[kcmac]

We are getting ready for the arrival of several iPods in our house. Started to look at our libraries on our old iMac. As you can imagine our music folders are everywhere.

The big folder is in my account. I am the administrator. Another is in the Shared Folder. My music points to my folder, my son's points to the one in the Shared folder. My wife and daughter's point to their own music folder.

I would like to get all of the music on this computer in the same folder. Preferably in the Shared folder.

How do I go about this? I am concerned that; 1) I will end up with a lot of duplicates, 2) It will rename songs we have renamed in our own music folders, 3) will lose playlists, etc.

Should I

1. Create a new folder in the Shared Folder.

2. Aim all users to that folder in the Advanced Tab of iTunes.

3. In my account (administrator) tell iTunes to consolidate music. (But first uncheck the keep music organized button.)

I do have a backup of the entire computer.

[ratlater]

You could try this:

http://captnswing.net/howto/itunes/

Downside is everyone shares the same ratings and playlists. I'll keep looking, there might be a way to have a central music repository, but let each user have their own iTunes.xml file for different song ratings/play counts/playlists. I'm guessing that is what you'd prefer.

-matt

[kcmac]

Thanks for the link. That method is a little too much terminal and hacking work than I would be comfortable with. I found a link in that article that eventually led me to this link from Apple

Multiple user sharing of iTunes

Other than not having to hit Consolidate, that is pretty much how I was going to try it. However, it still does not say if I will be able to have playlists and ratings for each user. I almost suspect not.

[ratlater]

Yeah, that should work. I think you'll still have individual ratings and playlists too. Looks like a slick solution all around.

-matt

[kcmac]

That all worked out pretty well. I do have a few more experiments to do to make sure it works the way I want. User playlists and ratings hold for each user.

Found that I had to change permissions on the Shared folder so that I could add the users music folders to the new Shared folder. Don't think I really set this up correctly because I gave read/write permission to others. Tried the group "wheel" and that didn't work.

When I get one last user done, I am going to see if I can change the permissions back to read only and find if new music they add will be instantly added to the Shared folder since I still have the Copy to library option checked.