How to merge iTunes libraries between users

By Donald Bell on 07 November 2008

Previously I showed you a technique for keeping your music collections separate from one another in a communal iTunes library. This time, I'll try and help out those of you with the opposite problem — people with fractured iTunes libraries across multiple user profiles who want to pool their family's media together.

The root of the problem is that unlike Windows Media Player, Winamp, or nearly any other multimedia jukebox application, there's no way to get iTunes to actively monitor multiple folders on your computer and add new content automatically. In a perfect world, you could tell iTunes to create its library based on the music stored in all the "My Music" folders of every user on your computer. Unfortunately, iTunes doesn't work that way.

You can, however, make it so that any media added to any instance of iTunes on your PC is copied to a single, central location that all users can access. Pointing every installation of iTunes on your computer to a common library is as easy as holding down the shift button when you launch the application. The hardest part, often, is archiving and merging all the separate media collections each user has been amassing up until this point.

We're going to show you how multiple users on a shared Windows computer can merge their iTunes libraries. This tutorial assumes that the users on your computer are set up for administrative access, which allows you to see and modify each others' files.

Login as the user with the smaller of the two iTunes libraries. You'll need to back this library up, so picking the smaller library will save you time.

Topics: windows, itunes, how to

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Comments (2)

  • Andy commented on 20/05/2009 14:59

    OK this makes you use a single library, I have managed to do that, but something I really want is automatic playlist sync between user accounts of my mac.

    I want to add a playlist in my iTunes and that playlist automatically appear under my wife's user account as well. Any ideas??

  • Michele commented on 12/01/2009 01:57

    I think Donald Bell is a genious!!! I've been trying to do this for ages but it wouldn't work. I thought it must have been cos I had blonde hair - but yippee I got it to work so now I won't have to dye my hair black. See very smart hey????? XXX to Donald.

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