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Sync iTunes libraries between 2 computers?

I've just found out that what I want to do is impossible, so I think I'm going to compromise and just have Applescript launch a Terminal window and run the script. Does a similar job and gives you instant indication of what's currently happening.
 
I've just come across an article on Tune Ranger, which sounds great. If you read the article though, it doesn't seem like it's stable enough to shell out $30 for. I'll probably keep an eye on this to see if it gets any better.
 
odinsride said:
I've just come across an article on Tune Ranger, which sounds great. If you read the article though, it doesn't seem like it's stable enough to shell out $30 for. I'll probably keep an eye on this to see if it gets any better.
Click to expand...

I read that article a couple of days ago - this is one of the pieces of software I looked at before searching for my own solution. To be honest I don't think I'd be willing to pay for this functionality when I can do it myself for free.. and feel like a proud geek!

EDIT: Looks like TUAW have reviewed Syncopation.
 
This seems similar to what I think i need.

I have an itunes library on an external hard drive which has all my video content and another library on my macbook internal drive with all my music. I want to be able to have all my music and video on the external library for when I update my ipod, so I can have some video, but have all my music on my ipod. and of course i want both libraries synced (but only with the same music, not the video)

I assume to do this, i will have my internal library sync to my external library. yes?

If i do this, will all my video content still stay on the external library or will it erase the external library and make an exact copy of my internal library?

thanks
 
tommymcguck said:
This seems similar to what I think i need.

I have an itunes library on an external hard drive which has all my video content and another library on my macbook internal drive with all my music. I want to be able to have all my music and video on the external library for when I update my ipod, so I can have some video, but have all my music on my ipod. and of course i want both libraries synced (but only with the same music, not the video)

I assume to do this, i will have my internal library sync to my external library. yes?

If i do this, will all my video content still stay on the external library or will it erase the external library and make an exact copy of my internal library?

thanks
Click to expand...

Here's what I do on my MBP:

One iTunes library located on my MBP internal hard drive. All of my music resides on my internal HD. I put all of my videos in a folder on my external HD.

Whenever I want to add videos, I do this:
1. Go to iTunes > Preferences, Advanced, then disable the option to copy files to the iTunes Music Library when adding to iTunes.
2. Drag my videos to iTunes from my external drive.
3. Re-enable the option I disabled in Step 1.

This way your videos stay on your external drive, but also appear in your iTunes library. If your external drive is not present when you open iTunes, the videos will still show up in your library, you just won't be able to play them until you hook up to the external again.

Hope it helps!
 
sounds pretty simple...

would it be hard to make an automator script to go through the videos on the external and find new ones, then do the process of disabling the copy files, import it and enable the copy files again?

because sometimes it is a while between plug ins to my external and i am likely to forget what new videos i have.
 
tommymcguck said:
sounds pretty simple...

would it be hard to make an automator script to go through the videos on the external and find new ones, then do the process of disabling the copy files, import it and enable the copy files again?

because sometimes it is a while between plug ins to my external and i am likely to forget what new videos i have.
Click to expand...

Not sure if an automator workflow can do that, I only know the basics. You could keep your new videos in a separate folder until you add them to iTunes, as a workaround.
 
pulsewidth947 said:
I read that article a couple of days ago - this is one of the pieces of software I looked at before searching for my own solution. To be honest I don't think I'd be willing to pay for this functionality when I can do it myself for free.. and feel like a proud geek!

EDIT: Looks like TUAW have reviewed Syncopation.
Click to expand...

Any idiot can sync the files figuratively speaking with a number of tools, but it's a little more difficult to sync the attributes in the library.

I find Tuneranger pretty unusable. Syncopation does seem to work better - but my reasons for syncing is mainly to interface with better software for Windows while maintaining Playcount information between Windows - Mac iTunes.

It would be good if scripting the iTunes library re-pointing using a copied XML file wasn't so timeconsuming - or even just getting iTunes to reimport the newly synced tracks. I might take a crack at Windows scripting once again and try and do it in the ither direction.
 
tommymcguck said:
sounds pretty simple...

would it be hard to make an automator script to go through the videos on the external and find new ones, then do the process of disabling the copy files, import it and enable the copy files again?

because sometimes it is a while between plug ins to my external and i am likely to forget what new videos i have.
Click to expand...

Unfortunately Automator isn't as useful as this. Hence why I've started learning ActionScript/UNIX commands. I don't even think you could write a script to disable copy files, and re-enable it, because the option is buried within the preferences. Wait.. that's given me an idea.

OK so your iTunes preferences are stored in ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.iTunes.plist . So when you disable copy files and close iTunes it'll save over this file. So duplicate it somewhere, then re-enable copy files, and again close iTunes. Now duplicate that and you now have a version of the file for disabling, and a version for enabling.

So you could then use automator to copy your plist to the preferences folder, then use the Import Files into iTunes action to add your new video files. As for checking for new files, as far as I know this can't be done. Because you can't compare two folders - you are comparing one folder (your movies) with the iTunes Library file. Which would take some advanced scripting I think. The simplest solution would be to import your files as soon as you create them 🙂 You can create a workflow that'll do everything for you, but then pop up a window asking you to select which files to import, then finish up by re enabling your import preference.

