NickJeromana

Q: Mirror an iTunes Playlist in Bootcamp

Hello,

 

I have a MacBook Pro with Bootcamp (Windows 10 / 7).

 

I am trying to set up iTunes to register the playlists and songs from the Mac side of the computer.

The goal is to have the same playlists and songs (I have thousands of songs which are all organized)

so that while I'm on the "Not Mac" side of my computer I can still work with my massive collection.

(This of course while only storing 1 copy of these files - stored on the Mac Side of the computer.)

 

A simple copy and paste of the files in the iTunes Folder manages to copy the playlist files just fine,

however, somehow a number of the songs become lost.  iTunes cannot find the files,

I am stuck trying to one-by-one search for the missing files.... when you have thousands of tracks

this becomes an extremely tedious task.  (It becomes even worse when you want to make changes

while on the Mac Side of the computer.)

 

I don't have a fancy Apple Music account, 75% of this music is NOT downloadable via iTunes

(nor would I want to degrade "apple lossless" music).  Plus, as one might guess, I don't have

the assets to afford to store my entire library on the iCloud.

(The iPod Classic doesn't use the Cloud anyways. -- iOS devices are not big enough to warehouse 120GB of music.

And no, Apple, I'm never giving up on the iPod Classic.  Far too valuable to my worklife.)

 

 

So, with that.  Is there an easier way that anyone knows about?  Is there a way to sync Mac to Bootcamp iTunes in an easier way?

Any ideas would help.

MacBook Pro with Retina display, OS X El Capitan (10.11.2)

Posted on Jan 10, 2016 6:24 PM

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Q: Mirror an iTunes Playlist in Bootcamp

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  • by Loner T,

    Loner T Loner T Jan 10, 2016 6:55 PM in response to NickJeromana
    Level 7 (23,613 points)
    Safari
    Jan 10, 2016 6:55 PM in response to NickJeromana

    Your media files can be separated from the iTunes pointers and are independent of the OS. If you store your media on a filesystem that is separate from the Windows or OS X of your Mac internal drive, an iTunes library can be built on either OS by importing the files, without moving them or copying them or duplicating them.

     

    Please see About iTunes library files - Apple Support and Locate and organize your iTunes media files - Apple Support , specifically, the section titled Find and change the iTunes Media folder location .

  • by Kenichi Watanabe,

    Kenichi Watanabe Kenichi Watanabe Jan 10, 2016 8:35 PM in response to NickJeromana
    Level 8 (38,389 points)
    Mac OS X
    Jan 10, 2016 8:35 PM in response to NickJeromana

    In this case, you may not want your MacBook tied to an external drive when you use iTunes (because the iTunes folder is stored there); the goal is to make your iTunes folder accessible to both the Mac system and Windows system.  I don't use BootCamp, but one solution may be to create a new partition on the internal drive that is large enough to hold your iTunes folder (plus additional capacity that you deem reasonable for growth).  Apple says this about formatting a disk (the partition) to allow Windows read/write access

     

    Disk Utility 12.x: Format a disk for Windows computers

     

    NOTE:  Adding partitions can involve moving existing data.  Be sure you have a backup of your data on the existing partitions.

     

    If you move just the iTunes Media folder to the shared volume, you have two separate iTunes libraries (one each for Mac and Windows); the two libraries will not stay in sync with what's in the iTunes Media folder.  If you copy the entire iTunes folder (from your user account Music folder) to the shared volume, you can launch iTunes with the Option key held down (Shift key for Windows), and choose to use the iTunes library on the shared volume.

     

    Open a different iTunes Library file or create a new one - Apple Support

     

    The procedure to copy your iTunes folder to the shared volume is the same as backing up iTunes folder to external drive.

     

    Back up your iTunes library by copying it to an external drive - Apple Support

     

    Since you are never running both your Mac and Windows systems at the same time with BootCamp, each system should be able access the iTunes folder on the shared volume without conflict.

     

    I use WMware Fusion to run Windows when needed.  If you can use WMware Fusion (or Parallels Desktop) to run Windows 10 or 7 (as a virtual machine), you don't have this problem at all.  OS X is always running when you run the Windows virtual machine, to do whatever you need to do in Windows.  Run iTunes under OS X.  You don't need a separate copy of iTunes for Windows.

  • by Loner T,

    Loner T Loner T Jan 11, 2016 5:53 AM in response to Kenichi Watanabe
    Level 7 (23,613 points)
    Safari
    Jan 11, 2016 5:53 AM in response to Kenichi Watanabe

    I don't use BootCamp, but one solution may be to create a new partition on the internal drive that is large enough to hold your iTunes folder (plus additional capacity that you deem reasonable for growth).

    From Boot Camp: Resize the Windows partition -

    Warning: Do not use other apps or Windows to resize your partitions. If you do so, you could potentially damage your computer and prevent it from starting up.

  • by NickJeromana,

    NickJeromana NickJeromana Jan 12, 2016 3:29 AM in response to Kenichi Watanabe
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jan 12, 2016 3:29 AM in response to Kenichi Watanabe

    I have always used BootCamp because I always assumed that running a virtual machine lowered the compatibility of certain programs (plus allowed your mac to be susceptible to Windows viruses, so I have always fun Windows in its native state to prevent that possibility.)

     

    Although the Shift Key launch of program has given me an idea.