I have both a MBP and an iMac.

If I purchase music on one how can I make it available on the other ?

This would seem to me a perfect example of another area where internet based synchronization would make perfect sense. All the music we purchase would be stored on Mobile Me and then all computers (authorized) are periodically synchronized. AH ! would that not be great ??? We are after all already doing this for many other things ....


thx !

Only because I think it's funny and it fits with your question...here is your answer.

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=synchronize+itunes

anybody else ?

You have several options.

1) If your two machines are on the same network, turn on sharing in iTunes and you can play the music from one computer on the other. This does require both computers to be on and iTunes running on both computers.

2) Copy music files from one computer to the other. This can be done many ways: a FireWire or USB drive as an intermediary, booting one machine in FireWire target mode, or over the network, perhaps using File Sharing.

3) Buy a NAS storage device - essentially a dedicated file serving appliance - and copy all your music there, where it can be accessed by both machines. The downside of this approach is that when you take your MBP "on the road" it won't be able to access the music.

There are probably other options as well, some are combinations of the above approaches.

anybody else ?

How to shift iTunes libraries
Steps for coalescing your music collection on a roomier hard drive
By Christopher Breen
Moving music: First Steps
As I tool around the country talking to people about their iPods, I begin my talk by polling the audience to see how many tracks are in their iTunes libraries. Not so long ago, perhaps one or two people in the crowd had more than 5,000 tracks. That’s changing. Now I have to ask “More than 10,000?” before you begin separating the men from the boys (and yes, it’s always men).
While this speaks volumes for the popularity of iTunes and the iPod (or, at least, the acquisitive nature of men), it also poses a problem: Assuming you want to use your computer’s startup drive for more than storing and playing music, where do you put all that music?
Me? It depends on the computer I’m using. I’ve recently installed a high-capacity internal hard drive on my Windows PC, which I use largely for backup and music storage. For my Power Mac G5 I use an external FireWire drive for much the same purpose.
With all that storage at my command the only remaining issue is how to move the music on my startup drives to the archive drives. That’s exactly what I intend to outline in the next several paragraphs. Follow along if you’re just as keen to shift your iTunes music library.
There are a couple of ways to move your music from here to there. If you use iTunes’ Help menu to access the iTunes and Music Store Help command and enter “changing audio files stored” in the Search field, you’ll learn:
To move songs you’ve already imported to a new location (for example, a different folder on your hard disk, or a different computer), drag the iTunes Music folder (by default, inside your home folder at Music/iTunes/iTunes Music) to the new location. To make sure any future songs you import are stored in the same place, choose iTunes > Preferences, and click Advanced. If necessary, click Change to choose the location where you just dragged your files.
But there’s another way, which is:
1. Create a new location for your music files—in a folder on an additional internal or external hard drive, for example.
2. Launch iTunes and select Preferences from the iTunes menu (Mac) or Edit menu (Windows). Click the Advanced tab, click the Change button, and in the resulting Change Music Folder Location dialog box, navigate to the new location you just created and click Choose.


3. In that same Advanced preference enable the Keep iTunes Music Folder Organized and Copy Files to iTunes Music Folder When Adding to Library options and click OK to dismiss the preferences window.

4. From iTunes’ Advanced menu choose Consolidate Library. As the dialog box that appears indicates, this will copy all of your music files into the iTunes Music Folder—a version of that music folder that now exists on another drive.
When you click Consolidate, iTunes will copy not only your tracks to the destination you designated, but also your library’s playlists (ratings will be maintained as well).
Moving Music: A Step Beyond
The technique I just outlined is no big secret. However, taking it to the next level is less well known. It’s like this:
Suppose you have multiple computers and each one has a different collection of music. Wouldn’t it be desirable to coalesce that collection to a single location? Here’s how:
1. As with the first technique, create a new location for your music files from your main computer.
2. With your other computers networked to your main computer, mount the volume of each of these computers that holds that computer’s music files. For instance, if you have a Mac and a Windows PC and you’d like to store all the music on both computers to the FireWire drive attached to the Mac, mount the PC’s startup volume (which holds the PCs music) on your Mac’s desktop.
3. Launch iTunes on the main computer, open its Advanced preference and disable the Copy Files to iTunes Music Folder When Adding to Library option.
4. Select File > Add to Library, navigate to the music folder on one of the mounted volumes, and click Choose.

