How-to: Consolidate an iTunes Library
Filed under: How To
Following some discussion over on my How-to: Share a single iTunes Library between you and your wife post, I’ve decided to pull together a screencast (my first!) to walk through how iTunes organizes your music library and how you can consolidate and move your library to share it with additional users. Hopefully the video serves as a nice complement to the other post.
Let me know what you think!
15 comments
You missed the key element about sharing iTunes between two users, and that is actually switching to the other user and setting up iTunes with that library.
You’ll find you can’t as the permissions are still setup for the user who originally did it.
Solution: Open Terminal, navigate to /Users/Shared
Enter the following command:
chmod -R 775 iTunes/
Done.
Hi Steve, Thanks for commenting…
You’re definitely right that changing the permissions is one possible way to go. In the video and my previous post however, I suggest using the Shared folder instead as I believe this is the easier way to go for most users. Shared is specifically there for things you want to share across user accounts and is a nice simple alternative to manually setting permissions on folders.
That said, if someone wants to leave their music in their Users folder for one reason or another. Changing the permissions as Steve suggests above is definitely doable.
Even using the Shared folder you need to change permissions, it’s a simple Unix permission issue. I am using the Shared folder for iTunes on 10.5.7 and the ONLY way to get it working in both accounts is to change the permissions.
I’ll be writing on my own blog about it shortly.
The point I was trying to make is that in your video you never switched to the other user to show how it really works.
Check your permissions on the /Users/Shared/iTunes folder and see what they are set to.
I’m going to have to disagree with you on needing to change permissions on Shared because all users will have access to Read and Write content to this folder. Link up your post here once it’s up and I’ll check it out to see if I’m missing something.
Ok a simple test. In Finder, go to /Users/Shared, create a new folder called ‘test’. Press Command+I or right click and choose Get Info.
At the bottom in Sharing and Permissions it will list:
username (Me): Read and write
a group: Read only
everyone: Read only
The other user is in the group section, ie Read only. To share iTunes libraries it MUST be read/write as iTunes writes play counts et al to the library. iTunes won’t even start if it can’t write to it.
By default, anything in /Users/Shared is read only to the group and everyone else, not read/write. If yours is read/write to the group section or to everyone, you’ve done something to change it.
Here’s my write up:
http://steve-on-sakai.blogspot.com/2009/07/really-sharing-your-itunes-library.html
Hmmmm… interesting. You are indeed correct that the new library shows read permissions only. Looking back at my original post I mentioned setting read/write permissions for all users (Step 4) but it’s been so long ago I didn’t remember having done that.
I’m a bit confused now then what the difference between the Users/Public folder and Users/Shared is. Isn’t Public a read only folder for all other users as well?
Thanks for helping to clarify things. Check out Steve’s post if you’re looking for a detailed step-by-step.
I think the /Users/username/Public folder is just a more personalised place where you can put things (ie John could put a version of his document and Sally could as well, but without having to rename for conflicts etc), whereas /Users/Shared is common to all.
The Public folder also shows when you are mounting via SMB and you get the option to see just that folder.
DjD: Very useful info!!!!
Loved desktop and flowing icons!!!! Please explain how to do it
or where I can find software.
Thanks, George
Hi, thanks for the post…I followed it and it seems to have worked. I can see the library via my wife’s accoutn. Unfortunately when I ‘option’ I tunes to load the library is states that it is a locked library on a locked folder? I am confused as I can see it in the shared user space and I dont remember locking the library as well. I have also quit out of itunes but it doesnt seem to work
can you help?
Hi, actually scratch the question…its an apple folder permission issue. May be worth sticking that in your tutorial…otherwise it was great… thanks very much
Leo, you’re right about the permissions. Check out Step4 in my original post and it should clear things up.
DjD, Thanks for the email.
Something similar but unrelated to Itunes. I was wondering if you could do the same with your iphoto library?
Do you just moved your iphoto library to the shared drive? and if you upload new photo’s like itunes, how do you ensure that it goes in the shared drive?
Did you use the same concept so that you can share the photo library with your wife?
Hi Leo,
I’ve not tried this with iPhoto so can’t say for sure but in principle, the same rules should apply.
Don’t bother with the Terminal operations per Steve… the easy way to do this is just as DjD instructed and change “read/write” permissions in the “Get Info” pane. Be sure to click on “Apply to enclosed items” as well so that all items in the iTunes folder gain the same permissions. Thanks for your work DjD. Outstanding!!
Newbie question here. I believe I have the sharing iTunes library working between my wife and I. Where do I delete the original iTunes library? Do I go under user user/music/iTunes and delete?
In other words, do I go under my wife’s user account, find the music folder and delete the iTunes portion? The whole folder OR only the music in the iTunes folder?
Thank you
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