10-25-2008, 09:53 AM

I have an imac with tons of music on it. i am getting a macbook pro but want to make sure i can share my library between the two. From what i understand, i can share the library over my wireless network but i want to share it so that when i travel i will have access to my movies and music on the macbook. That is, i want to actually have it on my macbook and imac. Is this possible?

10-26-2008, 05:46 AM

Could you actually describe a bit more in detail what you want to achieve ? Do you want to have two different libraries on your mbp depending on whether you are on the road or not? Do you want to access your iMac library on the road ?

10-26-2008, 06:04 AM

I wonder if .mac or mobileMe or whatever it's called at the minute will sync the 2 libraries between both machines - add a new file to the portable and the sync will add that to your desk bound machine as well.

That way you will always have the same files on 2 machines.

10-26-2008, 07:10 AM

Originally Posted by RNDdave

I wonder if .mac or mobileMe or whatever it's called at the minute will sync the 2 libraries between both machines - add a new file to the portable and the sync will add that to your desk bound machine as well.

That way you will always have the same files on 2 machines.

MobileMe will not sync iTunes. I think the solution would be something like ChronoSync (although I have not tried that our myself).

10-26-2008, 08:49 AM

Do what I did- save all the music to a flash drive, or portable hard drive. Seeing you have 'tons' of music, I think the portable hard drive would work best. You will also have to authorize your other iMac- but that is no big deal. Hope I helped.

10-26-2008, 09:38 AM

Originally Posted by sys0p

Could you actually describe a bit more in detail what you want to achieve ? Do you want to have two different libraries on your mbp depending on whether you are on the road or not? Do you want to access your iMac library on the road ?

I want the same library on both computers. Same content on both. Basically, a mirror image of the imac library on the macbook.

10-26-2008, 09:42 AM

Originally Posted by BlueMac

Do what I did- save all the music to a flash drive, or portable hard drive. Seeing you have 'tons' of music, I think the portable hard drive would work best. You will also have to authorize your other iMac- but that is no big deal. Hope I helped.

This seems the best way to me. When I moved from PC to Mac, I copied the music from one to the other using a USB drive. The way to do it is to copy the folder structure from the first machine to the USB drive and then import it into iTunes on the other. I forget the correct terms but there are two ways of doing that. One requires the USB drive to remain visible and reads it from that and the other actually copies the music files to the new hard drive. The latter of course is the one you want here.

You also have to authorise the second machine, which is not a problem as you are allowed 5 at once. If you are getting rid of the first machine remember to deauthorise it first. I made that mistake once when I reformatted my hard drive and again when I put a new hard disk in my laptop - leaving me with 2 machines which were authorised but no longer available. Eventually I had to deauthorise them all and then authorise just the current machines. That went smoothly and worked fine, although I was a bit nervous of leaving myself with no working machines.

Good luck.

10-26-2008, 09:57 AM

Originally Posted by wallen

I want the same library on both computers. Same content on both. Basically, a mirror image of the imac library on the macbook.

That seems to be what ChronoSync does....

10-26-2008, 10:48 AM

Originally Posted by Nighthawk4

This seems the best way to me. When I moved from PC to Mac, I copied the music from one to the other using a USB drive. The way to do it is to copy the folder structure from the first machine to the USB drive and then import it into iTunes on the other. I forget the correct terms but there are two ways of doing that. One requires the USB drive to remain visible and reads it from that and the other actually copies the music files to the new hard drive. The latter of course is the one you want here.

Yea, I had a Dell PC up until this past summer. My PC was in the cellar, my mac is upstairs. I transferred my 231 songs from PC to Mac with my 1GB flash drive. Yes, it was a long task

10-26-2008, 03:19 PM

Originally Posted by Nighthawk4

This seems the best way to me. When I moved from PC to Mac, I copied the music from one to the other using a USB drive. The way to do it is to copy the folder structure from the first machine to the USB drive and then import it into iTunes on the other. I forget the correct terms but there are two ways of doing that. One requires the USB drive to remain visible and reads it from that and the other actually copies the music files to the new hard drive. The latter of course is the one you want here.

You also have to authorise the second machine, which is not a problem as you are allowed 5 at once. If you are getting rid of the first machine remember to deauthorise it first. I made that mistake once when I reformatted my hard drive and again when I put a new hard disk in my laptop - leaving me with 2 machines which were authorised but no longer available. Eventually I had to deauthorise them all and then authorise just the current machines. That went smoothly and worked fine, although I was a bit nervous of leaving myself with no working machines.

Good luck.

So once I have everything loaded on the laptop, i should be able to listen to/watch everything in my library on both. I guess the only thing after that would be to make sure i keep them synced, either manually or through the software mentioned in the thread...right? Thanks to all for the help.

10-26-2008, 04:26 PM

I use TuneRanger to synchronize between my two Mac's:

TuneRanger does iTunes to iTunes Sync and Merge over a Network - Acertant

10-26-2008, 05:24 PM

Originally Posted by TopDog

I use TuneRanger to synchronize between my two Mac's:

TuneRanger does iTunes to iTunes Sync and Merge over a Network - Acertant

Thx a bunch gang

10-27-2008, 01:58 PM

The only problem with using the USB drive more than once is that you will get duplicates. You can display these and then delete them, but it is still a pain.

A proper synchronisation program will avoid that.

11-18-2008, 03:31 PM

Informative thread guys. Thank you.

Can someone point me in the direction of some literature explaining why we can't have more than one iTunes machine at one time? I know it has to do with "digital rights" but it just seems ridiculous to me. Perhaps if I heard the argument for this situation I wouldn't feel so bad about it.

I have my main iTunes account at home. This is where I sync my iPhone with my MBP and maintain a sizable music library. I don't like downloading video from home though because it takes much longer than my work connection (T1). I would love to DL video at work, from iTunes, and load it onto my iPhone. Alas, it requires me to "replace" all of my files. Uhg.

Sorry to jack this thread but: A) it seems the OP was answered. B) Why start another thread, right?

Thanks!

11-18-2008, 03:40 PM

I have a MacBook Pro and an iMac and I use ChronoSync and keep them both 100% in sync. It works great actually. I buy all my music from Amazon so I do not deal with the DRM debacle. Give it a shot. I tried syncOtunes, but I hated it.