The titles of the tracks will be added to the iTunes library on the main computer, but not the tracks themselves. Rather, the track titles will point to the files on the networked computer (much like an computer’s alias or shortcut file) and, when you try to play them, stream the track across the network and play it from the speakers on the main computer.
5. Choose Edit > View Options and, in the resulting window, enable the Date Added option.
We’re about to separate the wheat from the chaff and we need an easy way to identify recently added tracks.
6. Select Edit > Show Duplicate Songs.
The reason we’ve unchecked the Copy Files to iTunes Music Folder When Adding to Library option is so that we can weed out duplicates before they’re added to your new centralized music library. The easiest way to identify these duplicates is to ask iTunes to show duplicate songs and then sort the tracks by Date Added.



Select the duplicates that were added when you added the networked volume to your iTunes library and delete them. This won’t delete any real tracks, just the titles.
Note: Some of these tracks may not be identical duplicates. iTunes identifies duplicates by title and artist only. If you have multiple versions of a track—the studio and live version, for example—keep an eye peeled from tracks that aren’t really duplicates.
7. Now that your library is cleaned up, return to the Advanced preference, enable the Copy Files to iTunes Music Folder When Adding to Library option, click OK to dismiss the preferences window, choose Advanced > Consolidate Library, and click Consolidate. The tracks from the networked volume will be copied across the network and placed in the central music library you created.
One more note: If you’re certain that there are no duplicates between your main computer and mounted volumes, feel free to skip from Step 2 to Step 7.

I'm curious, windwaves, what exactly is it that drives you crazy? Is it that there isn't yet a way to have your master iTunes library up in a cloud that all your Macs or devices can just magically tap into when needed? Or is it something more mundane, like that Apple hasn't yet imbued iTunes with a seamless, "it just works" ability for a single library to be managed by multiple Macs, with live updating and syncing across all of them?

And if not those, what?

Or is it something more mundane, like that Apple hasn't yet imbued iTunes with a seamless, "it just works" ability for a single library to be managed by multiple Macs, with live updating and syncing across all of them?

Is this in the works? Cause that would be very useful for my household.

Oh, I have no idea. I bet it's not high up on Apple's radar, though, they've already solved the whole house thing quite elegantly, with multiple aTVs being able to sync or stream, simultaneously, from the same instance of iTunes (wherever the files themselves happen to reside) and using an iPod touch as wireless remote.

It's no help to the OP, but I personally stopped caring about what iTunes couldn't do, and focused on what it did do very well, a long time ago.

Cause that would be very useful for my household

How do things work in your house--how exactly are you and the famliy finding yourselves hindered?

I'm curious, windwaves, what exactly is it that drives you crazy? Is it that there isn't yet a way to have your master iTunes library up in a cloud that all your Macs or devices can just magically tap into when needed? Or is it something more mundane, like that Apple hasn't yet imbued iTunes with a seamless, "it just works" ability for a single library to be managed by multiple Macs, with live updating and syncing across all of them?

And if not those, what?

mundane for sure !!! but I really said that sort of jokingly anyhow.

Frankly I am not sure it should be so hard to understand a level of frustration.
I have more than one mac, in different locations. Example:

I take my laptop to my w/e house, purchase some music there. On Monday, back in the city, oops, my new music is only available on the laptop, ouch, major PTA, got to copy it to my iMac which is what I tend to use there. Wait, first I have got to figure out how iTunes stores the files and the various pieces thereof. Certainly a PTA, jokingly that is, it "drives me crazy". Repeat btw for pretty much every other w/e !!!

Of course I am sure there are solutions. As a Apple user since the Apple IIe, yes, you might think I's have some expectation, I am indeed spoiled. But here that is not the point.

The point of my post is merely to see how others have addressed this. I am sure there are good solutions. It could also be very possible that I am just too stupid to figure out a way to do this smartly,, efficiently ....

That is why I posted here!

By the way, chefklc, thanks for that post on storage (on some raid thread I believe it was you...) I found the info there very useful as I tackle that problem as well....another one of those things that drive me crazy :)

You have several options.

1) If your two machines are on the same network, turn on sharing in iTunes and you can play the music from one computer on the other. This does require both computers to be on and iTunes running on both computers.

2) Copy music files from one computer to the other. This can be done many ways: a FireWire or USB drive as an intermediary, booting one machine in FireWire target mode, or over the network, perhaps using File Sharing.

