Sync iCal across multiple user accounts

I'm trying to do what I would think would be an easy and oft-requested endeavor -- sync iCal calendars across different User accounts on my computer as well as my work computer. To illustrate, I'd like to be able to schedule an event on iCal and have it show up in my wife's calendar, which is in a separate User Account on my Mac. Of course, I'd like to see her events as well AND see them on iCal on my work computer. Can this be done?

Interesting, never knew there was an iCloud website. Ironically, it wouldn't open in Safari (just got a spinning progress wheel), but it opened up fine in Chrome. :/
So, I logged into iCloud under my wife's Apple ID, clicked on the calendar icon, then clicked on those icons to the right of the two calendars shown (Home and Work), selected Private Calendar, and added my email address which is linked to my Apple ID. I hoped that would do the trick to allow me to see her calendar entries in iCal in my account, but it didn't.
Am I correct that the process outlined above should display my wife's entries onto my iCal calendar? Or do I need to go view her calendar online somewhere instead of seeing the entries on my own iCal calendar?

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Sharing an iTunes Library across multiple user account and a network.

Sharing an iTunes Music Library across multiple user accounts.
Hello Everybody!
Firstly, this was designed to be run in Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger. It will not work with earlier versions of Mac OS X! Sorry.
Here's a handy tip for keeping your hard drive neat and tidy, it also saves space, what in effect will be done is an iTunes music library will be shared amongst multiple users on the same machine. There are advantages and disadvantages to using this method.
• Firstly I think it might be worthwhile to state the advantages and disadvantages to using this approach.
The advantages include:
- Space will be saved, as no duplicate files will occur.
- The administrator will be able to have complete control over the content of the iTunes library, this may be useful for restricting the content of the Library; particularly for example if computer is being used at and education institution, business or any other sort of institution where things such as explicit content would be less favorable.
- The machine will not be slowed by the fact that every user has lots of files.
The disadvantages to this system include.
- The fact that the account storing the music will have to be logged in, and iTunes will have to be active in that account.
- If the account housing the music is not active then nobody can use the iTunes library.
- There is a certain degree of risk present when an administrator account must be continually active.
- Fast User Switching must be enabled.
Overview:
A central account controls all music on the machine/network, this is achieved by storing iTunes files in a public location as opposed to in the user's directory. In effect the system will give all users across the machine/network access to the same music/files without the possibility of files 'doubling up' because two different users like the same types of music. This approach saves valuable disk space in this regard and may therefore prove to be useful in some situations.
This is a hearty process to undertake, so only follow this tutorial if you're willing to go all the way to the end of it.
Process:
Step 1:
Firstly, we need to organize the host library, I tidied mine up, removing excess playlists, random files, things like that. this will make thing a bit easier in the later stages of this process.
Once the library is tidied up, move the entire "iTunes" folder from your Home directory to the "//localhost" directory (The Macintosh HD) and ensure that files are on the same level as the "Applications", "Users", "Library" and "System" directories; this will ensure that the files in the library are available to all users on the machine (this also works for networks)
Optionally you can set the ownership of the folder to the 'administrator' account (the user who will be hosting the library.), you may also like to set the permissions of 'you can' to "Read & Write" (assuming that you are doing this through the user who will host the library); secondly you should set the "Owner" to the administrator who will be hosting the library and set their "access" to "Read & Write" (this will ensure that the administrator has full access to the folder). The final part of this step involves setting access for the "Others" tab to "Read Only" this will ensure that the other users can view but not modify the contents on the folder.
Overview:
So far we have done the following steps:
1. Organized the host library.
2. Placed the iTunes directory into a 'public' directory so that other users may use it. (this step is essential if you plan on sharing the library across multiple accounts on the same machine. NOTE: this step is only necessary if you are wanting to share you library across multiple accounts on the same machine, if you simply want to share the music across a network, use the iTunes sharing facility.
3. set ownership and permissions for the iTunes music folder.
Step 2:
Currently the administrator is the only user who can use this library, however we will address this soon. In this step we will enable iTunes music sharing in the administrator's account, this will enable other users to access the files in the library.
If you are not logged in as the administrator, do so; secondly, open iTunes and select "Preferences" from the "iTunes" menu, now click the "Sharing" tab, if "share my library on my local network" is not checked, the radio buttons below this will now become active, you may choose to share the entire libraries contents, or share only selected content.
Sharing only selected content may be useful if their is explicit content in the library and minors use the network or machine that the library is connected to.
If you have selected "share entire library" go to Step 3, if you have selected share "share selected playlists" read on.
After clicking "share selected playlists" you must then select the playlists that you intend to share across your accounts and network. Once you have finished selecting the playlists, click "OK" to save the settings.
Overview:
In this step we:
1. Enabled iTunes sharing in the administrator's account, now, users on the local network may access the iTunes library, however, users on the same machine may not.
Step 3:
Now we will enable users on the same machine to access the library on the machine. This is achieved by logging in as each user, opening iTunes, opening iTunes preferences, and clicking "look for shared music". now all users on the machine may also access the library that the administrator controls.
This in effect will mean that the user will not need to use their user library, it will be provided to them via a pseudo network connection.
As a secondary measure, I have chosen to write a generic login script that will move any content from the user's "Music/iTunes/iTunes Music" directory to the trash and then empties the user's trash.
This is done through the use of an Automator Application: this application does the following actions.
1. Uses the "Finder" action "Get Specified Finder Items"
1a. The user's "~/Music/iTunes/iTunes Music" folder
2. Uses the "Finder" action "Get Folder Contents"
3. Uses the "Finder" action "Move to Trash"
4. Uses the "Automator" action "Run AppleScript"
4a. with the following:
on run {input, parameters}
tell application "Finder"
empty trash
end tell
return input
end run
IMPORTANT: Once the script is adapted to the user account it must be set as a login item. in order to keep the script out of the way i have placed it in the user's "Library" directory, in "Application Support" under "iTunes".
Overview:
Here we:
1. Enabled iTunes sharing in the user accounts on the host machine, in effect allowing all users of the machine to view a single iTunes library.
2. (Optional) I have created a login application that will remove any content that has been added to user iTunes libraries, this in effect stops other users of the machine from adding music and files to iTunes.
Step 4:
If it is not already enabled, open system preferences and enable Fast User Switching in Accounts Options.
Summary:
We have shared a single iTunes library across multiple user account, while still allowing for network sharing. This method is designed to save space on machines, particularly those with smaller hard drives.
I hope that this hint proves to be helpful and I hope everybody will give me feedback on my process.
regards,
Pete.
iBook G4; 60GB Hard Drive, 512MB RAM, Airport Extreme Mac OS X (10.4.6) iWork & iLife '06, Adobe CS2, Final Cut Pro. Anything and Everything!!!

