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blackbear219

macrumors regular
Original poster
Sep 5, 2012
192
17
On our iMac, my wife has her iTunes under her account and I have mine.

Let's say we buy a CD, and we both like it. We both want to import it into our iTunes library. If we do that, are we storing the information on the hard drive twice, or is iTunes smart enough to point both of our libraries to the same MP3s?
 

jdblas69

macrumors 6502
Aug 15, 2012
270
129
Could you not import the CD into one itunes library and then just add the file into the other itunes library from the file location. Then you are just referencing itunes to the same location for the same file for both itunes libraries.
 

swiftaw

macrumors 603
Jan 31, 2005
6,328
25
Omaha, NE, USA
If you import it twice (once to each Library) you'll end up with it stored twice on your hard drive.

The trick is to import it once, then for the 2nd library use the File->Add to Library option to add the files to the 2nd library without needing a second copy of the files.
 

Cinephi1e

macrumors regular
Jul 19, 2012
107
0
Northwest Ohio
The problem is that you have to set permissions for one person to access the other persons files and this is always problematic. The easiest thing to do is created a shared file above the user level on the Mac. The common music files should go here and then linked to each person's iTunes libraries.
 

nathanjbrown

macrumors 6502
Apr 9, 2008
265
57
Santa Barbara, CA
I'm curious about this too.

If one library is shared - the music for both users stored above the user level in a shared folder - is there any risk of library corruption? What if one user is using iTunes, then the other user switches to their own account and opens iTunes. That's two instances of iTunes referencing the same music library, right?

Nathan
 

Cinephi1e

macrumors regular
Jul 19, 2012
107
0
Northwest Ohio
I have not tested that, but it should work the same way it does when multiple computers share a single iTunes library. If you make changes to the library while someone else also has it open, then the changes will not occur until you close your iTunes.
 
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