iTunes for multiple users

[Cyrano]

Since a few here download onto their iPod/mp3 player via iTunes I'm hoping you can help.

Following Santa's visit we are now a 5 iPod family
I now can recover from having Hannah Montana and Corbin Bleu as my favourites and most played tracks on my iPod

My question is should I save my iTunes library and make it available to everyone's log-on/iTunes or am I better to keep each of the libraries separate.

As you can imagine there is a wealth of musical varieties from all of us. As well as various podcasts depending whether it is for me or the kids

Any suggestions, current set-ups that you have appreciated

 

[Dodie]

I am SO looking forward to any answers/directions you receive here! We're thinking about becoming a 2 ipod family and I'm clueless.

 

[Michele]

We are a 4 ipod and 1 iPhone family and I can only comment on how we do it, haven't tried separate libraries.

We have everything all together, but then each person has their own playlist of music they want on their iPod. When each iPod is connected, the owner sets up the summary page according to what videos, tvshows, movies, podcasts they want downloaded.

The only problem this presents so far is if multiple people are watching the same tv shows. For instance if DH and I both have selected to download all unwatched episodes of The Office, if he watches one episode, it is then marked not new and it is taken off my iPod even though I haven't watched it yet. You can go in and change the new, not new setting but it takes some effort to remember what you have and haven't watched and checking the list every time.

The same thing could happen if multiple people are listening to the same podcasts, although you could set it up to download the 5 most recent, that way it wouldn't matter if they had been listened to or not.

ETA: Setting up the separate playlists works great for keeping everyone's music preferences in line. We have quite a variety of music as well. The entire library consists of about 5000 songs ranging from classical, latin, hip hop, easy listening, rock, classic rock, christmas, etc. I uploaded all 300 of our CD's and then boxed them up. We only listen to music on the computer or iPods now. So, we all have what we want to hear on our individual iPod, however, it doesn't separate them as far as the most played songs go, at least in the iTunes library. I don't have the most played playlists on my iPod to check what is there.

 

[Masonic Mouse]

We have four Ipods on my computer. How I have set them up is by first setting up four separate accounts in Windows and naming each for a person in the family I also set each up as an administrator account. Then into each account I down loaded Itunes. So each person has there own library. Since each account is set as an administrator your can grab tunes and munipulate from other accounts for your own without downloading twice. Ilounge.com is a great source for Ipod news and tutorials. Hope this helped.

Jeff

 

[OKW Lover]

We're a 3 iPod family and keep all our music in the same library. Everybody makes their own playlists and choses what to sync with their iPod.

For example, since I use a Nano with limited storage I only sync my favorite music. OTOH, my wife has a 60 Gig iPod and we sync the entire music and photo library onto her's.

 

[robertgp124]

Here's a help document from Apple - it covered most of the ground you guys had mentioned before, plus a third options.

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=300432

iLounge.com also has good information on iPod type questions.

 

[simonkodousek]

We have 4 iPods in our family. I have set up 4 user accounts with iTunes to keep the libraries seperate. It works really well!

 

[Cyrano]

Appreciate everyone's advice and suggestions

 

[Cyrano]

Update Had decided to set up seperate iTunes for DP and keep the troops on my iTunes as below.

We have everything all together, but then each person has their own playlist of music they want on their iPod. When each iPod is connected, the owner sets up the summary page according to what videos, tvshows, movies, podcasts they want downloaded.

Only problem so far seems to be that the other users that show up as a playlist when I connect their iPods can't get video podcasts They show up under music, recently added. But then obviously don't show video

Edited. They are under video, recently added