Just got a Mac Mini..few questions

[Shockwave78]

So after buying a Windows 8 laptop for my mom and then playing with it for awhile i realized she would have a lot of trouble getting used to it. The combination of her never having a laptop, a smaller screen size to deal with, and Windows 8 itself may have been to much for her to get used to all at once. This was going to replace her desktop also..

So I picked up a Mac Mini before i return the laptop to try out...So far so good but i have a few questions...

1. WTF was Itunes taking so long to import the music into its library. I transferred about 100GB of music off an external hard drive into the music folder on the Mini. I started iTunes and went to file, then add folder to library.. Then it started acting weird, I saw the normal "processing xxxx file name" but then i also saw copying up top in the iTunes status windows up top, like it was recopying the directory somewhere else...I let this go on for about an hour or two and then left for the day. What was going on here? Shouldn't it have just processed the files in the library in a few minutes as it normally would on my PC? Its been about 24hrs now..hopefully when i go back today its done finally!

2. Iphoto..can this be used to organize the files.. I get the impression that it just reads the file names then organizes them in iphoto, but not the directory its reading from?

3. Easy way to share one music and pictures folder between all users? In addition to that, When each user plugs in there iPhone or adds photos they will be written to the directory.

4. Are there any common tweaks that need to be made for performance or anything along those lines?

Thanks

 

[fa8362]

So after buying a Windows 8 laptop for my mom and then playing with it for awhile i realized she would have a lot of trouble getting used to it. The combination of her never having a laptop, a smaller screen size to deal with, and Windows 8 itself may have been to much for her to get used to all at once. This was going to replace her desktop also..

So I picked up a Mac Mini before i return the laptop to try out...So far so good but i have a few questions...

1. WTF was Itunes taking so long to import the music into its library. I transferred about 100GB of music off an external hard drive into the music folder on the Mini. I started iTunes and went to file, then add folder to library.. Then it started acting weird, I saw the normal "processing xxxx file name" but then i also saw copying up top in the iTunes status windows up top, like it was recopying the directory somewhere else...I let this go on for about an hour or two and then left for the day. What was going on here? Shouldn't it have just processed the files in the library in a few minutes as it normally would on my PC? Its been about 24hrs now..hopefully when i go back today its done finally!

2. Iphoto..can this be used to organize the files.. I get the impression that it just reads the file names then organizes them in iphoto, but not the directory its reading from?

3. Easy way to share one music and pictures folder between all users? In addition to that, When each user plugs in there iPhone or adds photos they will be written to the directory.

4. Are there any common tweaks that need to be made for performance or anything along those lines?

Thanks

That's because you didn't enter iTunes preferences > advanced, and uncheck "copy files to iTunes Media folder when adding to library." When set default operation, iTunes copies everything.

Can't help you with the rest because I don't use iPhoto and don't share.

 

[Shockwave78]

That's because you didn't enter iTunes preferences > advanced, and uncheck "copy files to iTunes Media folder when adding to library." When set default operation, iTunes copies everything.

Can't help you with the rest because I don't use iPhoto and don't share.

Ok thanks!

Is there any benefit to uncheck that now? So i have two duplicate libraries most likely now...I will need to delete one of them that's why i ask.

 

[fa8362]

If you uncheck it, you won't repeat the mistake. But yes, you'll have to delete one set of files.

I keep my iTunes library on external hard drives and don't let iTunes organize my files (I unchecked that option). When I want to listen on another computer, I just move the drive.

When I first used iTunes years ago, I let iTunes organize the files (the default) and that was a disaster.

 

[benwiggy]

iTunes copies everything (unless told otherwise) to <user>/Music/iTunes.
You can delete that, relaunch, change the preference, and then probably reimport the files from your existing library.

iPhoto stores all the pictures in a big "thing". You must not attempt to fiddle with it and organise the contents. If you want to organise your own folders of photos on the disk, then iPhoto isn't for you.
All the organisation, tagging, sorting, collating, is done within the app, not in the Finder. It is based on Events, people (face recognition), places, and groups of photos that you can create.

You do not need to do ANYTHING to your Mac in terms of tuning or maintenance. You can't make it go faster by deleting stuff or stopping things from running. You don't need to change the oil every 5000 miles. Do NOT buy any app that claims to "clean", "sweep", purge or evacuate your Mac's apps, files, memory.
IF you get into difficulties, there are some troubleshooting routines you can try, but none of them are necessary or even beneficial if performed prophylactically on a regular basis.

iTunes and iPhoto both have sharing features. However, they are not really designed for creating a multi-user database. You may find various webpages about how to share libraries between users.

 

[Gav2k]

As above comments but with iTunes leave it set to copy now it's done.

Do not delete user/iTunes/music folder but do delete the folder you copied over in the first place.

 

[Shockwave78]

Ok thanks, Went there this afternoon and everything was up and running good. I started screwing around with the photos but decided to leave it, bring her external drive back to my house and organize her photo's once again with Lightroom. Now I just finished up doing that..

Next question..

When i bring all these organized photos into iphoto and she starts creating events and such out of those folders. Does this edit the actual folder name and such or does it create a new folder? Or is it all just virtual for looks in iphoto itself and nothing is changed in the directory its reading.

I have no issue with any of the above ways if it choose. But if she ends up spending hours and hours created events from 10yrs+ of photo's i would like it to be more than just a virtual thing. Ideally, i would like it keep the original structure, and then any events she creates, create a new folder with a duplicate of those photos added to that event... I say this because it would seem like a waste to spend all this time and then if you have to wipe the system out or something for whatever reason you don't have to do it all over, or if she ends up moving back to windows in a year or two.

Ok enough of my drivel