Set up seperate apple itunes account for family member or use mine

[Sossity]

Hello all, I will be putting together some music to put on my family member's iPod, and will be using iTunes to sync. My question is, am I better off making an account of their own with apple and their own fresh iTunes library, or just using my already established iTunes library and making a dedicated playlist of their music to sync to their iPod?

They are older and not tech savvy, so I will be the one managing their music and their iPod and syncing music to it. So should I just use my apple account and my iTunes library? or make one of their own?

As a side note, I may also be giving them my older iPhone if I get a new one, and would want to know if I should open up their own apple account etc. It would be the same deal, I would be the one managing their iPhone, with apps, music etc.

 

[NoBoMac]

For iPod, iTunes would be the way to go, imo, particularly if it's an old non-touch iPod (ie. No apps and possibly sensitive info on it).

If it's an iOS iPod and or do turn over the phone, might consider Family Sharing, as now can do stuff like Find My Phone.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201088

 

[Ruggy]

Hello all, I will be putting together some music to put on my family member's iPod, and will be using iTunes to sync. My question is, am I better off making an account of their own with apple and their own fresh iTunes library, or just using my already established iTunes library and making a dedicated playlist of their music to sync to their iPod?

They are older and not tech savvy, so I will be the one managing their music and their iPod and syncing music to it. So should I just use my apple account and my iTunes library? or make one of their own?

As a side note, I may also be giving them my older iPhone if I get a new one, and would want to know if I should open up their own apple account etc. It would be the same deal, I would be the one managing their iPhone, with apps, music etc.

You should definitely set up family sharing, designate yourself as a manager and give them their own account as part of the family.

Otherwise, if they are signed in on your account they will get all your messages, photos, anything you do.

Plus, you'll get anything they do or be victim of anything they mess up or delete.

If they are not internet savvy then you can set up a library just for them yes, but also, they have access to all your library in a couple of clicks anyway and it's not that difficult to do.

I would also recommend you set up restrictions for them (it might be called something else now I can't remember) but you can disable in-app purchase for instance and that can stop them inadvertently paying for something by mistake.
But with family sharing most of your apps, films etc that you have bought will also be available to them.

Check out the accessibility settings too as you can disable certain functions making the ipad/phone simpler and less confusing for the elderly.

I'm sure it's the way to go so check out family sharing first.

 

[Sossity]

For iPod, iTunes would be the way to go, imo, particularly if it's an old non-touch iPod (ie. No apps and possibly sensitive info on it).

If it's an iOS iPod and or do turn over the phone, might consider Family Sharing, as now can do stuff like Find My Phone.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201088

Thank you will look into family sharing, so for the ipod they have, it is a non ios one, should I just make a playlist for them in my itunes library? or start with a new one of thiers?

 

[NoBoMac]

For old iPods, probably easiest to just build them a playlist and sync with iTunes.

 

[Sossity]

could i then copy or move the playlist to their own itunes when the time comes for me to set them up with thier own apple id?

 

[NoBoMac]

Yes. iTunes has export/import function for playlists.

Have not done this myself, but, believe might get errors if the music is not in their iTunes. But if keeping all on your copy of iTunes, should not matter, as will be copying from your library. Only issue I can see if you are using iTunes Match/Music, in which case might want to look into Family Sharing, where you have a central Family library to share stuff.

ADD: can try syncing the iPod to their iTunes, to copy over the music, then pull in the exported playlist (but even then might not need to import, might copy over the playlist as-is).

 

[Partron22]

You may have iTunes version problems between machines.
I run iTunes 10.4.1 on all the Macs in the house, from 10.5-10.13, iPods, iPads and iPhones may refuse to sync with anything less than iTunes 12.6. So you may need a copy of that on your Mac too.
Switching back and forth between the versions is not hard. Just copy iTunes Library.itl of the older version of iTunes out to the desktop, launch 12.6, and it will auto-update. When done with your syncing, just quit iTunes, and drag the old .itl back where it belongs. This works through Mojave. I doubt I'll ever be moving to Catalina (APFS is teh Suxxor), so have not tested it.