Sharing music folder between user accounts?

I would like to have my music library available for my wife on a different user account on my iMac under Lion.
The music library is on an external drive on my LAN
When I try to select it as the source of music in my wife's account, there are no errors, but nothing happens, the music is not added to her iTunes, it just stays in the welcome screen, where to find music, etc.
I read a tutorial on moving the library to a shared folder, but I am hoping I do not have to do that. The drive is available to her library, just that nothing happens after I select it.
I imagine I am not seeing something obvious?
THansk,
Henry

check for file permissions witin your shared iTunes folder and make sure your wife's account have both read AND write privileges and that the privileges are applied not only to the folder but all the files and sub directories within that folder.

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Sharing music libraries across user accounts

We've got 1 Mac and 4 users with iPods. I'd like us to share music, but use our own accounts to manage our music and iPods. I've seen these articles but am still a little perplexed:
Multiple iPods:
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=300432
Multiple Accounts:
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=93195
The Multiple Accounts article starts off with a Tip indicating you don't need to use any of the further instructions if you have the latest iTunes and OS:
"Tip: With iTunes 4.5 or later and Mac OS X 10.3 or later, it's easy to use the Fast User Switching feature in Mac OS X with the Music Sharing feature in iTunes to share your songs with other users on the same computer."
But if you follow the link to Music Sharing it has nothing to do with Multiple Accounts and is really about Multiple Computers. Also the music sharing only allows you to listen to other users music; not copy it onto your iPod. Also the music sharing requires you to perpetually leave iTunes running on any account you want to view the library from. None of these address the main issue.
Anyone have some simple instructions?
We want to all be able to copy some of the same music onto our iPods from our own user accounts.
thx
ed
iMac 17-inch/2GHz Mac OS X (10.4.2)

We put our music folder in the /Users/Shared folder.
Type this in the Terminal:
mv ~/Music/iTunes /Users/Shared/; ln -s /Users/Shared/iTunes ~/Music/iTunes

Sharing FCP projects between user accounts problem

Hello!
I'm working on a project with several other colleagues. Each of us has his own User account on the computer (dual G5 / 10.4.7) because we have different preferecnes regarding keyboard layouts, desktop colour etc. We would like to have our FCP project files accessible to each of us.
I have tried different approaches to solve this task, but haven't fully succeded yet (I tried creating the project file within the /Users/Shared foler; putting it into a dedicated /Users/FCPProjects folder and applying chmod/chown commands; creating a Editors group with NetInfo and assigning those foders to this group; I even tried to work around this using ACLs).
The problem is that when we click "Save All" command in FCP, we get three or four OK-only dialog boxes in a row saying "Access denied". The project file is in fact saved (I can see it by checking the Modified time in Finder), but FCP seems not to be aware of this and doesn't want to quit. It's an unpleasent situation because it allways makes us worry about losing our work.
Could someone please give us instructions on the correct procedures for resolving the issue.
Thank you
Best regards
Mato Ilijic