how to share music between different accounts on a single computer

File sharing across multiple user accounts on the same machine

Hello,
I try to figure out how multiple users (my wife and I) on the same mac can have equal access to files on the local drive without granting that access to all users on that machine or even the rest of the world.
My research sofar hasn't come up with a satisfying solution. Here are the solutions that I am looking at:
1. Enable a permission system that ensures access to both users in all cases (file/directory creation, copy and move).
I only found a suitable solution for creating and copying files/directories but not for moving them.
See the following articles for reference:
https://discussions.apple.com/message/20787617#20787617 Setting up a shared structure that works e.g. for iPhoto Library but not for moving files to and from
https://discussions.apple.com/message/4005647#4005647 Helpful information on POSIX Permissions, ACL's an Permission inheritance
This would be my first choice if I can get around the problem of moving files...
2. Disk Image
Create a disk image which ignores persmissions and set permissions for the file that contains the image instead.
Read this article to get further details: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1198
This solution will work but has a few disadvatages:
There's no mutual access from multiple user accounts since an image may only be mounted by one user at a time.
One has to create a startup script that mounts the image upon login which would create a first come first serve for access to the image content.
3. Using a file sharing protocol (e.g. afp or smb) locally.
The idea behind it is to have a server providing the files mutually to multiple users one the same machine. At them moment this seems to be the most promising approach to me.
Unfortunately I can get acces from another machine but not from the same machine. Has anyone ever tried to access the file sharing (afp or smb) from the same machine on which the server is located?
Has anyone got some helpful hints for me?
Thanks in advance.

