How-to: Share a single iTunes library between you and your wife
Filed under: How To
Update 11May2009: I’ve posted a screencast demonstrating some basic aspects of how iTunes manages your music library and how to then share the library with another user. Consider this iTunes Library 101 for those looking for a visual way to follow along!
Well it doesn’t have to be the Mrs. really. Just any other person with a separate user account on your Mac.
You see, Apple’s done a decent job of giving each user a separate workspace (it’s called your Home Folder) for all your pics, docs, tunes, flicks, email, passwords, and the list goes on. Normally it’s great. One login and you’ve got access to all your stuff, and you don’t have to worry about messing up the other persons. Need to switch back and forth? Fast user switching has you covered. The problem arrises for those special cases where you don’t want two (or more) separate iTunes libraries for example. Or maybe you want to share your iPhoto Library or Address Book in the same way.
Apple should definitely make this easier on folks by flipping a preference somewhere, but in reality, with a little know-how, you too can share a single iTunes Library across multiple users.
Let’s get started.
Hang on a sec… time out. Before you go messing around with your pristine music collection you do have a backup ready just in case? Right? Bueller?… Bueller? Oh right, of course you do. You’re using Time Machine. Carry on.
Step 1) – First things first. You really want to have all your iTunes content (music, TV, movies, etc) in a single library. I suspect for most folks this will mean needing to copy a few tracks from one user’s library to another so I won’t dwell on it. If you get stuck, just hit up the comments below.
Step 2) – You need to move your iTunes Library to a folder on your computer where all users can access it. I use /Users/Shared but you could also use an external firewire or network drive.
Apple has a detailed article on Moving your iTunes Music Library so check that out for specifics. Essentially you’re going to tell iTunes where you want your new library to be, and then use the Consolidate Library option to move it all there.
Step 3) – So far so good. Now, for each other user account. Hold down the Option Key while launching iTunes. Instead of opening directly, a dialog will ask you to ‘Choose iTunes Library’. Hit Choose Library and browse to wherever you saved your library in Step 2. Rinse and repeat for each user that needs to access it.
Step 4) – It’s worth double checking the permissions on the new folder just to be sure you all have access. Browse to the iTunes Library folder and hit get info. For me this is /Users/Shared/iTunes. In the sharing and permissions section at the bottom you’ll want to add all of the users using the library with Read & Write Privilege.
Well, hopefully that helps. I’ll go into a bit more detail on how we’re sharing the iTunes library and syncing multiple iPods, contacts, calendars, etc to it later. In the meantime, let me know if you’re stuck.
Assumptions: Everyone’s setup is different so if you’ve fiddled with your library in the past and have some special circumstances, take extra care to ensure your music is backed up. If you get stuck, plug away in the comments below.
Also, note that sharing a library means sharing playcounts, playlists, ratings, tags, metadata, etc. If the you absolutely need to rate Fergie’s My Humps a 1 star while the Mrs. gives it a 5, prepare for a rate-off. For us the benefit of having a single library and not needing to worry about syncing purchases between the two accounts is a better proposition.
29 comments
Thanks for the detailed description given above – but I still got stuck in step 3). I moved the consolidated library from my music folder to HD/users/shared to let my husband access it. Everyhting works well in my account. I choose the library located in users/shared/itunes while in my husbands account and get the message “The itunes file is locked, on a locked disc or you do not have write permission for this file”, even though I gave read & write permissions in finder. What am I doing wrong? Thanks for your help.
Hi Annette,
My first guess is that you still had iTunes open on your account when opening on your husbands account. I probably should have mentioned it above, but iTunes can only open 1 copy of your library at a time.
If you’re using fast user switching to switch to your husband’s account, you’ll need to make sure you close iTunes on yours first.
If you log out completely before he logs in however, you shouldn’t need to worry about it because iTunes is already closed.
If that doesn’t do the trick it may be an issue with the permissions. Please let me know how it goes!
Thanks, David – yes, I hap iTunes open in my account when I opened Tim’s account. Now everything works perfectly well, I already imported a CD on his account and it showed up when logged in on my account – great! Thank you again.
Hi David,
I am trying to follow your instructions but I am stuck at step 3.
