[Plan_K]

Bigphaty said:

Great article. I'm stunned that Apple hasn't addressed people using multiple computers. Your iPhone can synchronize with your iTunes library, and you can buy songs on the iPhone or via iTunes. Why can't my Macbook Pro sync with my iMac at home the same way? I should be able to open iTunes on my iMac and select which playlists and photos etc. get sync'd to my laptop and have it sync them right there. And if I buy songs or add photos to the laptop, those should sync back to the iMac.

Amen, Bigphaty!

The laptop should act as a sort of Giant iPod, so you can take your selected synched music with you, just as you do with an iPod. Apple can even count that as one of the authorized computers for iTunes Store-purchased music. This could even happen via a wireless sync and maybe be a perk of the .Mac service.

[hillstones]

Also, why isn't there a Music Video category along with Movies and TV Shows? Instead, I changed the Genre of the Music Video files to "Music Video" and then created a Smart Playlist to search and display that custom Genre. Also, if you move Music Videos from one computer to another, iTunes reverts the video setting from Music Video back to Movie. So then you have to Get Info on each individual file to change the Video option back to Music Video because you cannot change that setting in bulk.

[Centrocercus]

My iTunes Library is in two places and I can't get it back together. Please help!
I copied the Library from one external HD to another so I could reformat the original HD. Then I moved it back and consolidated the Library. I am pretty certain that I had the Library location preference set correctly to the external drive when I consolidated. But the result is a mess.
The library is now half in my home directory's music folder, and half in the iTunes library on my external hard disk. Worse, iTunes can play some songs in each location, but has lost track of others (displays an exclamation mark and won't play) other songs that are in both places.
Subsequent consolidate commands don't fix it. Neither does manually moving files. HELP!!!!
We took the Library and copied it back to the computer. Then we recopied it back to the drive.
Music is in
iTunes doesn't see it on the external drive
We have an iTunes Library that is

[crisgo]

From iTunes HELP'

Using multiple iTunes libraries


You can have more than one iTunes library. You might want multiple libraries so that you could, for example, have a library of holiday music that wouldn't appear in your Party Shuffle mix the rest of the year. Or you could use separate libraries to keep your music on your computer and your movies on an external hard disk.

To create or use a different iTunes library:


If iTunes is open, quit it.


Hold down the Option key while you open iTunes.


In the dialog that appears, do one of the following:


To create a new library, click Create Library.


To choose a different library, click Choose Library.

[john-d]

What's this I hear about Time Machine not backing up the iTunes folder, the one with iTunes Music Library.xml and iTunes Library database file. Is this true?
Otherwise a good intro into the ins and outs of Library management; I've had to use each technique over the years, and now simply have all my media files on one external, regularly copy the iTunes Music folder to another external, and backup to Time Capsule, as well as bi-annually backup to DVD, with an eye to my new Blu-Ray burner (if I could only get it to successfully burn).

[bastion]

john-d said:

What's this I hear about Time Machine not backing up the iTunes folder, the one with iTunes Music Library.xml and iTunes Library database file. Is this true?

No. The XML file specifically is not backed up, but it's redundant and if absent will be automatically regenerated from the iTunes Library file - which is backed up by TM - next time iTunes launches.

A large, completely redundant file that changes every time any metadata (including playcount) changes for any iTunes content is an excellent thing on which to not waste space in the TM store.

[petey681]

Great article but I was hoping that you would mention an solution for the various video formats. I now have movies in my itunes library that have a resolution for my Apple-TV and a separate copy in a resolution for my Iphone, resulting in three copies of one movie!
any suggestions would be nice...

[bastion]

petey681 said:

Great article but I was hoping that you would mention an solution for the various video formats. I now have movies in my itunes library that have a resolution for my Apple-TV and a separate copy in a resolution for my Iphone, resulting in three copies of one movie!

any suggestions would be nice...

You've described a situation but you haven't indicated what you consider problematic about it. Your specific concern needs to inform the solution.

[papillo]

Is there a good answer for someone who has iTunes files on an external or networked drive, and accidentally starts up iTunes when the drive is not available?
iTunes will exclamation-point any song it tries to access (and rightfully so). But reconnect the external drive, and the songs stay marked, and won't sync, etc. The only way to clear the exclamation mark is to double-click on a song. That can get long if you have hundreds or thousands of songs...
Scripting doesn't seem to work; the "open", "play", and "refresh" commands all refuse to operate on a song marked with an exclamation point...
Bob

[radiopromoguy]

Shut down iTunes... connect the drive... re-open iTunes.

[hwhit78]

Hi,
I'm new to Apple in general as I have just purchased my first MacBook last week. I was reading about this in the magazine and on the site, great article by the way; little over my head at the moment though. I have noticed that I have quite a few duplicate files in my music section of iTunes and was curious if anyone knows of a utility that is easy to use that will help me to identify and eliminate the duplicate files. If not, it looks like i'll just spend a day sifting through the madness of 12.6k audio files. I listen to a lot of music obviously. Thank you in advance for your input with this.

Harold

[papillo]

If only it were that simple...

The exclamation points persist across iTunes invocations. Shutting iTunes, reconnecting the disk, and starting it up again does nothing except allow you to start double-clicking on songs to reactivate them.

[bastion]

hwhit78 said:

Hi,
I'm new to Apple in general as I have just purchased my first MacBook last week. I was reading about this in the magazine and on the site, great article by the way; little over my head at the moment though. I have noticed that I have quite a few duplicate files in my music section of iTunes and was curious if anyone knows of a utility that is easy to use that will help me to identify and eliminate the duplicate files.

There's the "Show Duplicates" command in iTunes' View menu.

[danbula]

Good article. Maybe someone can help with my situation. I have a Macbook and the iTunes music files is in a shared folder between the users. When I log in I can go to my library and edit song names, artist or genre in iTunes. But if my wife logs in with her username (with administrative rights), she can't edit any information in her library. So she's stuck in the way I tagged the music in my account.
She wants to rename the artist name in a song where are two performers for example: in a song where Rihanna sings with someone else she wants to change that to only Rihanna in the artist column.
Any suggestions?