matoid,
ACLs should work for you, and it seems that they are. You shouldn't have to deal with the error dialogue either, so let's see if we can't get rid of it.
First, let's talk about groups. I have looked at your "step by step," and I notice that you didn't bother to change the group ownership of the "shared" folder that you created. Fine, ACLs still work, but the group ownership of "wheel" might be the cause of your error messages. ACLs are a more advanced system of access controls than the older POSIX system, but POSIX still exists, and might affect your work.
Let's assume that you have your standard users that will be using FCP placed properly into a common group. For this discussion, I'll call that group "fcpusers." Under the POSIX paradigm, any "shared" folder can be owned by any one of the users in this group, but it must have a group ownership of "fcpusers" in order to work properly for everyone. When it does, every new file or folder created in it will "inherit" that group ownership.
Now, every user on a given machine will have read access to that shared folder. If a non-member of group "fcpusers" attempts to save a file there, however, an error message is likely to appear. One other possibility is that the file is saved, but with an "unknown" group ownership. This is because of a conflict between the groups the saving user is a member of and the attempted "inheritance" from the enclosing folder.
I want you to try the following. Please do this exactly as I outline it:
1) Create a new group in Netinfo Manager. Duplicate the "admin" group. Change the name of the duplicate to "fcpusers," then delete the "realname," "generateduid," and "smb_sid" properties. Change the GID to "101." Select the "users" property, then choose Directory>Insert Value. Type the short name of one of your users. Repeat this procedure for every user of FCP. Select any admin users in this group who will not be using FCP, and click the "Delete" icon. Finally, choose Domain>Save Changes.
2) Create a new folder in /Users/Shared. For this discussion we will assume that you will call it "FCP_Data." Further, we will assume that one of your FCP users is named "usera" (your terminology ;-)). Open Terminal. Since you seem to be well-versed in the use of Terminal, I will simply post the commands needed:
<pre style="overflow:auto; font-family: 'Monaco'; font-size: 10px">sudo chown usera:fcpusers /Users/Shared/FCP_Data
sudo chmod g+w /Users/Shared/FCP_Data</pre>
3) Before anyone begins saving files in this directory, make sure that their umask is changed using TinkerTool. Also, I recommend that all media gets saved here, too. I'm not sure how close FCP is to iMovie, if it doesn't save all data in a "package," but it is likely that media is being referenced using "placeholders." If this is the case, and media for a given project is scattered all over the file system, there could indeed be ownership issues. If media needs to be on externals, this same "shared" folder can be created there. Just make sure that #1, the volume has "ownership and permissions" in effect, and #2 all media is kept within the "shared" directory structure.
You must use TinkerTool to change the umask such that members of the group have read/write permission. TinkerTool doesn't specifically say this, but the corresponding umask is "002" (the OS X default is "022"). BTW, umask is subtracted from the "full permissions" value of "666" when saving non-executable files ("777" for folders and executables).
Once you have a properly configured "shared" folder and a proper umask in place, your users can begin to populate the shared directory. If any existing projects are to be added, they must be copied by a user into the shared directory, not simply moved. Only when a copy is made will the new copy inherit the proper group ownership. Just to be sure, I will include one more set of commands to use, once the shared directory has been populated:
<pre style="overflow:auto; font-family: 'Monaco'; font-size: 10px">sudo chown -R usera:fcpusers /Users/Shared/FCP_Data
sudo chmod -R g+w /Users/Shared/FCP_Data</pre>
Please follow these instructions carefully, then report the results. This should work, and without using ACLs.
Scott

Sharing iTunes Library between user accounts...possible?

Hello all,
I'm an experienced Mac user but am currently setting up a new iMac for my family. I've never had more than one user account because I'm the only one who uses my macbook but now my family wants 3 different user accounts for the new iMac in their home.
Because I only use my one user account at home, I never thought about the fact that different user accounts would also split up iTunes music libraries. If I import music from a CD, I would like that to be accessible and available when using any 1 of the 3 user accounts. Is this possible?
For example, my mother and father purchase CDs together...so they both own the same albums. They want to share music on the iMac, but if I import discs twice it takes up twice the amount of time and much more importantly twice the amount of space. How can I get around this??? Can one user access another users iTunes library and make that the default folder?
Thanks for your help as always!!

What you need to do is locate the iTunes Music Folder that contains the actual music in a location that is read/writable by all users. By definition, the security on each user's home folder keeps others out.
A common suggestion is to locate the music in the /Users/Shared/ folder and make sure that everyone has read/write privileges. Bear in mind that means that anyone will be able to delete all the shared music.

Having trouble sharing music content between users on one notebook computer

I'd like to set my daughters' music content to a shared folder so that they'll both be able to access it without creating duplicates on their limited storage space. I've tried the following technique on my girls' new Asus nootbook to no avail: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1203 In fact, their iTunes can't seem to accept the new "public" location or any other settings like 'Libray Name:' or 'Copy files to iTunes Media folder...' After I make the requisite setting changes to either of their user accounts or the Admin account, when I check to see if the changes 'stuck', everything is back to the default setting and locations. Am I missing something? I would hope that running Windows 7 starter wouldn't have anything to with it, but you never know.

hmm, 33 views, 0 replies in one week. Guess I'm SOL, as they say.

