Home Sharing iTunes 9

How To Setup for Two Apple Accounts on Multiple Computers

I learned how to use the 'Home Sharing' option, available in iTunes 9 and thought I would share this information, as it was very confusing to setup for use with two different people on the same network that had two separate login accounts for iTunes Apple Store.

The 'Home Sharing' option allows you to set up or 'Create Home Sharing' rather easily between 5 machines on the same network. It appears to be relatively easy to do, if each machine uses the same login to the Apple Store (i.e. one member account). Basically, you need to authorize up to 5 machines to accept music purchased on those machines. Using the 'Advanced' menu from the iTunes menubar, select 'Turn On Home Sharing'. A dialog box requesting your Apple ID (one you use for accessing the Apple Store) and password for that account will appear in window. Enter ID and password for the Apple Store Account and then select 'Create Home Sharing' button. THIS CREATES A HOME SHARED LIBRARY AND IS DIFFERENT FROM ITUNES APPLE STORE LOGIN PROCEDURE.

Next you, go to the other machine(s) that you wish to share songs, playlists,etc and do the same thing on those machine(s) entering the same apple ID and password for that setup of that specific account on all the machines on the network. This setup will appear under the 'SHARED' label on the left side column of the window with a 'yellow house' before the name of the 'Home Shared Account Library'.








Now, when you have two different accounts that you wish to share songs and yes apps for iphone that you have bought, you merely 'SETUP' which is different from login to Store account. I logged out of my store account on both machines that I was setting up (not sure if it is necessary, but did it anyway). I then went to my machine and clicked on 'Turn On Home Sharing' on my machine and entered my husband's apple id and password as the setup account to be able to share with my machine. On the second machine, my husband, clicked on 'Turn Home Sharing On' under 'Advanced' menu and entered my apple id and password to 'Create a Home Shared Account' on his machine. So in essence, we both allowed access to each others iTunes library by creating or setting up these on each others machine. This has nothing to do with logging into each others Apple Store account, just merely creating a shared library. When you quit iTunes and restart iTunes, the yellow houses of those accounts that you are shared with ... are still there. So this is a one time setup or creation of the Home Share for another's library on the network. You do not have to keep logging in or logging out of each others account.



Once you have done this, the features that are present that are different from past versions of iTunes, that allowed sharing are there. You can play songs from the Home Shared Libraries, drag and drop them into your library. If you select their Music library, you can see all their songs, and at the bottom of the window, you see option to view all their songs or the ones that are different from your songs in your library. This allows users to share their songs, podcasts,movies, ringtones, apps,etc. (you choose,what you would like to share in the 'iTunes Preferences' under the 'Sharing' tab).



The beauty of this is being able to have a backup of purchases songs (to an authorized machine) on another computer on your network. This allows you to also sync these to each others iPhones. By selecting the down arrow, next to the Home Shared Library name, you will be able to see all the shared items and select them and drag them to your own iTunes library and playlists. There is also an import button in the lower right hand corner to import to your iTunes library any selection in the window (another method to use other than drag and drop).

Both computers have to be running iTunes for Home Sharing to be available in the left hand column.

Hope this helps those who were having problems with this new feature available in iTunes 9.

Joan Tweet