Hope that makes sense - it does to me, but I am an über geek 😀
 
odinsride said:
Here's what I do on my MBP:

One iTunes library located on my MBP internal hard drive. All of my music resides on my internal HD. I put all of my videos in a folder on my external HD.

Whenever I want to add videos, I do this:
1. Go to iTunes > Preferences, Advanced, then disable the option to copy files to the iTunes Music Library when adding to iTunes.
2. Drag my videos to iTunes from my external drive.
3. Re-enable the option I disabled in Step 1.

This way your videos stay on your external drive, but also appear in your iTunes library. If your external drive is not present when you open iTunes, the videos will still show up in your library, you just won't be able to play them until you hook up to the external again.

Hope it helps!
Click to expand...

If you hold down the option key while dragging files into iTunes, it won't copy them to the iTunes library.. that'll save you from having to go into the preferences each time you want to add a video. I'm gonna assume that it also works on a windows PC using the alt key or something similar.

On a side note.. thanks, this thread was very helpful!
Does anyone know if this method would work properly with iPhoto libraries?
 
Bump.

I'm researching software to help me manage iTunes files across several computers. I want to be able to be selective: some files/playlists/categories I don't need or want on one computer, i.e., I need to be selective in what I sync.

I'm looking at TuneRanger, SuperSync, and myTuneSync but I haven't communicated with anyone who's used either.

Anyone out there have any experience with these?

Mooch
 
I have been using chronosync. Not free but I didn't know about this in the beginning. I also use it for other items now but this is a great idea.

Now if I could just find a way to have iTunes automatically scan folders at a pre-designated time to look for new content so that I don't have to add them manually all the time. This would be great if someone has something like this!
 
I followed the instructions, but can't seem to get this to work. I run the saved application and it connects, and appears to be working, but my library isn't updated. This is my first mac and rsync and automator feel a little bit over my head, but I think I have it almost figured out.

Thanks 🙂
 
What is wrong with Syncopation? My God, that app is one of my favorite. I also was looking for a solution to keeping two computers in sync and tried several apps but none did what I wanted. Syncopation is a fantastic app and it works with multiple options. You can keep both computers synced up or you can choose to keep one computer as a copy of the other - which is what I do with my MBP and Mini. I do all of my iTunes purchases for music and podcasts, run Syncopation on my Mini and all the new additions gets copied over. If I want to bring movies over from my Mini I just enable syncing the other way for movies or tv shows - and can pick which ones I want - and they go right in the MBP library.
 
soLoredd said:
What is wrong with Syncopation? My God, that app is one of my favorite. I also was looking for a solution to keeping two computers in sync and tried several apps but none did what I wanted. Syncopation is a fantastic app and it works with multiple options. You can keep both computers synced up or you can choose to keep one computer as a copy of the other - which is what I do with my MBP and Mini. I do all of my iTunes purchases for music and podcasts, run Syncopation on my Mini and all the new additions gets copied over. If I want to bring movies over from my Mini I just enable syncing the other way for movies or tv shows - and can pick which ones I want - and they go right in the MBP library.
Click to expand...

1. I have data this is not properly sync'd on two machines, let alone three.
2. It doesn't (nor do any) sync all my hard work of album art.

I've tried the big three and they all have considerable consistency issues syncing.
 
I tried myTuneSync recently and can't recommend it. Results with playlists were inconsistent, one copy won't remember that it's registered, sometimes it doesn't work, and recently it quit working altogether. TuneRanger is next.

Mooch
 
i am fairly keen on doing this i guess, but i have different libraries on different computers. i remotely connect to the library on another computer (using itunes) if i want to listen to the songs on it.. works easy for me.
 
Solution

It seems in iTunes 8 and probably earlier versions too, that if you simply use the 'Add to library' under the File menu, browse to your other Mac and find your iTunes library, iTunes scans the contents before importing so that you don't end up with duplicates, just copying the ones it needs.
Sorry if I've missed the point, but this seems to answer most queries here. 🙂
 
HTDL said:
It seems in iTunes 8 and probably earlier versions too, that if you simply use the 'Add to library' under the File menu, browse to your other Mac and find your iTunes library, iTunes scans the contents before importing so that you don't end up with duplicates, just copying the ones it needs.
Sorry if I've missed the point, but this seems to answer most queries here. 🙂
Click to expand...

Will this work for a pc and a mac?
 
Hopefully this is the right forum. I currently have a large iTunes Library (60 GB). I don't really want all of this on my laptop. So, I have used rsync to duplicate the library onto an external drive. I would like to maintain an itunes accessible library on the external and maintain a slimmed down library (say, 20 GB) on my computer. Does anyone know if it's possible to create an automator app that will allow me to update the external library with new purchases made on my laptop and visualize those when the external library is opened via itunes. Thanks.
 
I can't thank you two enough. It about time to give up on syncing my iTunes with my media center when I found this thread. Shame on apple for not implementing something so simple and yet so useful.
 
Just to let everyone know. I changed rsync to sync everything but my itunes folder from my laptop to my home computers external drive. Then I set another rsync command that syncs everything in the itunes folder to the /users/home/music folder on my home computer. After that I went and made an alias in the Users directory that redirected /users/cort/music to /volumes/external/music. Doing this worked great, rsync transfers the library.xml file and itunes on my home computer is able to play all my music right off my external.
 
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