I followed the instructions given in the Apple article for step 2 but if I understand correctly, this only moves the “iTunes Music” subfolder of the iTunes library (which is by default “~/Music/iTunes”, and contains additional folders and files such as “iTunes Library”…).
Now at step 3, the Choose Library dialog expects to find a whole iTunes library and not just a shared “iTunes Music” folder…
What am I doing wrong ?
Thanks for your help.
Hi Jeremie, looking at those Apple dogs again I see what you mean about only consolidating the Music and not re actual Library. I don’t recall having to fidle with that so something may have changed and I’m on the road at the moment so can’t test this out but let me see if I’ve understood correctly.
Are you running on a Mac and using the latest version of iTunes?
Where have you managed to copy your music too? From the sounds of it this folder should have all of your music but none of the library files in it, right?
Is your library still in the old location as well?
What I’m thinking is… If you’ve made sure to copy the other persons music into your primary library (step 1), those library files should be the ones you want to keep. You should be able to just copy them into the same place in the new iTunes location (which is where by the way?) and then complete step 3.
If that doesn’t make much sense jet try to give me as much detail as you can about the specifics of your situation and we’ll take it from there! Good luck!
Hi David,
I’m indeed running on an Intel iMac with MacOS 10.5.6 and iTunes 8.1.1 (10). I managed to copy my music to “/Users/Shared/iTunes Music” following the instructions in the Apple article. This folder contains all my music (sorted into artist/album subfolders) but the iTunes library files remain in “~/Music/iTunes”. Here are the contents of this latter folder (after
I removed the original iTunes Music folder as told at step 13 of the Apple article) :
Album Artwork
Previous iTunes Libraries
iTunes Library
iTunes Library Extras.itdb
iTunes Library Genius.itdb
iTunes Music Library.xml
sentinel
All this holds for my own account. On my wife’s account (the basic requirement of your how-to being fulfilled
, as I told you I cannot apply your step 3 since “/Users/Shared/iTunes Music” is not an iTunes library. I do not believe I can simply copy the library files there since they are supposed to be in a parent folder. What I tried is creating her own library but applying step 2 again to change the location of her music. Doing that, her collection remains empty : iTunes does not seems to detect that its music folder is non-empty. I tried manually updating the collection via “Cmd-O”… Now iTunes sees the music and it fortunately does not seem to generate duplicate music files. But I guess this means that one has to do such manual updates as soon as new music is added.
Before trying your how-to, I tried moving the whole iTunes library in /Users/Shared and replacing ~/Music/iTunes by an alias. But this had problems related to permissions : iTunes could only be opened on one account at a time, and recently it simply stopped working : some files were only read/writable by one user and some other files by the other. A complete mess…
Thanks for any suggestions.
Hmmm… just getting settled back in here after being away… let me take a closer look at this and get back to you.
I’m having issues with davids solution as well. I moved my iTunes library from an external hard drive on my iMac to an external drive attached to my AEBS. I have followed all the steps, now when I try to point iTunes from my macbook at this folder using the option key when launching, I get the error message, “No library file exists.” I noticed that on my iMac, ~/Music/iTunes folder contains all the same files Jeremie listed. It did not move the Library file, I just moved all my data. Therefore, iTunes on my Macbook is looking for a library file that does not exist. I tried coping this out to the Airport Disk, but it still says there is no library file. Stumped.
Hi folks… thanks for pointing out the discrepancy. I’ve walked through the steps again and I think I see where the confusion and issue is coming from so let me build on Step 2 a bit.
Depending on what your initial situation is, certain parts of the iTunes article I reference may not apply. I’ve made a screencast to clarify but let me try to explain as well.
Let’s split Step 2 into two parts.
Step2A) Open iTunes -> Preferences and click on the Advanced tab. Are the ‘Keep iTunes Music Folder’ and ‘Copy files to iTunes’ boxes checked? If so, skip to Step2B.
If they’re not checked, you should check them both and then click ok to close the preferences. Then click File -> Library -> Consolidate Library. This will ensure all of your music is in one place in your EXISTING iTunes library folder.
[Note that the iTunes article goes into a slightly different approach where you're consolidating your music to an external drive but Andy and Jeremie are right, the library files are left behind. Sorry for the confusion!]
Step2B) Once all your music is in a single folder you just need to copy the entire Library folder into /Users/Shared.
