[HOWTO] - Share iTunes Libraries on the same computer

[cfleck]

I've had talks with several people about how to set up your mac so that you and another user on your computer can use the same library for itunes. note, this is typically for one person and his/her significant other. this is how i did it and it works beautifully... at least for me

you need to make sure one user on the computer has all the music in his/her itunes library. for the sake of this 'tutorial', we'll assume that user is you.

oh, and i highly suggest you make an extra copy of your iTunes folder before you start, just in case.

1 - first i opened up the netinfo manage and made a new group. basically i duplicated the admin group and changed the title to 'music' and the gid to '99'. you can make these whatever you want, so long as they are not taken by any other groups on your mac.

2 - make sure you and the other user(s) are members of this group

3 - highlight your 'Music' folder, right click it, and hit 'get info'

4 - under the ownership & permissions heading hit the arrow to expand the details of such. set the 'group' to 'music' (or whatever you chose) and access to 'read & write'.

5 - hit apply to enclosed items.

6 - now, you need each other user to log into his/her account and delete their iTunes folder in their music folder. make a new folder alias, and alias it to your iTunes folder.

7 - you're done. their music is now your music. and vice versa. be warned, and changes they make, playlists, adding/deleting songs are all done to the "master" copy. yours. if your s.o. deletes your favorite audiobook from 'her' library, its gone from yours too. be careful!

[MacMuppet]

Thanks for that cfleck - I believe I was one of the people you were discussing this with - I've certainly been looking at this on and off for a while, and tried various suggested scripting fixes, and have also been mucking about with permissions of folders - I think I achieved it in the end by creating several custom folders and aliases, with full access for the other users all the way down the directory path to my iTunes library - not the safest or most elegant solution, but this seems pretty simple and a lot cleaner! Good work!

[Captain Code]

Doesn't the latest version of iTunes let you use it with multiple users?

[cfleck]

dont know, as i set this up well before the latest version, but just got around to posting this.

[MacMuppet]

I did note on the new version that when I switched into my grirlfriend's account and launched iTunes (when I already had it running under my account) it no longer says "another user is using this application, please ask them to quit this application before you can use it" but just launches, but can't remember whether it allows her to use my library, and whether that would be a result of the upgrade or one of the numerous fixes I tried.
Its all academic, I can't get her to use iTunes anyway, should never have bought that darned stereo...

[groverhoo]

Does anyone know if setting up iTunes like this would change your settings for the iTunes Music Store? Where are those files kept anyway? It would be nice to share the same aliased music folder but still have seperate credit card accounts on iTMS.

Grover

[Muzgal]

No I shouldn't think it would change the store settings, they won't be stored in the itunes library, but in the itunes application support or preferences in your library.
I had a different system to this. I moved the itunes music folder to shared, and then set my (and every other account's) itunes music folder location to that place. The benefit of that is the music library file does not move, so then you have can share the music, but not the playlists etc. (actually that might be the case with you method?). The other benefit is that you don't have to fiddle with Netinfo, which I was not savvy with I did this workaround. I am now, in case anyone wants to know how to set up a secure guest for sharing on a samba network drop me an email...

[scruffy]

Or you could just change the location of your iTunes music folder, and have all users put in in /Users/Shared/