Sharing music library between users

I have just upgraded my Powerbook to Leopard.
I have added two new users.
How can I share my iTunes music library with them.
On my administrator login and on theirs I have gone to iTunes preferences and ticked
Look for shared library
Share my Library on my local network
however they do not get access to my music
thanks
Pete

Thank you.
OK I followed the instructions in the link.
I moved the administrators iTunes Music folder to the computer / Users / Shared folder.
Then I changed the Preference in the admin's iTunes to choose the new location of the folder as instructed. (I chose the Shared folder as the location, not the iTunes Music folder itself)
Then I got a dialog box asking if I wanted iTunes to organize the files and I clicked Yes.
(then I rebooted iTunes)
Then I looked in the Shared folder and was surprised to see that the Shared folder was full of lots of folders of artists names which contain music files. Also in there was the iTunes Music folder which contained a few folders of artists names.
Is this correct? Should all the artist folders be inside the iTunes folder?
Lastly the sharing does not seem to have worked. When I log in as one of the other (non admin) users, and change their iTunes Preferences to locate their ITunes folder as the computer Shared folder, then reboot iTunes, the music is NOT accessible to them. (no music showing in their library)
In the link instructions it says to "follow the above steps for all users who want to share their music"
well as mentioned I changed the non admin users iTunes Preferences to specify the new location inside the Shared folder
but if I also try to follow the step of moving the non admin users iTunes Music folder to the computer Shared folder it asks me if I want to replace it - so I assume I should not duplicate this step.
PHEW !!
Also I noticed in the admins home folder there is also a Shared folder which seems to be a different one to the computer Shared folder. (this one contains other music files)
THANKS FOR YOUR HELP
Pete
London
UK
Message was edited by: Peter Whitaker

Share files from the Library/Application Support folder between user accounts?

I am using Mac OS 10.10.2, and am having trouble with allowing my son's user account to see his Minecraft files which are on my user account (User/Library/Application Support/Minecraft) how do I make it so that Minecraft will find and use these files rather than the empty folder on his own user account?
thanks!

Thank you! I should have thought of that. So, what I actually did was go into finder, "get info" on the Minecraft folder, and check the "share folder" box in the info window. I was then able to open his saved worlds on his account, and doing it this way will mean any changes to them can be accessed from my account as well.
Thanks again!

Sharing music files between users while maintaining ratings

I have two users on my MacBook Pro which I use every day. One is my normal "home" user I use when at home. The other is my "work" user which I use at work (I'm a software developer, so I have a separate environment for that).
All of my new music gets downloaded/copied to my "home" user.
To get the music into iTunes on my "work" user, I've taken a couple steps:
1) I made an alias of my "Music" folder under the iTunes library in my "home" user and moved it to a more publically accessable location "/".
2) In my "work" user, I've opened the preferences, gone to the "Advanced" tab, unchecked "Copy files to iTunes Media folder when adding a library," and changed my iTunes Media folder location to the /Music alias.
This works great. However, I've taken the time to rate all of the songs under my "home" user, and I'd really like those ratings to show up for my "work" user.
There is 1 solution which is to copy the "iTunes Library.itl" and "iTunes Library.xml" files from my "home" user to my "work" user. However, this is cumbersome.
Is there some way I can make the ratings just show up/sync? Ideally, adding music under "home" would also automatically show up under "work," too.
Thanks.

andylow wrote:
Thanks for your response.
I do understand that what I want to do is not possible with iTunes if I can't get both users to use the same library file.
Both users can access the same iTunes library file.
However, it can only be accessed by one user at a time. (you can't have iTunes open on your home machine and work machine at the same time).
Hold Option and launch iTunes.
Select Choose library... and select the iTunes folde in the you moved to a more publicly accessible location.
That's all you need to do.
Make sure you quit iTunes when you want to access the library while on the other computer.

