One Mac, Two Accounts...Share Music?

[dbales]

I'm a semi-knowledgeable Mac user who is helping an IT neophyte manage his home tech. He has a Mac Mini in a room where I created an admin/password-controlled account and another "Kids" account where I set-up Parental Controls.

What he'd like to do is be able to take the music from the admin account and "share" it with the iTunes on the Kids account.

I did a Google search and found this link from Apple.
http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1203

It didn't work. While in the Admin account, I moved the iTunes folder to a Public folder. Went to the Kids account and opened iTunes. For some strange reason, it would only share half of the music. A good portion of folders wouldn't share.

OK. So I logged back in as Admin, clicked Command-I on the iTunes folder and under Sharing & Permissions, I chose to "share" the iTunes folder.

Went back to the Kids account and opened iTunes and STILL couldn't access all of the music.

Went back to the Admin account, moved the iTunes folder around to try different things.

NOW, when I open iTunes in the Kids account, it will not share ANY music. It just shows empty folders with no music in it.

Anyone ever do this? Any idea what in the heck I'm doing wrong?

He is running an up to date Leopard OS and an up to date iTunes.

thanks,
David

 

[tomllama]

I does sound like a permissions problem. If it was me I'd try the following:
Go to Disk Utility and check/repair permissions for the drive
Get Info on the "shared" folder and ensure it says the 'kids' have R/W permission (click on the 'lock' icon and explicitly add that account if nothing else)

I use PowerTunes to switch among libraries and have used it's functionality to ensure I can share the libraries when permissions get screwed up (seems like every update to iTunes messes up the permissions). I have one library where all the music has been ripped in lossless format (so I never have to rip those CDs again) and then another where it's all 256k so I can fit the library onto an iPod, iPhone and iPad without issues (the iDevices all sync to the same library which is shared between my account and my wife's account).

 

[BaldiMac]

If all you want is to allow the kids to play certain music in your account, you just need to turn on sharing in the iTunes preferences. Enable Fast User Switching in the Accounts system preference pane. And then you can remain logged in with iTunes open and switch to the "Kids" account. Open iTunes there and make sure sharing is turned on. Your library should show up in the sidebar (or the subset of your library that you choose to share.)

 

[dbales]

Thanks, guys. I should be over at Mike's house this weekend and will take your advise. Hopefully it'll work.