3) Buy a NAS storage device - essentially a dedicated file serving appliance - and copy all your music there, where it can be accessed by both machines. The downside of this approach is that when you take your MBP "on the road" it won't be able to access the music.

There are probably other options as well, some are combinations of the above approaches.

thanks !
A couple of comments:

Option 1 is great, but as you pointed out only limited to being in the same location....

For option 2, yes of course, but painful in a way, not a true "sync", very manual and depending on frequency could hardly be a good way to go about it I suspect.

And for 3, OMG, that is something I am just starting to think about in general in terms of storage .... don't understand too well.

My ***dream***: music to synch just like your address book, or emails, or bookmarks, via internet (mobile me), a concept very well developped...

Oh, I have no idea. I bet it's not high up on Apple's radar, though, they've already solved the whole house thing quite elegantly, with multiple aTVs being able to sync or stream, simultaneously, from the same instance of iTunes (wherever the files themselves happen to reside) and using an iPod touch as wireless remote.

It's no help to the OP, but I personally stopped caring about what iTunes couldn't do, and focused on what it did do very well, a long time ago.

I am with you on the approach man ! this is not about "criticizing" iTunes at all. I don't really care either !!!

It's about finding out whether anyone had already thought of some great solution to an actual problem.

How do things work in your house--how exactly are you and the famliy finding yourselves hindered?

Well, I have several computers in the house (4 to be exact) and I would like for each one to have the same iTunes Library ... or at least to be able to easily transfer songs from one computer to another.

For instance, if my wife buys a song or video on her Macbook, I'd like to be able to browse her iTunes library and select a "copy song to this computer" or something. As it is, I have to go connect to her Macbook from my work PC, find the file, then copy it over. Repeat for the iBook and Dell laptop in the "office".

I could use a single library for all of the computers, but if I did that, I wouldn't have my songs with me when I travel.

Hey, it's not a huge dealbreaker ... but it would be nice to be able to sync iTunes libraries within iTunes.

ft

Option 1 is great, but as you pointed out only limited to being in the same location....

For option 2, yes of course, but painful in a way, not a true "sync", very manual and depending on frequency could hardly be a good way to go about it I suspect.

And for 3, OMG, that is something I am just starting to think about in general in terms of storage .... don't understand too well.

My ***dream***: music to synch just like your address book, or emails, or bookmarks, via internet (mobile me), a concept very well developped...If your music library consists of more than, say, 10 CDs, you probably want a solution that involves either backed up or redundant storage. Redundancy (via RAID) is a good option for music since if you accidentally delete a song (file), it's not a big deal to re-rip; but if your single storage drive fails, it's many, many hours with that big dusty box of CDs that's probably sitting in your garage.

As you point out, keeping a backup copy of your library on another machine synchronized is a bit of a pain. So a single, RAID'ed network storage solution is best. And, accessing your music on the road isn't a problem as long as your networked storage box is running linux - there are several options for web-based streaming from Apache.

It should not be a surprise to anyone why Apple, or any other corporate entity in business with the RIAA, does not want to solve this problem for you...

man, I certainly have to go the route of RAID (redundancy) for not only my music but also my pics .... that is why I was reading carefully the thread "to raid or not to raid" (I believe that is what it was). NOt that I know much about this stuff.

I will start a new thread on this anyway to see what people think the best way to go is about backing up, redundance, raid ....

As to your further suggestions.....could you expand a bit about:

"RAID'ed network storage solution is best. And, accessing your music on the road isn't a problem as long as your networked storage box is running linux - there are several options for web-based streaming from Apache"

What is involved with that ? It sounds a bit adventurous... Linux, Apache ... I would love to stick to OSX !

What is involved with that ? It sounds a bit adventurous... Linux, Apache ... I would love to stick to OSX !

Well, you're in luck, since OS X does both software RAID* and has an Apache web server built in! (Remember, OS X is BSD based...) Of course, to get either up and running, tweaked to your liking, you'll need to do some research and spend a fair bit of time at the command line, just as you would in Linux...

The real advantage of building a networked media storage/server for your various Mac HTPCs using linux is the cost. You can build a server much cheaper and that uses much less power than a mac pro, and the software is free.

The bottom line - your "dream" solution is available - it's up to you how much you want to spend.

*Actually, OS X supports software RAID0 (no redundancy) and RAID1. If you want to maximize your redundant storage, i.e. RAID5 or 6, you'll need extra hardware, or Linux.