Sharing Music between User Accounts

Hello,
I've been trying to share a single itunes music folder between two accounts on the same computer. I've read dozens of threads on this topic in these forums, and still can't seem to get this to work.
Right now, I'm going back to basics and simply trying to put the iTunes music folder in a Public folder, which can be accessible by both user accounts. I've followed the instructions documented in the following article:
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=93195
When I do this, I have a problem with permissions. If I move or copy the music folder on one user account to a public folder - when I switch over to the other user account, and access that public folder, some of the individual music folders within the itunes music folder are accessible, and then on others, I am denied permission. There does not seem to be anything unique about the folders that I don't have permissions on, compared to those that I do.
Any thoughts? Thanks.
ML
iMac G5, Mac Mini Intel Mac OS X (10.4.8)

Hi,
Thanks for the reply.
I did a copy paste of the iTunes Music folder into a new iTunes Music folder under Users/Shared. When I switch over to the other user account, I get the same results. Some folders are accessible and some folders I have no access. It's strange as about 25% of the music folders are No Access, and the others are readable.
Any further thoughts? Thanks,
ML

Sharing Music Between Users Accounts on a Single Computer

I know that you can listen to music belonging to another user account on the same computer (as long as that user remains logged in), however, is there a way to COPY (drag and drop) music from one user account to another user account (on the same computer) similar to how it is done between multiple computers with Home Sharing?

iTunes: How to share music between different accounts on a single computer - http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1203 - relocating iTunes' media folder to a shared area but leaving separate library files - extra tip at https://discussions.apple.com/message/17331189

I'm trying to share folder between users on a single mac. I put the folder in "shared," set permissions so other user can read and write, enabled file sharing, but can't find the folder on the second user's account. Any help?

I'm trying to share a folder between users on a single mac. I want both users to be able to read and write so the folder stays current on both accounts. I put the folder in "shared," set permissions on folder so other user can read and write, enabled file sharing, but can't find the folder on the second user's account. Any help?

Did you log out of one account and into the other or just used Fast user switching?
Is the permissions set to anyone?
When you move data to teh Shared folder is it copied or just moved?
If copied then it's not a folder both can access, just a way station like a USB thumb drive that things are coped too and off of likely.
You can run this #5 on each user account to reset the user permissions once they are taken back out of the Shared folder
Step by Step to fix your Mac

Sharing between User Accounts

I'm new to Macs and need some help.
I have 2 user accounts on my mac and want to share picture and music files between the accounts. Both can be read & write. All my music is in the iTunes music folder. Even when I share that folder I can't get to the files on the other account. Each artist has their own folder within the iTunes music folder and they all have the minus symbol beside them when viewing from the 2nd account. How do I share these files between user accounts?
Also, where do I save my pictures so that they can be seen on both accounts?
I started to share all the folders with in iTunes but that was taking forever so I quit the process and now my public folders are not showing as shared in the preferences. How do I get my sharing preferences back to the default settings?

I now have my mac set up just the way i want. thanks for the input you all gave! How I did it:
in the file sharing system prefs i deleted the "ghost" folders that were showing. I call them ghost folders because they were grayed out and not clickable. They were pointing to a folder that I had removed from my system because I deleted my user account so that i could start over from scratch to set things up right from the beginning. This still left these folders in the sharing menu so I just had to delete them one at a time until they were all gone making everything look clean again.
I learned that sharing files between user accounts on the same computer (and even the guest account) can only be done with files that are in the public folder. Adding my iTunes Music folder to the sharing list did not share my mp3 across users on the same computer. I just had to move the iTunes Music folder (not the iTunes folder) to the public folder so the other account could access it. Then I followed the directions in the link provided in this thread about sharing in iTunes. Now I don't have to have my wife's Maria Carry in my library! And she does not have to have my songs in her library!
For photos I placed the files in the public folder and just imported them into the iPhoto library for each account.
On a side note, having our own accounts allows us to set up the computer they way we want, but allows us to have access to the same files. I'll be adding a 500gb hard drive to it soon for time machine and can't wait to have that set up. My only question now is when can i add time capsule? Can I add it as a 2nd wireless network in addition to my linksys wrt54g2 that is connected to the cable modem (i need the linksys connected to the internet for xbox live and ps3's network), i know i would then connect the external HDD to it for more storage, therefore I guess I would move all mp3's and picture files onto it freeing space on the computer and just direct both user accounts to the files on the HDD connected to time capsule.