For those of you stuck, give this a try and let me know if it works for you or not. If so, I’ll update the post above to clarify things.
Also, The screencast will be up shortly so I’ll post the link once it’s up and it may help clarify the process.
Also, Re: Jeremie
As for Annette above, with this approach it will be true that only one person can have iTunes open at a time. The iTunes library files are modified when playing music so two instances of iTunes can’t be open at once. The trick is just to remember to close iTunes when you’re done if you use ‘fast user switching’ to bounce between accounts.
Once or twice in the last year or two I’ve also noticed issues where Jen’s account can’t open the library due to a permissions error. This is resolved by reapplying permissions for her to the music library by ‘Getting Info’ on the iTunes Library Folder and ensuring everyone’s account has Read & Write permissions listed in the Sharing & Permissions panel at the bottom. Questions, just shout.
Hi David,
Thanks for your precise reply ! I followed your instructions and moved the whole Itunes folder from ~/Music to /Users/Shared, and set up shared permissions. Then on both accounts I launched iTunes with the Option key so as to tell it where to find the shared library.
This seems to work as you mention. It is a bit early to tell if the permission error will happen again once or twice in the year, I’ll shout in that case
All the best,
Jeremie
Thanks for the reply David. I gave this more thought and have not given it a try yet. I’m considering not sharing a library file, just incase the wife and I both want to listen to music at the same time? If I give it a try again, it took me 5hrs to move my library to the air disk, I’ll let you know what I find out.
@Andy
Out of curiosity… how are you considering both listening at the same time? See there’s a distinction between having a single iTunes library (rather than a separate his and her’s), and being able to listen to it simultaneously.
Now what I said above is still true that you both can’t have iTunes open accessing the same library… BUT what you can do is share your library over your local network so that it’s accessible on other computers in your house.
We do this as well so we have 1 library on the upstairs iMac which is shared over wifi to the Powerbook laptop and the MacMini which is the center of our home entertainment setup. You’ll find the settings under the Sharing tab in Preferences.
We will be able to read the same shared file at the same time, as long as we aren’t using the same itunes library (database) file, right? Or no? I’m thinking simply from a typical shared file standpoint. if I look at file a on the iMac and she is looking at file b on her macbook, why wouldn’t we be able to do that?
Just to give you an update David. I copied my old, iMac, iTunes Library file, moved it onto my shared AirDisk, referenced that from the macbook and now I can play music and movies from the macbook. However, some of my playlists aren’t quite right. But, thats minor. Testing the syncability (drinking B/L) of the shared library file.
I’ve confirmed #14 above. As long as each copy of iTunes does not reference the exact same library file you can play your content simultaneously from multiple iTunes applications.
If you do reference the same iTunes library file, there is a bit of an annoyance. the iTunes application window opens to the same size it was the last time you closed it. So, if you’re on a 24″ iMac like me, adjust the window to your liking, then jump on your 13″ macbook, open iTunes, the window goes way off the screen. LMAO.
At this point I’m just happy things work, I’ll try to figure out what it is I want to do exactly. I like not having to hunt through our shared folder for any new content added by someone, but I also like being able to play content at the same time and to keep our ratings and playlists. . . hmm. Decisions decisions. Thanks for your help David.
No problem… I think you hit the nail there in #16 about needing to decide what works best for you. The simple case (1 iTunes library per account in the standard Music folder) is easy. Once you start moving it to shared folders and network drives things get a bit trickier. I suspect Apple will address this eventually with some sort of ‘Shared library’ or ‘Music hub’ mode but for now we do it the manual way.
By the way… here’s the video screencast I pulled together for those still trying to figure this out.
http://davidjduran.com/2009/05/11/how-to-consolidate-an-itunes-library/
First, I wanted to thank you for having this available. Even though I can’t get my instance to work yet, it is still valuable and worthwhile to all who read it, so thanks!
I have done everything above…checked permissions, etc. I have fast switching enabled, and my library resides on an external USB powered drive. Upon switching, the drive is seen on each user’s desktop. The library works fine on mine, but when i switch user’s and point iTunes on my wife’s account to the same library on the external HDD, it displays “no library can be found”. Just curious what you think the problem could be. As a side note, I have made sure that the itunes not in use on the other account is closed. Thanks for any thoughts you may be able to give….
