How do I transfer iTunes purchases to another apple ID (Account)

My husband and I have purchased music under the same Apple ID. Because we have very different taste in music, I've been very interested in setting up a separate ID, but have been holding off. Now that several months have passed since you copied your itunes folder to an external hard drive and then back under the new ID, I'm wondering how it all went. Were there any issues with the music or any of the apps?

Hello. Thank you for checking back in. So far I have not had any difficulties with any of the music or apps that I have purchased. All I did was authorize my computer to use purchases from the previous account. You MUST do this or else the music and apps you drag into iTunes from your folder will NOT work. Everything on my phone and iTunes account now works seamlessly. I will let you know, however, that when your apps that you copied need to update, you have to enter the old iTunes account name and password when it asks for the information. But the stuff you buy with the new account will obviously work with your new info. Like I said, I haven't experienced any problems since I have done this so I think it's the best way to do this without loosing any quality in the music files. Hope this was helpful.

Hi Micheal. I had the same problem. When we purchased a second computer I wanted to set up a separate Apple ID for myself. Although we have different taste in music, there is also a fair bit of overlap and I didn't want to spend hours re-importing music from CDs. My solution was pretty simple, I set up a homeshare using the original apple id account (see http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4620) on the new computer. Then I logged out of that account and created a new account in itunes. With homesharing enabled on both of our computers we can see each other's itunes libraries (it has to be open on that person's computer) under the shared menu on the left side of itunes. From there I could simply drag the music I wanted from his library to mine, and her was then able tp delete the music he did not want from his library. We have had this set up for a while and whenever one of us purchases a song that the other would also like to have, we just drag and copy it into our own libraries. I have never encountered any problems with this. I don't know if this is the best solution, and wonder if we might have a problem later -if anyone knows of any limitations to this please let me know!

As far as I know this is not possible but you can authorise your computers with both of you Apple ID's.

By signing out of the store does not limit you to accessing your previously purchased content so you can be authorise with many ID's at once and not loose anything.

Store authorise

Ok, the have red the entire thread. What is the simple answer. I am setting my son up with his own iTunes account and I want to move the music over from mine to his account.

I am confused

scottb8888 wrote:

Ok, the have red the entire thread. What is the simple answer.

You cannot transfer the items to a different iTunes account.

You can add the items to a different iTunes library and then authorize that computer with the iTunes account those items were purchased with.

iTunes Account = Used to sign into iTunes store, make purchases, authorize computer.

iTunes Library = Used to play purchases from iTunes store. iTunes Library = what you see when you launch iTunes on your computer.

Sorry So confused! I take my sons computer and set him up a new iTunes account. My tues about or music is to on his computer? How do I get my music on his computer.

Typo.....my music is not on his computer. How can I get I there?

Copy the entire /Music/iTunes/ folder from your computer to /Music/ on his computer.

On his computer, launch iTunes, iTunes menu Store > Authorize this computer.

I'm a soon to be freshman in college and up til today I shared my mothers iTunes account (along with my two other siblings). I wanted to set up my own Apple ID account for my computer and my iPad, but of course, like everyone else here, I wanted to be able to keep a lot of the music from my mother's account.

However, the way I discovered how to move music from one Apple ID to another is to take a USB/flash drive and simply go into Users\[username]\Music\iTunes\iTunesMedia\Music folder (or wherever your iTunes music library is stored) and copy all the folders for every artist you want from the old account then paste them onto the USB. On the new account/computer, copy and paste all these files from the USB into it's music folder (doesn't matter where in it)

Start up iTunes, then click File, and then click Add Folder to Library. Navigate to the folders you just pasted in Music, select all, say open, and iTunes should do the rest.

At least, this just worked for me, so I'm wondering if it will work for others. (I'm not sure how well movies or apps work this way.)

bmmilan64 wrote:

However, the way I discovered how to move music from one Apple ID to another

No you didn't because it is not possible.

You are adding to a new iTunes library, not moving them to a new iTunes account.

The iTunes account name is embedded into the file at time of purcahse.

Select a song, right click - get info. You will see who purchased the songs and the iTunes account name.

Just drop the files into the Automatically add to iTunes folder in /Music/iTunes/iTunes media/ folder.

I keep a shortcut of this folder on the desktop and just drop new music into it.

Sorry! I just discovered that I still have to authorize them. My bad. It still technically works as another form of authorizing them on another computer through my iTunes account, but it takes longer. Oh well...

bmmilan64 wrote:

Sorry! I just discovered that I still have to authorize them. My bad. It still technically works as another form of authorizing them on another computer through my iTunes account,

??? Not sure what this means.

You simply need to authorize your computer to play content from your mother's iTunes account. Takes about two seconds (as long as it tales to enter iTunes account name and password).

See this -> iTunes Store: About authorization and deauthorization

1. Open iTunes
2. From the Store menu, choose Authorize This Computer. (In earlier versions of iTunes, access this option from the Advanced menu).
3. When prompted, enter your (mother's) Apple ID and password, then click Authorize.

Note that iTunes account is not the same as iTunes library.

iTunes account is used to make purchases.

iTunes library is the media and what you see in iTunes on your computer.

I just meant that you can still move them all over to your new computer and account through my method, but you still will have to authorize the purchased songs anyway. I didn't mean to imply that iTunes automatically authorized the transferred music through my method. I still had to authorize it myself, and yes, I know how.