or does it all go into one, because of the one acccount?

All devices under the same Apple ID will have one iCloud. If they are over 13, they can create their own Apple IDs, or you can just turn everything off under Settings > iCloud on the iPods.

HT1420 How can I merge one iTunes account into my other one. I have a work laptop that I've had one library one (work email address) and I also have a home library iTunes account (gmail address) but I want it all under one accnt.

I have two iTunes libraries (one under my gmail address and one under my work email address). My work laptop is usually how I access my account and in the past 3 months that laptop has had to be replaced twice, causing me to redo my entire library. Each time, the laptop was not deauthorized, of course and I had to go through all that rigamarole. I have all of my music backed up and am able to also retrieve anything purchased over the years from the cloud, but once i get it set up and authorize the laptop to both of the email address accounts, some of the items that are in the gmail library will not play. It says that it cannot locate. At one point, a friend spent a lot of time getting it to finally recognize everything (a lot of that music that said cannot locate was from burned CD's or mp3s downloaded, not purchased from iTunes). So there is that issue and I'm not sure how to fix that.
The other thing is that I would like to have ALL of my items under one iTunes account (my personal gmail) in the event that i no longer work for this company and have no access to that email address as it will be turned off. How can I remove one email and merge all purchases over to the gmail address account?
Thanks!

You cannot combine actual accounts (as in iTunes Store account).
You can combine the music into a single iTunes collection on a computer. There's many ways to do this. There are some utilities to assist with keeping maximum metadata (ratings, playcount, etc.) but I am not familiar with Windows platform ones to do this, though I am sure a web search of merge iTunes library would uncover some.

One iTunes account into two via home share

My wife and I have been sharing one iTunes account for years. We now have two iMac and so I'd like to separate into two accounts by retaining my original account on my imac and creating a new itunes account on her iMac. Her iMac is the one with the original account. Her ipod is tied to that computer and my account but I'd like her ipod tied to the new account so she can start making purchases that do not show up under my account and on my imac/ipad.
I understand that this process is not possible since apps and songs are liscensed under one user. However, I can easily redownload the apps my wife uses (15 or so, most of which are free). It's the iTunes store bought music I am unclear about.
I've done a bit of researching and have come to an idea that may work but I'd like feedback from those more in the know than I.
So, I'd like to run this process by all of you out there and ask if this sounds right.
My imac is all set with my account.
Wifes iMac: (Core i7, 10.6.8, current iTunes)
- Set-up wife's iMac with a new itunes account.
- Turn on that account in iTunes (authorize to computer to this new account)
- Home Sharing is on (purchased music on her computer under my account but not on my computer... I don't listen to Amy Winehouse)
- Connect her ipod (Touch gen 2) to her iMac and update as new account.
-this may delete all songs on her ipod but with home sharing can I just reload the music from the itunes library?
-Will I be able to load the store purchased music that resides on her imac onto her ipod touch with the new account on it?
- Or will she have to "authorize" each and every song as the ipod plays them???
– Redownload wifes previous free apps (downloaded under my name) under her new account.
The end result is I'd like any new purchases of songs or apps to be under her new account but still retain the music she purchased under my account on her ipod. Thus she can purchase on the device and it will update in itunes on iMac.
Does this make sense? Will this work?
Thanks,

I just got zapped by this crazy conundrum yesterday. I bought a used ipad1 thru EBay, for my son. He doesn't have home Internet or an up to date Mac so I set it up for him on my computer, unaware of the 90-day lockout rule. He owns a lot of iTunes downloads and I thought input would be faster to do it wired to my computer rather than via wireless direct onto his iPad, so I logged out of my account and into his. When I was done downloading his stuff I logged out of his account and got the 90-day lockout notice when I logged back into my account!
Thanks to all the posters here and other similar threads I learned what had happened, but until I got to this thread I thought I was locked out of ALL downloads, including new purchases. Thanks for the info about it just being for re-downloads. Fortunately, I am obsessive about backing up all new purchases in a master iTunes file. It just seems kinda stupid. What is the point in locking me out of things I already own? Anyway, thanks for the help!
Just tested on my computer and was indeed able to download a new album from iTunes on my account.
As far as sharing between devices is concerned, I have separate iTunes folders for each of 4 iOS devices I use, and simply use the "Add to library" feature in iTunes to copy anything I need to from one device's folder to the other. Works well.

