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Automatically Syncing iTunes

S

smswetz

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Mar 12, 2009
26
0
So I've run into a minor, but pretty annoying problem. I run two user accounts on my iMac, one for freelance work (which has some basic time keeping apps, my design apps, and iTunes) and my personal account which I use for my everyday tasks.

I enjoy listening to music while I try and get work done, and it never seems to be a big problem, until I start adding music. I have a fairly large music collection stored on an external HDD, and I keep it up to date on my personal account.

Is there any way to sync this HDD constantly so I don't have to manually add music on my Freelance User everytime I add one to my Personal user? I often get lost in what I've added and what I haven't, and I would just like these two users to have identical iTunes libraries.
 
Yes, there is a simple solution for this issue. Skip the sync altogether, and do this instead:
  1. Quit iTunes, if it's running
  2. On the personal account, copy the iTunes folder to the Shared folder in Users, in the top of your disk
  3. On the freelance account, move the iTunes folder elsewhere
  4. On both accounts, open Terminal, and create a symbolic link connecting the copy you made in Shared to the old location in your Music folder
What you've essentially done is tell both accounts to use a common library, which is exactly what you want.

The exact Terminal command you need is this:
Code: 
ln -s /Users/Shared/iTunes ~/Music/iTunes
 
wrldwzrd89 said:
Yes, there is a simple solution for this issue. Skip the sync altogether, and do this instead:
  1. Quit iTunes, if it's running
  2. On the personal account, copy the iTunes folder to the Shared folder in Users, in the top of your disk
  3. On the freelance account, move the iTunes folder elsewhere
  4. On both accounts, open Terminal, and create a symbolic link connecting the copy you made in Shared to the old location in your Music folder
What you've essentially done is tell both accounts to use a common library, which is exactly what you want.

The exact Terminal command you need is this:
Code: 
ln -s /Users/Shared/iTunes ~/Music/iTunes
Click to expand...

This sounds exactly what I need, but is there any way to set this up to use a folder that isn't on my actual Mac? I like to keep all my music on my seperate hard drive.
 
smswetz said:
This sounds exactly what I need, but is there any way to set this up to use a folder that isn't on my actual Mac? I like to keep all my music on my seperate hard drive.
Click to expand...
Yes, there is! Change all references to /Users/Shared in the tip I gave to /Volumes/External/folders/iTunes where External is the name of your external drive (don't forget to escape spaces in the name by preceding them with a backslash) and folders are the names of any folders between the root of the external drive and the place you put the iTunes folder.
 
wrldwzrd89 said:
Yes, there is! Change all references to /Users/Shared in the tip I gave to /Volumes/External/folders/iTunes where External is the name of your external drive (don't forget to escape spaces in the name by preceding them with a backslash) and folders are the names of any folders between the root of the external drive and the place you put the iTunes folder.
Click to expand...

Awesome! Thanks a lot for helping out, I'll be giving this a shot when I get home. My music lies on the directory of the HDD, so I would essentialy just change the route to :
/Volumes/MyBook/
right?

You're a lifesaver!
 
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