Crap! How to sync music after Apple Music?

[Primejimbo]

So if I understood you correctly you basically have both users open the same library (one at a time). I would assume then that you both share the exact same playlists etc? If so, have you tested iCloud music library from both sides? They get uploaded to both sides?

Alternatively the link you gave seems to suggest another option. Which is to have a separate library all together but import the same media files. I don't see how that would work though because iTunes does not "reference" music files. It copies it I believe.

Yes and the play lists can be send on both of our phones, we tested this. The links are what gave me ideas to try this, and it's not a perfect system. My issue is right now, if I add a cd, it won't show up on both libraries. My next set up will be able to do this. This works for now where my wife has access to everything that I have.

I have other links how people have networked their library so it shows up on all computers, all users. I will be doing this when the next OS X update and do a fresh install on my Mac.

 

[yalag]

Yes and the play lists can be send on both of our phones, we tested this. The links are what gave me ideas to try this, and it's not a perfect system. My issue is right now, if I add a cd, it won't show up on both libraries. My next set up will be able to do this. This works for now where my wife has access to everything that I have.

I have other links how people have networked their library so it shows up on all computers, all users. I will be doing this when the next OS X update and do a fresh install on my Mac.

Do you have instructions on how to set it up such that new CDs show up on both accounts? That's what I'm really looking for. And of course, both accounts being able to use iCloud music library.

I can help you test this, and report back, if you share the instructions/links.

 

[yalag]

Yes and the play lists can be send on both of our phones, we tested this. The links are what gave me ideas to try this, and it's not a perfect system. My issue is right now, if I add a cd, it won't show up on both libraries. My next set up will be able to do this. This works for now where my wife has access to everything that I have.

I have other links how people have networked their library so it shows up on all computers, all users. I will be doing this when the next OS X update and do a fresh install on my Mac.

Uh, so I can confirm that this doesn't work.

I don't think you have done what you have described. Basically, Apple won't let you use two icloud music library accounts on the same computer. It's locked to a single apple id for each computer. Until you wait another 90 days.

 

[Primejimbo]

Uh, so I can confirm that this doesn't work.

I don't think you have done what you have described. Basically, Apple won't let you use two icloud music library accounts on the same computer. It's locked to a single apple id for each computer. Until you wait another 90 days.

No they won't let you use 2 at once, which is why I made a user/account on the computer for my wife. Now my idea does work to a point, just adding new music will be the issue, but there are always in which that works too.

Right now my wife is logged into her iTunes account on iTunes at her work, and she sees everything. I am logged into my iTunes at work and I also see everything. We are under our own iTunes. We also not see all our music on our phones too, and we are on our own iTunes account/Apple ID.

 

[manu chao]

We have different iCloud account

The problem is that previously (a) the iTunes library presented your music collection (which could contain stuff bought from the iTunes Store, even bought via multiple accounts, as well as ripped CDs or audio files obtained by other means) and (b) each iOS device (or iPod) could contain a subset of that library.

With Apple Music and iCloud Music Library (the former is both the umbrella term as well as all the streaming and discovery elements, and the latter the 'My Music' section once you have iCloud Music Library enabled), the 'library' is centred around an Apple ID for iOS devices. The iTunes library is a hybrid between on one side the conventionally obtained music (iTunes Store purchases, ripped CDs, imported audio files) and the iCloud Music Library linked to the currently logged in Apple ID.

Thus in principle, you simply would have to log out of your Apple ID/iTunes Store account in iTunes and let you wife log in for her account to customise what she wants in her iCloud Music library. While that would give both of you access to all conventionally obtained content, any new content might only get added to whatever Apple ID was logged in at the time it was added to the library (though you can add content without being logged into any account via ripping CDs for example, but music added from the streaming side by one user certainly won't show up in the other account).

