Manually manage music iTunes
So basically every couple of times I plug my iPod into my Mac my iTunes has reset the manually manage functions
Mac Book Pro, Mac OS X (10.6.4)
Mac Book Pro, Mac OS X (10.6.4)
OK found the solution. GOSH. It got me so ****** when I could start manually adding songs. Urgh. I'm still ****** right now. But anyways,
Ok, firstly i checked both "Sync only checked songs" and "Enable disk use".
And right after that I crossed fingers to check "manually manage music and videos". And tada i cn drag any songs to my playlist in my ipod. oh and pls rmb to click apply!!!
Previously i only checked "manually manage music and videos" and click "apply". And my whole computer just froze. brrr.
Ok so today I pluged my iPhone and started iTunes... and guess what... "Manually manage music and videos" checkbutton was unchecked again... I seriously hate iTunes! This happened to me already four times!
Sync iPod/iPad/iPhone with two computers
Although it isn't possible to sync an Apple device with two different libraries it is possible to sync with the same logical library from multiple computers. Each library has an internal ID and when iTunes connects to your iPod/iPad/iPhone it compares the local ID with the one the device normally syncs with. If they are the same you can go ahead and sync...
I have my library cloned to a small 1Tb USB drive which I can take between home & work. At either location I use SyncToy 2.1 to update the local copy with the external drive. Mac users should be able to find similar tools. I can open either of the local libraries or the one on the external drive and update the media content of my iPhone. The slight exception is the Photos section which normally connects to a specific folder on a specific machine, although that can easily be remapped to the current library if you create a "Photos" folder inside the iTunes Media folder so that syncing the iTunes folders keeps this up to date as well. I periodically sweep my library for new files & orphans with iTunes Folder Watch just in case I make changes at one location but then overwrite the library with a newer copy from the other. Again Mac users should be able to find similar tools.
As long as your media is organised within an iTunes Music or Tunes Media folder, in turn held inside the main iTunes folder that has your library files (whether or not you let iTunes keep the media folder organised) each library can access items at the same relative path from the library folder so the library can be at different drives/paths on different machines. This solution ensures I always have adequate backups of my library and I can update my devices from home, or work, or anywhere else that I can connect the external drive to the same build of iTunes.
When working with an iPhone earlier builds of iTunes would remove any file not physically present in the local library, even if there was an entry for it, making manual management practically redundant on the iPhone. This behaviour has been changed but it will still only permit manual management with a library that has the correct internal ID. If you don't want to sync your library between machines on a regular basis just copy the iTunes Library.itl file from the current "home" machine to any other you want to use, then clean out the library entires and import the local content you have on that box.
tt2
Thanks tt2. This really helped. I've just bought a new PC, everything set up nicely and then tried to add some more music to my iPhone and hit the problem where it wouldn't allow me. I tried to check the manually manage option and got the message saying that it would delete all the music off my phone. Not good. I like to keep all my music on an external drive and, unsurprisingly iTunes is not the centre of my universe so I don't sync EVERYthing in my collection.
To me this is very small thinking.
The info in your post got me to searching the library file on my old PC, I copied it to my new one and straight aware manage to copy across the new music that I wouldn't. Lucky I was replacing due to age and not due to hardware failure as this may not have been an option. The libary file will now be backed up externally for future need.
Again, thanks.
Glad to know the post proved useful.. 🙂
tt2
So, there is no way to unclick the "Manually manage music and video" without erasing the iPhone? That's not helpful at all, I accidentaly click it and now everytime I buy/get a song I have to manually put it on the phone. And if it erases the phone, can I just restore it from backup without losing progress in games and stuff? I'm still learning how to managa my phone...
Manually manage music iTunes