Music library sharing with iTunes

February 6, 2009 6:47 AM

Help me figure out how to share my music on one computer with two other computers in a way that makes iTunes happy.

I want to share my music library simply in the house. I have paced all our music content on a server that is available to all computers in the house. We are using iTunes to front end our music library because both my wife and I use iPhones.

Here is a diagram.

I am trying to figure out how to tell iTunes to keep it’s information about iTunes (playlists, sync settings, etc.) locally and see all the media on the remote server.

From what I can tell, iTunes places two files: iTunes Library.itl and iTunes Music Library.xml in the iTunes folder in what it calls the Library. How do I get iTunes to understand that these files are in one place and that the music files are in another place without it trying to bring them together?

BTW, I am running Windows on all these computers.

Things that don’t work that have been tried:

Pointing both computers at the same iTunes files on the same server causes conflicts between the two computers when used at the same time.

Elaborate syncing to place copies of all media on all computers, works in theory, chaos in operation.

Thanks for your help and ideas!

posted by Argyle to computers & internet (3 comments total)

I'm not exactly clear on this; do you want each computer to keep its own library (i.e. playlists, playcounts, ratings, etc) while sharing one copy of the media?

If so, here's what needs to be done.

All music should be on the media server.

Each iTunes library imports the music independently:
* Blank iTunes library
* Go to edit>preferences>advanced, and set it so that there is no 'keep music organized,' and no 'copy files to library when adding.'
* Make sure the folder selected is a local folder, i.e. My Music
* Go to My Computer, find the music on the server, and drag the entire folder into iTunes
* Repeat on second computer

Now you have two computers with their own libraries, sharing just the media.

Now, for future additions, this is where it gets complicated.

If you're using iTunes to import mp3s, then there's no one-step program. When on Windows, even when using iTunes for all other music-related issues, I used EAC for importing.

So, if you use a third party program, just import the mp3s, drop them in the server's media library, and run a program on each of the computers to monitor folders – the server – so that the new music will be added.

----
Relevant links:
EAC - Exact Audio Copy
Google search for iTunes monitoring options - yes, it's annoying that it's not built-in, but these should be one-time setups.
Tagscanner, an excellent file and tag manager for mp3s.
posted by mhz at 7:22 AM on February 6

rsync.
posted by jeffamaphone at 8:25 AM on February 6

Have you tried just installing iTunes on one system and telling it to share the library? Any other computer on the network running iTunes will be able to see and access this shared library with no problems and no additional software needed.

You'll only run into trouble if you plan on syncing your portable devices on every computer. For my suggestion to work you'll need to only sync on the computer that hosts the files, not on the others.

If this is a pain, your next best option is to manage all of your music on one computer and synchronize everything, one-way, from there, including the iTunes library files. This is what I do; I use a program like SyncToy to do a one-way mirror of the entire music folder from computer A to computer B. Any library changes on A will be overwritten the next time you sync, so it is best to actually manage the music on one system or you'll end up overwriting things a lot, but this does work, and you can import or make changes to playlists, etc. on computer B or C so lng as you don't mind having to do this again on A to make it a permanent change. I sync between my Mac and my home Windows system, and used to sync to a Windows laptop as well; any iPod I plugged in to any of these computers saw the iTunes install as it's own library and synced just fine. As far as the iPod was concerned it was syncing to the same system every time.

mhz's suggestion would work, but wouldn't allow you to sync playlists, etc. because these would be created locally and not on the server.
posted by caution live frogs at 12:56 PM on February 6