itunes / ipod column sort locked?

I'm having the same problem with my iphone. When I click the "manually manage music, it prompts me that the iphone is synced with another library. Do i want to erase this iphone and sync with this itunes library?

Of course I dont want to do this! My iphone is "synced" with my computer at home, while at work, I'd like to listen to music to my iphone through my work mac (which has no mp3s on it) using itunes. Annoying!

Anyone find a third party solution to this?

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 Photos 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 whenever I can connect 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. You can then manually manage the device from either computer.

tt2

If you select your Device's "Music" folder from the sidebar, and click on View Options (under "View" drop down menu - or Ctrl+J for PC users) you can choose which column to sort your library by. No need for third party software or extra drivers.

Having to use 3rd party software to manage the music library is completely unacceptable. With a program the size of iTunes (84MB), it should be expected to function correctly on all Authorized computers. Why does each successive iTunes update seem to take away more functionality?

Why should you have to perfrom the extra step of selecting "View" from the drop down menus and selecting "view options" to sort the music columns for your device? Older versions of the software allowed you to simply click the sort columns in the library view, and they worked for both the libray music and the device music.

Even if you use the workaround of the "View" menu, you still have no ability to resize or move the columns when veiwing music on your device. It's as though the columns are locked when viewing the device library.

When will Apple adequately address the growing list of problems with the latest versions of iTunes?

Thanks, SandySF!

I was having the same problem as everyone above, having forgotten the solution that I'd once figured out (your solution). It's a tiny bit of a hassle that iTunes doesn't just let you sort and resize columns in iPod music the same way you can (easily) do it when looking at your regular music library. I hope they fix this someday soon.

Exactly same thing is happening to me. I had already search all over the web for workaround, if there's no solution in the end, I just have to jb my iphone and use third party software.