Multiple Libraries Feature of iTunes 7

[esaleris]

Your library contains everything you’ve bought from the iTunes Store or imported from CD. Music, movies, TV shows, podcasts, audiobooks, iPod Games, and streaming radio. As your collection grows, you can keep multiple libraries — even store them across more than one hard drive.

On Apple.com's site, it says the above, but I have no clue how to access this "multiple libraries" feature. I'm interested because most of my music is on my server, but I keep some on my laptop.

Any clue?

 

[mduser63]

I see the same thing. It's on this page and this page. I looked in the iTunes 7 help and couldn't find anything either. It's a feature a lot of people have been requesting for a long time. It's weird that Apple is advertising it, yet it seems to be either hard to find/use or non-existent.

 

[Manzana]

i can't wait to use this feature, but i'm puzzled by how it works. i've always kept a chunk of my library on an external drive...how would this be different, i don't know.

 

[Sky Blue]

From TUAW:

"The new 'multiple libraries' feature was slightly misleading; it's actually not much more than the fact that Apple drew some lines between the types of files iTunes handles, and separated them out into their own sections at the top of the media list (making the browsing bar introduced in iTunes 6 an obsolete feature). This is also customizable from iTunes' General preferences pane; you can toggle the display of these sections at will, and even add Audiobooks and iPod Games (for all the good they'll do you; they aren't playable in iTunes) to round up the new family"

 

[Vaphoron]

Hold down the option key while opening iTunes and you will get a dialog to create a new library or select an old one. It works just the same way for multiple photo libraries in iPhoto.

 

[esaleris]

Well, they specifically said "across hard drives." I guess you can only create different libraries on different locations, rather than have a bridging of libraries over multiple locations.

Aww, shucks. Maybe next time.

 

[redeye be]

Hold down the option key while opening iTunes and you will get a dialog to create a new library or select an old one. It works just the same way for multiple photo libraries in iPhoto.

I did not know iPhoto could do that, thx for the info!

 

[gauchogolfer]

I did not know iPhoto could do that, thx for the info!

Download iPhoto Buddy, a free program that takes this functionality and makes it very easy to handle multiple iphoto libraries across harddrives. It's invaluable to me, and I wish there was a comparable program for iTunes.

 

[redeye be]

Download iPhoto Buddy, a free program that takes this functionality and makes it very easy to handle multiple iphoto libraries across harddrives. It's invaluable to me, and I wish there was a comparable program for iTunes.

I have been using 'iPhoto Library Manager" for some time now.
The option thing on iTunes and iPhoto was new to me though, but indeed as you say could be made a bit more elegant.