Sorry, but you didn't specify details, and it was worth checking whether or not you had overlooked this approach.
The problem you're having (as I suppose you already know) is that any new disk item inherits the permissions of the folder it is originally created in in. These permissions (sensibly enough) need owner or administrator permission to change once they've been established; that will happen when you copy a file to a new location (because that's essentially creating a new file) but not when you move it. any of the following would work:
changing the permissions on newly created files for both users so that they all explicitly give r/w access to a particular group.
writing a droplet that would change the permissions of files dropped on it and move them programmatically to the shared folder
set up a folder action or launchd job that would watch the shared folder and automatically convert permissions on files placed in it.
The last would be the approach I would take, but... which appeals to you?

ICal synching across multiple user accounts

I recently set up 2 user accounts on my first iMac, one for me and one for my husband. We would like to maintain separate calendars and just e-mail common appointments back and forth. But we find that adding an appointment on one iCal calendar actually adds it to iCal on the other user account. Have I set it up incorrectly?
One note: when I first got the iMac last month, we started using iCal and other applications on a single account. The second account was added later.

Interesting, never knew there was an iCloud website. Ironically, it wouldn't open in Safari (just got a spinning progress wheel), but it opened up fine in Chrome. :/
So, I logged into iCloud under my wife's Apple ID, clicked on the calendar icon, then clicked on those icons to the right of the two calendars shown (Home and Work), selected Private Calendar, and added my email address which is linked to my Apple ID. I hoped that would do the trick to allow me to see her calendar entries in iCal in my account, but it didn't.
Am I correct that the process outlined above should display my wife's entries onto my iCal calendar? Or do I need to go view her calendar online somewhere instead of seeing the entries on my own iCal calendar?

Sync books across multiple iPads & accounts

Hey everyone,
I've got what is probably not that an unusual question. My company has a resource of PDF documents we want to be able to sync across multiple iPads. It's ok with the ones we own as we control the accounts but we have staff with their own iPads who want access to the documents through iBooks. I know there are workarounds like e-mailing them or using dropbox but we're talking upwards of 100 documents. Is there a way to sync a library like that without deleting the books the preson has purchased?
Thanks in advance

Interesting, never knew there was an iCloud website. Ironically, it wouldn't open in Safari (just got a spinning progress wheel), but it opened up fine in Chrome. :/
So, I logged into iCloud under my wife's Apple ID, clicked on the calendar icon, then clicked on those icons to the right of the two calendars shown (Home and Work), selected Private Calendar, and added my email address which is linked to my Apple ID. I hoped that would do the trick to allow me to see her calendar entries in iCal in my account, but it didn't.
Am I correct that the process outlined above should display my wife's entries onto my iCal calendar? Or do I need to go view her calendar online somewhere instead of seeing the entries on my own iCal calendar?

Syncing ical across multiple computers without .mac

Hi,
Is it possible to sync ical calendars across multiple computers in the same network or over the internet without .Mac? If I have a website or ftp server, can I use that instead to synce over the internet or is there an easier way? Thanks.

This is another related question.
Having at last extracted a decade of diaries from Palm Desktop as vCal (since you ask I had to go back to Classic as the app quit without writing the export file in Tiger and Leopard, even tho it is otherwise OK) I now have something I can import rather messily into iCal.
However as I have really bad internet access in the Boondocks where I live I don't want to use .Mac to sync between my iMac and iBook. Palm ran very happily from a thumb drive, but I don't see how I can do it as the powers that be seem to have made the data file invisible.
I'd like to move it to the thumb drive and have an alias on each Mac where the data should be - as I do with Palm.
Does anyone know the path, and if there is a problem doing it between Tiger and Leopard?
Cheers, Colin

Sharing the same keychain across multiple user accounts

Hello, Anyone know how to do this? Thanks in advance!

I have tried, without success to share a keychain between two accounts. In Keychain Access -> Edit -> Keychain List there is a Shared checkbox next to each keychain. If I click on that, the keychain disappears from the list of Keychains that you see when you open Keychain Access (and if necessary, click on Show Keychains). The keychain does not show up on any other account, either. The keychain is still there in ~/Library/Keychains.
Seems pretty useless, as does Apple's article "Mac OS X 10.4 Help -- Administering keychains for multiple user" at <http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?path=Mac/10.4/en/mh1775.html>.
Some idiot in the security world recommended that we split our account into administrator and non-administrator, and normally log on only to the non-administrator account. This forces me to try to share files, folder, and keychains, so I can get any work done while logged on from the administrator account. Mostly, I don't think Unix, or Mac OS X, was designed to share things. (This is not a Mac versus PC statement. I only have one account on the PCs I'm forced to use at work -- it may be just as hard or harder on a PC.)
This security advice is stupid! Don't do it. Do everything on one account or you will waste hours and hours trying to bridge the gap between them.
But I would like to know how to share a keychain, since Apple's help files SAY you can. Only it does not work.

