iTunes sharing music on the same computer

[cfleck]

my girl and i both use the same computer and it would be nice if we could just have all our music collectively in one folder instead of in our individual profiles. right now we have itunes put any music we rip into a shared folder, but it doesn't appear in the other person's library by default.

like if i rip a cd, my girl has to manually add it to her library.

is there a way to make it do this automagically when itunes loads or something?

 

[profx]

you could share the library but this would also involve sharing playlists, playcounts etc...

If you go to the advanced tab in itunes prefs you can select the music folder location, i have mine in the shared folder.


You might need to check the permissions on the items in the itunes folder in the music folder. The group your 'girl' is a member of will need read/write access to those files.

If this doesn't work post back!

 

[kilowatt]

I'm going to recommend something a little different, but its pretty easy to do. As I write this, I am setting it up on my computer between my sisters and I.

I'm the only one with music on here anyway, so why not?

Summery:

We'll symlink one user's iTunes folder to another user's, and set permissions so both users can read/write files.

Its really only necessary to symlink the iTunes Playlist file, as file paths are absolute in there. BUT, what if your woman imports a cd? You want it too, right? So, we'll make the music the same folder.

First, pick one user to be the master, and the other to be the linked user.

Get the master's iTunes set just as you want it, with all the music in it.

Then wipe out the linked user's itunes folder (this is the directory in ~/Music/iTunes). Your iTunes may be set up differently, so vary things accordingly.

1) log in as the linked user:

$ cd ~/Music
$ rm -rf iTunes

2) log in as the master user

$ cd ~/Music
$ sudo ln -s iTunes ~linked/Music/iTunes
Password:
$

At this point, the linked user can access everything you have access to, because you share a common play list and music directory.

But, we want a tad bit more, so she can add music as well.

If you are both 'admin' users, you are both already in the 'wheel' group. If you wish to not use the admin group for this, create another group using NetInfo, and add yourselves to it. If you're not sure how to do this, ask here.

If you're in a lazy, stupidly insecure mood, just chmod everything to 777 and be done with it:

$ cd ~/Music
$ chmod -R 777 iTunes

I don't recommend doing that.

Instead, own the directory and play list file to the group you created. In my example, the group is named 'music' and both users will have complete access:

$ cd ~/Music
$ chgrp -R music iTunes
$ chmod -R 775 iTunes

If you're both admin users, just use the group name 'wheel' (replace 'music' with 'wheel' above).

Thats all there is to it!


Seems long, but all you did was symlink a directory, and grant both users permissions.

 

[dlloyd]

Why not do that same thing, but with the Music folder in the root of the hard drive or something? That way you won't have to mess with permissions, as both users will have access to that directory by default....

 

[cfleck]

i tried a combo approach. i made a music folder seperate from our home directories and set the permissions appropriately. the thing is, when i start itunes it creates a new library file in the ~/Music/ directory even though i set the itunes folder to be the new one i made. i guess i'll have to try kilowatt's idea and hope it works.

 

[cybergoober]

OK. Here's what I did.

Setup iTunes in my main account.
Moved the entire iTunes folder from ~/Music/ to /Users/Shared.
Got Info on /Users/Shared/iTunes and set group wheel to Read/Write and Others to Read/Write in the ownership section of the info window. I did the same with the iTunes Music Library and iTunes Music Library.xml files.
Placed aliases of the iTunes folder in /Users/Shared into each user's ~/Music folder.

Now whenever one user adds a song to their Library, it's immediately available to other users when they launch iTunes. I suppose the permissions could have been set from the command line, but I'm a hands-on kind of guy.