Sharing iTunes with Spouse

1. Quit iTunes.
2. Drag your entire iTunes folder from /My Documents/My Music to a Shared directory.
3. Log out.

1. Log in on your Wife's account.
2. Click on the iTunes icon to start it, then immediately press an hold the Shift key.
3. iTunes will ask to Create new library or Choose existing library. Select Choose existing library.
4. Select the iTunes library file in the iTunes folder you moved to the Shared directory
5. iTunes will open and all the music in your account will be there.
6. Now, go to iTunes prefs -> Advanced -> Importing.
7. Make sure Copy files to iTunes music folder when adding to library is ticked.
8. Go to File -> Add to library and select the iTunes music folder in /Wife's username/Music/iTunes. This will add all the music in her account.
   
9. When done, quit iTunes.
10. Go to //My Documents/My Music and drag the iTunes folder to the trash. Do NOT empty the trash yet.
11. Restart iTunes normally (don't hold Shift).
12. Everything should be there.
13. Quit iTunes and log out of her account.

1. Log into your account, start iTunes normally and all music should bet there.
2. Quit iTunes and go back into her account and make sure iTunes works okay. If it does, empty the trash.

Hi There, from my experience you cannot link itunes because the songs are purchased and it is illegal to double-copy music. what you can do is transfer all your music to her library or vice versa by using the add file to new library button under file.

Hope this Helps, Brewcrewzach

You can have several (4-5?) iPods and computers on the same account, so just sign in with your wife's I.D. That's what we do. One household, one account. That way the video and music one of you buys can be enjoyed by the other.

Your solution makes sense. However, if you want to share the music that you have bought you will need only one account in iTunes. If you want both user logins on XP to see and use the same library so that it is not taking up double the space my understanding is that you have to keep the library in a shared location and point iTunes to that on each login, is that correct?

f you want both user logins on XP to see and use the same library so that it is not taking up double the space my understanding is that you have to keep the library in a shared location and point iTunes to that on each login, is that correct?

Yes. The steps above will do just that.

I'm having trouble with this same thing. It works on my iBook, but when I put it on my new iMac here's what happenes.

My iTunes library is in Shared\Music -- in the first account I opened iTunes under it worked fine. Then I went to another account on the same computer and went throug the process of changing the library location. Nothing happened. Did it several times. Then clicked File>Add and it added all the files to iTunes in the new account, but didn't add playlists.

Then, I purchased a song in iTunes while logged into the second account, and then went back to the first account to see if it would automatically show up when I started iTunes -- it didn't.

Any ideas?

Then I went to another account on the same computer and went through the process of changing the library location.

You don't change the iTunes music folder location in iTunes prefs.
Hold Shift when starting iTunes and select teh iTunes library.itl file in the Shared directory.

Have to hold option on mine -- wonder why it's different?

On the bright side, holding option allows me to then select the library and have it work for multiple accounts per the directions above. Thanks.

What does changing the library in preferences do then?

Are using separate login accounts on the computer?

Two computer logins can be used, we do at home.

Holding shift doesn't do anything....iTunes just starts as normal.

Sorry.
Option on Mac, Shift on Windows.