How can i share files across multiple user accounts?

I have four user accounts on the same iMac and I'd like to be able to view the files within each account. When I try access one of the other three accounts through Finder, the folders have red minus signs on them. If I try to open one, I get an error message about not have the right authorities. However, I've given all four user accounts administrator access. Thanks.

Thanks for the response. Do I change the rights by opening the folder, clicking "Get Info" and chaning the permissions to "write and read?" If so, I did that. Is there anything else I need to do?

Syncing iCal between multiple users

My iMac is set up with multiple accounts (one for me, one for my wife and one for my son). We all use iCal to schedule events, etc. How in the world do I sync up all of our versions of iCal so that we can automatically see the events that each of us has created? iCal is useless unless we can have it auto sync between all users.

iCal really is not designed to work for more than one user.
However, you can each publish your calendars so that the others can subscribe:
Select a calendar from the list on the left of the screen.
Under the calendar menu, choose 'publish'
If you don't have .Mac you will need to choose the publish on a Private Server option. (If you do this, there's a good one at iCalx.com where you can create a new account.)
Look at the options when you do this, you will probably want at least to choose the auto update one.
Once you have published successfully, you can choose to send a mail to those who you wish to share with.
Your wife and son need just to open the mail and select the subscribe link.
IF you repeat this process for each of you, you will then have a view of what each of you is doing and when. Biggest downside I see to this, is if more than one of you is doing the same thing, you'll get repetition of that event.
In addition, there are numerous 3rd party solutions that you can find through something like versiontracker.com.

Can't sync ical across two users on the same Mac

I hope I can get some help.
My wife and I had our ical's sync'd when we had a .mac account. My .mac account expired and we upgraded to Mobileme. Since then we have not been able to sync our icals on the same mac.
I spent an hour with chatting with apple mobileme tech support to no avail.
Any suggestions or solution would be great.
Message was edited by: Neiler

Thanks for your reply, but this article is telling me to do exactly what I already tried. I just get the message: "The folder “Drop Box” can’t be opened because you don’t have permission to see its contents."

Sync iCal across multiple macs WITHOUT internet

Here is something for the experts out there...
I have a Mac at home, with my iCal.
I have a Mac at work, with an iCal.
How do i get these two computers to sync back and forth WITHOUT using the internet (i don't have the NET at home)...
I can sync my iPOD to my home calander, but when i get to work, it doesn't matter, because i would need my WORK computer to sync to my iPOD's calander, then i can update my work, put it BACK onto my iPOD and then do the same at home, but there doesn't seem to be this feature.. i need to be able to alter calander files and take them with me...

Interesting, never knew there was an iCloud website. Ironically, it wouldn't open in Safari (just got a spinning progress wheel), but it opened up fine in Chrome. :/
So, I logged into iCloud under my wife's Apple ID, clicked on the calendar icon, then clicked on those icons to the right of the two calendars shown (Home and Work), selected Private Calendar, and added my email address which is linked to my Apple ID. I hoped that would do the trick to allow me to see her calendar entries in iCal in my account, but it didn't.
Am I correct that the process outlined above should display my wife's entries onto my iCal calendar? Or do I need to go view her calendar online somewhere instead of seeing the entries on my own iCal calendar?

Workspaces across multiple user accounts

I utilize Adobe CC at work as a Team Member, and also at home (personal account). Is there any way to sync my workspaces automatically? I know Adobe Premiere CC has an option for this when syncing, but I don't see this option on any other CC product. Thanks!
Rich Valentine

Thanks Steve. I was a little worried about logging in at home using my work credentials, in order to obtain my workspaces and settings, though discovered that it wouldn't be a problem and did that last night.
Richard

1 Apple TV 2nd Gen, Windows 7 Computer with multiple user accounts

The issue that I am having is I have 1 Apple TV 2nd Gen and Windows 7 Computer with multiple user accounts.
When I log onto my Windows user account, open up Itunes and turn on home sharing my Apple TV work perfect but if another family member switches to their Windows user account without logging me out, the home share shows up on Apple TV but it just says "Loading ... Library" and never loads.
If we switch back to my user account, restart iTunes, everything is fine. Is there a way to keep my home share active in ATV2 across multiple user accounts? All of my video is under my account.

