Sharing between User Accounts

Question

Level 1

8 points

Sharing between User Accounts

I'm new to Macs and need some help.

I have 2 user accounts on my mac and want to share picture and music files between the accounts. Both can be read & write. All my music is in the iTunes music folder. Even when I share that folder I can't get to the files on the other account. Each artist has their own folder within the iTunes music folder and they all have the minus symbol beside them when viewing from the 2nd account. How do I share these files between user accounts?

Also, where do I save my pictures so that they can be seen on both accounts?

I started to share all the folders with in iTunes but that was taking forever so I quit the process and now my public folders are not showing as shared in the preferences. How do I get my sharing preferences back to the default settings?

Mac OS X (10.5.2), 2.66ghz, 320GB, 2GB ram

Posted on May 2, 2008 7:48 AM

Reply

Answer 1

Best reply

Kristoffer Samuel Newsom

Level 2

385 points

May 2, 2008 11:30 AM in response to BMcCool

You'll need to enable sharing in the preferences if iPhoto and iTunes, and you'll need to do this for both accounts. For specific individual files to go back and forth, use the "shared" folder. You CAN change the properties of a folder and all the folders within it, but it's generally better to not do that manually within your users folders.

Reply

Answer 2

RodneyW

Level 4

3,035 points

May 3, 2008 4:33 AM in response to BMcCool

To share your iTunes music library among users on a single machine, follow these directions from Apple:

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1203

To share your iPhoto library among users on a single machine, follow this hint from osxhints.com:

http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20050904072808460&lsrc=osxh

(Note that this hints says 10.4 only, but this really means 10.4 or later, as ACL's are fully supported in Leopard too).

The osxhints article can apparantly also be used for iTunes, but I have not tried that yet.

With regard to fixing your sharing/permissions, can you be more specific? Which folders did you modify the permissions on (e.g /Users/username/Music/iTunes/XXXX ?). What did you change the permissions to?

Reply

Answer 3

V.K.

Level 9

56,174 points

May 3, 2008 7:15 AM in response to RodneyW

To share your iPhoto library among users on a single machine, follow this hint from osxhints.com:

http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20050904072808460&lsrc=osxh

(Note that this hints says 10.4 only, but this really means 10.4 or later, as ACL's are fully supported in Leopard too).

There is certainly no need for the first command from that hint in leopard. ACLs are activated by default.

Reply

Answer 4

May 4, 2008 8:03 AM in response to BMcCool

You can ctrl-Click the folder you want (with the minus) and go down to permissions (in the account that you CAN access it) and click the lock to unlock it. Than add the 2nd user and make sure the 2nd user can read and write.

Reply

Answer 5

BMcCool Author

Level 1

8 points

May 5, 2008 8:10 AM in response to BMcCool

I now have my mac set up just the way i want. thanks for the input you all gave! How I did it:

in the file sharing system prefs i deleted the "ghost" folders that were showing. I call them ghost folders because they were grayed out and not clickable. They were pointing to a folder that I had removed from my system because I deleted my user account so that i could start over from scratch to set things up right from the beginning. This still left these folders in the sharing menu so I just had to delete them one at a time until they were all gone making everything look clean again.

I learned that sharing files between user accounts on the same computer (and even the guest account) can only be done with files that are in the public folder. Adding my iTunes Music folder to the sharing list did not share my mp3 across users on the same computer. I just had to move the iTunes Music folder (not the iTunes folder) to the public folder so the other account could access it. Then I followed the directions in the link provided in this thread about sharing in iTunes. Now I don't have to have my wife's Maria Carry in my library! And she does not have to have my songs in her library!

For photos I placed the files in the public folder and just imported them into the iPhoto library for each account.

On a side note, having our own accounts allows us to set up the computer they way we want, but allows us to have access to the same files. I'll be adding a 500gb hard drive to it soon for time machine and can't wait to have that set up. My only question now is when can i add time capsule? Can I add it as a 2nd wireless network in addition to my linksys wrt54g2 that is connected to the cable modem (i need the linksys connected to the internet for xbox live and ps3's network), i know i would then connect the external HDD to it for more storage, therefore I guess I would move all mp3's and picture files onto it freeing space on the computer and just direct both user accounts to the files on the HDD connected to time capsule.

Reply

Answer 6

Király

Level 6

10,017 points

May 5, 2008 9:48 AM in response to BMcCool

That will appear to work in the meantime, but you are going to run into more permissions problems in the future. New items you add to your iPhoto and iTunes libraries are going to be read-only for all users other than the one that created them. Eventually, iPhoto could refuse to open the Library.

You really need to use a system that automatically assigns group write permission to any new files that are added. That is accomplished by using the ACL inherit mechanism. The macosxhints.com hint for iPhoto posted earlier will do exactly that.

Reply