Sharing libraries between user accounts question

After many years of having one user account on our iMac, I have decided to segregate user accounts for me and my wife. I'm doing this because I have an iPhone and she is going to get one soon. When we sync our respective iPhones, we want to keep iCal and and Address book information unique to each user account. What I'm trying to figure out is how to share iPhoto and iTunes content between user accounts. I know there is a share preference that will allow the master libraries in these applications to be shared, but the photo albums and playlists created on the original user account are not "shared". Would it be possible to have playlists from iTunes and albums/events from iPhoto to be shared between user accounts? This would enable my wife to sync all her iPhone data from her user account. Thanks in advance.

I have an idea that uses a different approach. I haven't done this for this purpose, so if you decide to try, please do it one step at a time so you can undo it. I'll explain it for iTunes.
Instead of using the Sharing preference in iTunes, put the iTunes Music folder in a location that can be accessed from both accounts. You might use an external drive, or the <hard drive>/Users/Shared folder.
iTunes should NOT be running. Go to /Users/<username>/Music/iTunes folder. In that folder is the iTunes Music folder. Copy this folder to a location on the external drive or to the Shared user folder. Rename the original iTunes Music folder another name, such as iTunes Music Old. Make an alias of the new iTunes Music folder (in the shared location) and put it in the user's iTunes folder (where iTunes Music Old now resides). Rename it "iTunes Music" if necessary (you are making the alias take the place of the actual iTunes Music folder). * It is very important that the name be exact.
Start iTunes. All of your music and other media should be accessible as if the iTunes Music folder is where it used to be. To prove to yourself that the files are being accessed from the new shared location, do a Get Info on a couple of songs in iTunes. "Where" should show the file to be in the new location. To prove to yourself that you can add new content to the new location, download a free song from the iTunes Store (or a Podcast) or rip a CD. Then do a Get Info on the new item.
Up to here, I'm confident it will work, because I have done it. The rest is "theory"...
Copy the old user's /Users/<username>/Music/iTunes folder (except the now duplicated iTunes Music Old folder) to the shared location. You are only doing this step so that it will be available when you log in as the new user (your wife's account), which is the next step.
Log out and log in to the new account.
Copy everything in the old user's iTunes folder (that you just put in the shared location) to the new user user's /Users/<username>/Music/iTunes folder. Replace any duplicated items. You want the new user's iTunes folder to look exactly like the old user's iTunes folder (except for iTunes Music Old). Hopefully, that iTunes Music alias will connect to the actual iTunes Music folder at the shared location. Try it. Run iTunes as the new user. Hopefully, everything looks like the old user's iTunes. Do the tests like before to prove it.
At this point, the two iTunes "looks" will start to diverge. But at least the starting point will be the same.
If something does not work as expected, log in to the old user's account. With iTunes NOT running, go to /Users/<username>/Music/iTunes folder. Delete the iTunes Music alias. Rename the iTunes Music Old folder back to iTunes Music. Everything should be back to the way it was.
If it works to your satisfaction, you can eventually delete that iTunes Music Old folder.
I don't use iPhoto, but if iTunes works, you can do the equivalent steps for iPhoto.

I have one imac. my wife and i each have our own user accounts and itunes library. How do we share selected music between user accounts?

i have one imac. my wife and i each have our own user accounts and itunes library. How do we share selected music between user accounts?

To give other users read-only access to your library, use the Sharing features of iTunes. Sharing works over the local network as well as on the same computer. See the built-in help for details.
If you want to give full read/write access to more than one user, see the support article linked below.
iTunes: How to share music between different accounts on a single computer

Basic File Sharing question between user accounts on my iMac

I don't understand how to be able to share and download to one common folder among User Accounts on my iMac. I am trying to use a Clean Account as a test, and wanted to copy a file I downloaded from the web in one account into this clean account folder, and install the file.
I went to Sharing and thought I turn File Sharing on. Logged into the Clean account and Apple+I the folder, changing access priviledges to the folder. Then copy the file into the Clean User Account.
But it doesn't work that way. Can anyone help me understand sharing between accounts?

File Sharing is for sharing files between two different machines, not between different accounts on the same machine. If you want to share files on one machine, you just need to put them in a folder everyone has access to, like the /Users/shared folder. Also, don't go fooling around with folder permissions... that's a good way to mess things up. If I had a nickel for every time someone messed up their system using the "Apply to enclosed items" option when changing permissions, I'd be a rich man!

Sharing music folder between user accounts?

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