While this may allow you to curate your iCloud Music Library content separately, you won't be able to anymore select a subset of your iTunes library to sync to your phone. I would suspect that every song that is made available offline in iTunes gets also to be made available offline on any device linked to the same iCloud Music Library account. Maybe if you uncheck a song in Tunes (that is downloaded) it won't be made available offline on the phone (this works for legacy content, ie, purchased, ripped or otherwise locally imported content), not sure if it works for content only 'rented' from Apple Music.

But the big question is whether switching between two Apple IDs within one iTunes library works smoothly and doesn't mess up things (maybe you would have to go so far as disabling the iCloud Music Library, then log out, followed by logging into the second Apple ID and then re-enable the iCloud Music Library). Maybe this works but with every switch the local library has to be first synced up with the iCloud Music Library which might take a while.

I cannot test things anymore since about half an hour ago iTunes has decided to hang about 10 seconds after launch (it works fine for ten seconds but then beachballs, though the audio keeps playing until the end of the song). This might have been triggered by me enabling iCloud Music Library (though I am 100% sure I had enabled that already two weeks ago but when I checked today this box was unchecked, my fear is that this go unchecked when I logged out of my iTunes Store account). After the enabling it took a few minutes of synching (illustrated by some syncing messages in the top right corner).

EDIT: After about ten force-quits and waiting for a few minutes, the beachball disappeared. I had waited a similar amount of time before without iTunes coming back to life (but then I killed all iTunes processes in Activity Monitor after the seventh or so force-quit and I took all my iOS devices off the network to reduce the amount of distractions for iTunes).

EDIT 2: Logging out of an iTunes Store account in iTunes definitely disables the iCloud Music Library (not a big deal since the synching after reenabling it following logging in to the previous Apple ID seems to be fairly quick, but still annoying since I need to log into my second account to update the apps bought with the second account and I sometimes switch accounts to get content not available or being cheaper in one of the accounts as they represent two different countries in my case).

 

[manu chao]

Uh, so I can confirm that this doesn't work.

I don't think you have done what you have described. Basically, Apple won't let you use two icloud music library accounts on the same computer. It's locked to a single apple id for each computer. Until you wait another 90 days.

When I logged into my second Apple ID, the option to enable iCloud Music Library wasn't there at all (this might be due to the 90-day limit though it doesn't say anything about that there).

I guess two separate iTunes Libraries might be the only solution for you. You probably can seed them by first externalising all actual music files (ie, move them outside the folder labelled 'iTunes') and then re-connect them from inside iTunes and then duplicating the remaining library elements. This should give you separate libraries without having to actually double the storage needs. How to deal with file permissions such that the second OS user accounts (ie, the one created just now to solve this problem) can read/import that duplicated library is another question (maybe putting the library and probably the music files as well onto a separate disk or partition and checking the box to ignore permissions for that volume solves that).

The general problem is DRM-ed content as that is linked to one Apple ID. For music, DRM-ed content is essentially limited to the 'rented' music from Apple Music (if you upgraded your initial DRM-ed music to iTunes Plus). For rented music it is one account at a time (or even one account every 90 days). Purchased music doesn't have DRM and thus one 'iCloud Music Library' can contain content from multiple Apple IDs (and I think a purchased song can be added to multiple 'iCloud Music Libraries'). Movies and TV shows from the iTunes Store (which have DRM) still can be played in iTunes even if you are logged into another account and they can be synced to iOS devices that are logged into different accounts (here the DRM seems to only check for eligibility when adding something to iTunes, and refuses to play in anything but iTunes or devices synced from that iTunes library).

Whether you can import the same DRM-ed content (besides rented music) into two separate iTunes libraries logged into different Apple IDs is something I don't know (you might be if you disable the iCloud Music Library and then log into the respective account when importing).

Adding new stuff would have to be done twice, ie, for each library once. But for music, sharing a playlist might make that relatively easy.

I still have no real idea how Family Sharing and Apple Music interact (beyond Family Sharing being a volume discount).