Separating one iTunes account and content into two

My partner and I are going through a divorce but we have shared the same iTunes account for the past 12 years. How do we separate our music library into two separate accounts so we can each have a portion of the library?

Any music purchased after about 2009 can be played on any computer with the file on it. That's the easy part. Oh, I don't know if syncing present problems but I'm guessing it won't since people often have multiple Store accounts and shared music on family computers.
Movies require the computer be authorized to the account used to purchase the content. This is where you will have to come to an agreement not to change the password or de-authorize each other's computers for that account (there could be a scenario where this is done unintenionally but it shouldn't normally arise unless you have lots and lots of computers).
One tip is to make sure you always have all content present on a local drive. Do not put yourself in a position to ever need to re-download media from the Store. I am presuming you will have your own account after this and the main problem people seem to have with using multiple Store accounts on a computer is being prevented from changing accconts more than once every 90 days for the purpose of re-downloading. Otherwise families often have multiple AppleID users on a single computer with shared media.
You may have to ease up on doing anything such as using iTunes Match or iCloud downloads with this particular account, but we're talking trying to rescue what you can.

HT1473 can i use more than one ipod on my itunes account? How do I get the music from one itune account into another on one computer?

My husband and I would like to combine our itunes libraries into one for each of our ipods. Can this be done?

You can just copy all of your music to an external sourcce ( cd/dvd/flash drive/hard drive) then copy onto the other computer.
You can type "merge itunes library" into the google search bar.

How to separate one ITunes account into 2.

When I bought my son an iPod touch last year I just set it up using my existing Apple ID. Now I would like to separate them so I only see my things and he only sees his. How do I do that?

You will have to create a new Apple ID for your son, assuming that he is at least 13 years old. You can't split one Apple ID into 2.

Two separate iPhones got merged into one iTunes account. How to separate them. We are sharing all of each other's contacts at this time. Thanks for your help.

Two separate iPhones got merged into one iTunes account. How can I separate them in iTunes???????. We are sharing all of each other's contacts at this time. Thanks for your help.

The reason you are receiving each other's text messages is because you are both using the same Apple ID for iMessage. To prevent this you need to use different IDs. (Note: you can still share the same ID for iTunes.) On one of the phones, go to Settings>Messages>Send & Receive, tap the ID, sign out, then sign back in with a separate ID.
To migrate your 3GS to a new iCloud account, start by saving any photo stream photos that you want to keep on the phone to your camera roll. To do this, open the my photo stream album, tap Edit, tap the photos, tap Share, tap Save to Camera Roll. Next, if you have any notes that you are syncing with iCloud that you want to keep, you'll need to email these to yourself so they can be recreated after moving to the new account.
Once this is done, go to Settings>iCloud, scroll to the bottom and tap Delete Account. (This will only delete the account from this phone, not from iCloud. The phone that will be keeping the account will not be effected by this.) When prompted about what to do with the iCloud data, choose Keep On My iPhone. Next, sign back in with a different Apple ID to create the new account, turn iCloud data syncing preferences and when prompted about merging with iCloud, choose Merge. This will upload the data to the new account.
Finally, if you have merged data in the two accounts that you want to separate you will have to go to icloud.com from your computer, sign into each iCloud account separately and manually delete the data you don't want from each account.

I have several Apple Products, all which utilize iTunes- Is there a way you could use them all on one iTunes account?

I have several Apple Products, iPhone, MacBook Pro, eMac, iMac, iPod & nano. I would like to join together the iTunes with more than 5 products, is this possible?

If you are simply asking whether you can use all those devices with the same iTunes account, then the answer is yes.
If however, you are asking whether you can merge previously purchased content from separate iTunes accounts that your devices are currently running, into one iTunes account, then the answer is no.

When you have multi iphones and multi ipads, is it really best to have separate itunes accounts. My husband and I really seems to be running into problems now that I have a new I pad and we have one itunes account.