You can home-share multiple libraries but only use one account at a time.

Synchronizing multiple user accounts on the same computer

We bought a .mac family pack. Synchronizing 3 computers works great. But we cannot synchronize our 5 family member's multiple user accounts on the brand new iMac G5. Can it be true that synchronizing does not work between different user accounts on the same computer? To be able to do this was the prime motivator to buy a .mac family pack. Please someone tell us that we are doing something wrong!?
Cheers, Leo
PowerBook G4 Mac OS X (10.4.3) iMacG5 and G3

Leo,
I seem to be having better luck with what I think you are trying to do. Let me describe my situation.
I have accounts for my wife and I and each of our children on each of our several Macs.
For my wife's accounts (on each of the Macs) and my account (on each of the Macs) I enabled syncing via the preference pane. I did not sync the mail accounts (she has different e-mail accounts) but we did sync the addresses, bookmarks and such. We did not sync the calendars since we each "subscribe" to each others calendar.
On each machine and across the machines our "sync'd" information appears properly synchronized.
Now, here is one difference, I do NOT have a family pack. I only have my single .Mac account and I use that one account as the .Mac account for my wife and I. Now that I think about it, that would seem to be the big difference.
Might I suggest that you go into your wife's account and change her .Mac information to be YOUR information and see if it synchorizes.
Regards,
Tom

Sharing one iphoto library between multiple user accounts

I hav an extensive photo library and would like to share this across multiple users on the one computer. Am I able to do this without having to move the library to an external hard drive?

What you mean by 'share'.
If you want the other user to be able to see the pics, but not add to, change or alter your library, then enable Sharing in your iPhoto (Preferences -> Sharing), leave iPhoto running and use Fast User Switching to open the other account. In that account, enable 'Look For Shared Libraries'. Your Library will appear in the other source pane.
Any user can drag a pic from the Shared Library to their own in the iPhoto Window.
Remember iPhoto must be running in both accounts for this to work.
If you want the other user to have the same access to the library as you: to be able to add, edit, organise, keyword etc. The problem here is that OS X works very hard to keep your data safe and secure from the other users. You're trying to beat what's built in to the system. So, to beat the system
Quit iPhoto in both accounts
Move the iPhoto Library Folder to an external HD set to ignore permissions. You could also use a Disk Image or even partition your Hard Disk.
In each account in turn: Hold down the option (or alt) key and launch iPhoto. From the resulting dialogue, select 'Choose Library' and navigate to the new library location. From that point on, this will be the default library location. Both accounts will have full access to the library, in fact, both accounts will 'own' it.
However, there is a catch with this system and it is a significant one. iPhoto is not a multi-user app., it does not have the code to negotiate two users simultaneously writing to the database, and trying will cause db corruption. So only one user at a time, and back up, back up back up.
Lastly: This method seems a little clunky at first, but works very well. Most importantly, it uses the System to do the job for you.
Create a new Account on your Mac, call it Media. Create an iPhoto Library there. (BTW: This will work for iTunes too.)
Enable Sharing on the Library:(Preferences -> Sharing), leave iPhoto running and use Fast User Switching to open the other accounts. In those accounts, enable 'Look For Shared Libraries'. The Library will appear in the other source pane.
This means that both users will be able to see the pics. If you want to use a pic then simply drag it from the shared Library to your own in the iPhoto Window. This means that each user can have their own edits.
If you want to add photos to the Library: Log into the Media account for that purpose.
To make it all seamless: Set your Mac to log into the Media Account automatically. Set iPhoto to launch on log-in. Then switch to your own account using Fast User Switching.
Net result: a Library that's permanently available to all users but also protected. Each user can have their own versions of the pics if they want.
No partitioning, no permissions issues. Uses no extra disk space. What's not to like?
Regards
TD

Sync iCal across multiple user accounts

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