Problems with sharing iTunes Media across user accounts

Matt,

Setting that preference will designate the iTunes Media folder, but it does not cause any music to get added to the library. Use the iTunes command Add Folder to Library, and point it to where the music files are.

Hi ed2345,

i have the same problem as Matt13. I've tried Add to Library and selected the Media Folder but nothing seems to happen. You refer to the music files but I only moved the media folder to Shared as per the instructions. Other posts have described moving the whole iTunes folder to Shared, so am I doing something wrong?

many thanks in advance.

I only moved the media folder to Shared as per the instructions. Other posts have described moving the whole iTunes folder to Shared, so am I doing something wrong?

many thanks in advance.

AMW,

Either will work, but they accomplish two different things. Moving the entire iTunes folder allows all users to share a single iTunes library. Moving the Media folder allows users to have their own separate libraries but share some or all content.

Hi,

Thanks for that. Almost there I think. Have now got 'access' to the same library on both user accounts. But, I can't load albums onto new playlists in either account. I can create the new playlists in both account, and I can see playlist created in account A when I view from account B. Ultimately, we want to sync our phones from our separate user accounts. The alternative is to do it all from the main account but that defeats the point of having multiple user accounts.

The extras.itdb, genius.itdb, Library.itl, Library.xml and Music Library.xml files all had R/W permissions for Everyone, but I added accounts A and B too to be sure. I've made the Shared/iTunes folder a Shared folder, and all the folders in the next tier down. I used the "all enclosed" feature in the iTunes folder but it doesn't seem to work all the way down the folder structure.

Do I need to manually make all the files and folders shared or is there (1) a quicker way to do this or (2) am I heading down the wrong route?

Regards

p.s. I've spent about 1 hr reading posts on the forum but none seem to be the 100% solution.

Hi Matt, Sorry to read its not working for you. I share your frustration. However, I got a solution for me in the end. Rather than moving my media folder to the shared folder as per the Apple instructions, I moved the whole iTunes folder (as Ed wrote). This worked for me because I wanted a single library on the mac that could be shared between users. Somewhere during the process however I lost all of my media files. I guess this was during the original attempts to move the media folder - and this was possibly why I couldn't share between users for a while. My solution in the end was to delete all of the library content (only the artwork and content details remained but no actual content) and then reload it all from external hard drives. I did this after moving iTunes folder to the Shared folder. Then I had to point iTunes in each user account to the Shared library, which is done by holding down the option key while opening iTunes so that it asks for a choice of library.

Good luck with your efforts.