I just purchased the New Ipad, my husband and I have 2 Iphones (4 & 4s) and he has the Ipad 2, we are "technically" challenged, that I will put out there right up front . We've had nothing but troubles with the imessaging, and messages stating that they have been delivered but not received. I am not sure if it's more confusing with us having this one Itunes account, if it's best for me to have my Itunes account and my husband having his own. The Itunes account is my husband's and for some reason, the imessager doesn't recognize "him" being registered, but it sees everyone else. It wasn't working last night, but this morning, it worked, but when I tried to send him a text from my iphone this morning, it said, delivered, but he never got it, the only way I could get it to work, was to turn off, imessaging. It's become very confusing and I am not sure why. I am thinking, I will remove my Iphone from his Itunes account, set up my own (as we have too much problem with this Icloud, his contacts, his music, etc). Any thoughts, suggest, help, would be greatly appreciated. Not sure what this problem is all the sudden with the imessager, we had no problem before I got my Ipad (which has not been synced with his Itunes yet as an additonal device) I am sure if there is a problem with how we have our contacts listed). I've tried reading articles and again, being technically challenged, it is hard to follow sometimes.

You and your husband can share a store account and still have seperate iCloud accounts for your contacts, bookmarks and stuff like that. Click here for instructions to make an apple account without entering a credit card. Make sure you use a different email address for each apple account.
Set up your iPhone/iPad whatever using the new account for iCloud. Then go into settings/store and sign in with your purchasing account, you may need to sign out of the other account. To the best of my knowledge, your household is allowed to share purchased legally, someone please correct me if I'm wrong.
Once you each have your own devices set to your own accounts you can set them to backup to that account and it will keep all your contacts seperate.

How do I combine three itune accounts into one? Then have three different family member have three different log-in's to sync many different devices to the same itune account ?

How do I combine three itune accounts into one? Then how do I set up three users for the one Itunes account on ONE Mac Pro Computer with one Itunes program? We are one family with 3 I-Phones, 2- I-Pads, 2- Lap tops and 3-I-Pods and would like to use one main computer to sync all our devices to.

"How do I combine three itune accounts into one? "
You cannot.
"Then how do I set up three users for the one Itunes account on ONE Mac Pro Computer with one Itunes program?"
You can copy all of the music to one computer and set up different users see:
Learn how to set up additional user accounts.
How to use multiple iPods, iPads, or iPhones with one computer

How can I combine two itunes accounts into one?

How can I combine two itunes accounts into one?

Items purchased from the iTunes Store are permanently associated with the account from which they were originally purchased. Apple provides no way to change this.
However, if you wish to put content from two accounts into a single iTunes library, you can easily do so. Use the command File > Add File (or Folder) to Library.

HT1449 how do you move all music from two computers into one itunes account?

How do you move all music from two computers into one itunes account?

An "iTunes account" is an online account you use for buying music, like a bank account. An iTunes collection is the media you see when you open iTunes. Which do you mean?
If it is two computers, it would also help to know where these are located. Are they on the same local network? If they are, try Home Sharing (and you have control of both and you aren't just trying to get music fro your computer to your friend's computer in another state). If they are not, you'll have to use an external hard drive or flash drive.
Is this on a PC? Your computer information says Windows but you posted this in the iTunes for Mac forum.

How do I merge two valid, purchased iTunes accounts into one so all my music is in same account?

I have two valid, purchasd iTunes accounts. Older iPod has some great music, I just got a new iPad and set up second iTunes account, bought some more iTunes items for that account. Just discovered iCloud. Now I want to put all my music from both accounts onto the cloud so I can access it on all my apple devices. Can't seem to add from one account to the other. Can sign onto the new account wiht my old iPod, but it will not let me sync without erasing all the music on the device. How can I merge these two accounts into one?
PS Makes you wonder how helpful support is when the usernames "Frustrated," "really frustrated," and "Help!!!!" are all taken...lol

HeyStupid wrote:
how do I merge two valid, purchased iTunes accounts into one so all my music is in same account?
You cannot. iTunes pruchases remian tied to the account they were purchased with.
I just got a new iPad and set up second iTunes account,
Why?
Remove your info from new account, update old account as needed and use that.

Separating one iTunes account into several

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for