Hmmm… What exactly is saying “no library can be found”? When you’re trying to change the library on the 2nd account?
How are you trying to change the library? By holding ‘Option’ when launching iTunes or in the iTunes preferences?
I just tried this by creating a new test library on my external firewire drive and it worked ok so I’m trying to understand if there’s something specific that will recreate the issue.
Dude I am so sorry. I was only selecting the folder iTunes, and not the Library File itself. It worked fine when I did that. Now, I’m curious how the shared library will behave when I introduce my wife’s iPhone to it as well (from and app stand point).
Hopefully someone will read this and not make the same mistake I made. Thanks again for making this available.
p.s.-I added you as a friend on Flickr. Hope you don’t mind.
Glad it’s working Bill and thanks for checking things out on Flickr… the more the merrier.
I think you’ll find both iPhones will work just fine and now that you have a single library you’ll be able to install whichever apps you like on both of your devices. I only have 1 iPhone so haven’t tested that out but let me know how it goes!
Hi David, nice site and thanks for the help, I got both my girlfriend’s and my account to use the same library after correcting step 2. It seems that apple really don’t want us to do this, they make the point that you should not move the library files (which of course is fundamental to this solution).
Anyway, we got each other ipods for Christmas. After setting up the single library, my girlfriend registered her iTouch in her name and created her own apple store account. I have a nano and before I go into my user account I have a question. Is is ok to register this in my name and create a different account? Should I use the same one?
Thanks for you help.
@Dave
You should be fine to register these with your own Apple Store accounts if you want to keep them separate. In the past you could authorize up to 5 computers to play music bought on iTunes. For example, music bought on your girlfriend’s iTunes Store account could be authorized to play in her account on your mac, your account on your Mac, and up to 3 other places. Since Apple switched to DRM free music however I don’t believe you even have to deal with that.
Bottom line is you should be fine to either share a single iTunes store account or create two separate ones.
Hi – thanks for doing this.
Did you know that there is the “Sharing” function in iTunes that makes this *really* simple?
iTunes->Preferences->Sharing “Share Entire Library” (or selected playlists if you wish).
Go to the other account.
iTunes-Preferences->Sharing and select “Look for shared libraries”
Then select the iTunes library under the shared section.
You may have this covered already, if so, sorry. But I’ve heaps of issues moving and consolidating libraries in my work and I would advise caution before attempting it!
Cheers
Thanks for the detailed explanation, David. Gonna give this a whirl since your solution seems a little more elegant than my previous (and permissions-plagued) attempts to fool itunes into sharing music folders.
@Phillip – Your function isn’t quite the same thing: iTunes->Preferences->Sharing “Share Entire Library” is great, but reading another user’s shared library only works while that user is both logged in AND actually running iTunes. Depending on how one shares a computer, this can be rather frustrating (switch user, log in, start itunes, switch back, access shared music…). And a bit of a memory hog, too.
@Philip – For some this approach may work fine if you can live with the limitations @Andrew mentioned. With iTunes 9 Apple improved this feature quite a bit actually. They call it Home Sharing and it allows you to copy music from up to 5 computers in your home easily from within iTunes. Check out this link for more info:
http://www.apple.com/itunes/features/#bonjoursharing
What a great chain of instructions but I didn’t see my question. What if wife and I have ipods of different storage capacity? Can you independently click and unclick what will be synced to each pod as required to stay within each’s capacity (ie. via man or woman accounts)?
@Dave – Good question… and yes, there are definitely ways of handling this. If you follow the steps as above you end up sharing a single library which means you’ll both see identical playlists, genius lists, ratings, etc.
The easiest way to do this is to create separate playlists for you and your wife. When you plug in your iPod you can then select only the playlists you want synced and when she plugs in hers she can do the same, but you each end up choosing only what you want.
With the recent ‘Genius’ playlist option it’s pretty easy to pick a few songs you like, make genius playlists, and then save them to sync to your iPod.
If you rely only on checking or unchecking the individual tracks and enabling the ‘Sync only checked songs or videos’ option, you’ll quickly find that this is an all or nothing affair and you won’t have the control you’re after.
For more on playlists see the iTunes video tutorial from Apple:
http://www.apple.com/itunes/how-to/#video-playlists
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