Putting my iTunes music library on an external drive

[robbrick]

Hi.. I am wondering if someone could help me out... I have been searching and reading and cannot find the answer to this question:

I put my iTunes library on my external drive hooked up to my MacMini being used as my 'server'. I want to use my MacBookPro and my GF's MacBook to be able to access the songs on that shared drive. So what I did (I got this advice from the apple store) is hold down the OPTION key, while launching iTunes, selected CHOOSE LIBRARY and chose the iTunes folder on the shared drive hooked up to the MacMini. I have seen discussions about Consolidating Library, etc., but nothing that discussed this way of doing it. As far as I can tell, this is a successful procedure, but I want to make sure it's the right way of doing it.

I noticed a thread here on the forums that also said to create an alias of the music folder on the shared drive and replace the folder in the music folder on my MacBookPro, which I did last night and then did the hold OPTION key while launching iTunes and pointed iTunes to this folder and when I checked the advanced settings to see where the music library was pointed to, it still showed that it's pointed to the shared drive on the MacMini. Maybe this is the way an alias works, but either way, it's working.

Any help or suggestions would be appreciated.

Thank you.

 

[sWaltuo]

I know ilounge.com had a whole like three page article on iTunes and moving the library to an external hard drive. Maybe it is worth a look to see if the tie-bit of info you are looking for is there?

 

[birdwooddog]

I am trying to do the same thing (PC user). I have three PCs - mine, wife, daughter - and 3 ipods. It is silly to think that we each you copy our entire music library onto three different PCs. I have most of my music on an external harddrive - but we still can only access the library from one PC. This is something Apple TV should take of - sync differnt ipods with different play lists.

 

[Howard Brazee]

I'd like to put my music on an external drive - that I take back and forth between home and work.

But at home, it's no problem. I share my iTunes and anybody on my home LAN can play the songs from my computer.

 

[Mitthrawnuruodo]

iTunes: How to share music between different accounts on a single computer

iTunes for Mac: Moving your iTunes Music folder
iTunes for Windows: Moving your iTunes Music folder

Enjoy.

 

[ChrisA]

I keep both my iTunes and iPhoto library on a 500GB external drive. It works fine. No problems. All I had to do was copy the "pictures" and "music" folders over to the external drive then I made "aliases" (technically they are symbolic links, but the finder calls then "alias") that pointed over to the external drive.

 

[Howard Brazee]

I keep both my iTunes and iPhoto library on a 500GB external drive. It works fine. No problems. All I had to do was copy the "pictures" and "music" folders over to the external drive then I made "aliases" (technically they are symbolic links, but the finder calls then "alias") that pointed over to the external drive.

Have you been able to plug that drive into a different computer and run the music from a different iTunes?

The sharing aspects of iTunes could be improved - I'd like to have my iTunes know the names of the 5 iTunes computers that access it, along with the names of the multiple iPods that access it - and treat them all as one database per iPod (keeping track of when a song is played on multiple computers for an iPod is a little complicated, but doable).

 

[birdwooddog]

iTunes: How to share music between different accounts on a single computer

iTunes for Mac: Moving your iTunes Music folder
iTunes for Windows: Moving your iTunes Music folder

Enjoy.

I want to share a single account on multiple computers.

 

[c-Row]

So what I did (I got this advice from the apple store) is hold down the OPTION key, while launching iTunes, selected CHOOSE LIBRARY and chose the iTunes folder on the shared drive hooked up to the MacMini.

That's what I do as well. However, if multiple users do have access to the same library, changes to its entries might only display on the other computers after the users restart iTunes (adding new tracks, edit tracks etc.)

 

[robbrick]

I keep both my iTunes and iPhoto library on a 500GB external drive. It works fine. No problems. All I had to do was copy the "pictures" and "music" folders over to the external drive then I made "aliases" (technically they are symbolic links, but the finder calls then "alias") that pointed over to the external drive.

I did this 'alias' thing and I am wondering something... When I go to the advanced settings and choose the alias on my local machine as the location for the itunes library, itunes' advanced settings still displays the location of the aliased file, which is located on my networked mac mini. is this the correct way aliases work?

thanks.