two iTunes accounts on one external hard drive

[boatcapt]

If I set up a external hard drive to keep iTunes movies on and I have two iTunes accounts. Will ITunes be able to keep track of which movies folder on the external belongs to which iTunes account?

 

[waw74]

yes, the itunes library is a file on your hard drive, each item in your library has title, artist, and so on. Also on that list is the file location.
so itunes doesn't really scan the movie folder, as much as has an entry and knows where to look for a file.

-one thing to be aware of...

if you both download the same movie from the iTunes store, you will have 2 copies on your drive. "Titanic.mp4" and "Titanic (1).mp4". itunes/finder will add the "(1)" automatically to the one that gets added second, and each itunes library will know which one belongs to it (Bob's library will point to titanic.mp4, Mary's will point to "Titanic (1).mp4")

But... If Bob adds a movie to his library. Then Mary goes to the shared folder and adds that file instead of getting it from a location outside of the shared folder, then you will have one copy, and both libraries will point to the same file.

 

[priitv8]

What waw74 described, all happens only if you have set both instances of iTunes to keep their media folders organised.
Also, AFAIK in the above described scenario, movies Titanic.mp4 and Titanic (1).mp4 will have different encryption keys, so are not mutually watchable.
For that, you have the handy Home Sharing feature.
Also, these threads discuss the common issues with sharing iTunes media between several computers:
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1651182/
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1630578/
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1604387/

 

[boatcapt]

So it ask me if I want to Replace All, Stop or Merge the movie file. I guess I would have to Merge if I wanted this to work?

 

[boatcapt]

I think I figured it out. Created a iTunes folder for my wife and one for myself on the external.

 

[priitv8]

Created a iTunes folder for my wife and one for myself on the external.

Nice to hear! Make sure you understand the difference between iTunes Library (which is a database holding your iTunes Accounts, along with the whole directory of your content) and iTunes Media Folder, which is just a storage location for media files referred to in the library database.
You can pick the library when holding Option key pressed while launching iTunes.
You can set the location of Media Folder in advanced prefs.