Sharing Music on a Network

If you have multiple Macs or Windows PCs on a network, you can use iTunes' sharing feature to turn them into jukeboxes whose music other computers can play. (You'll need to install iTunes for Windows on the PCs.)

Sharing enables all manner of music networking options. You might keep all of your music on one Macno wasting disk space by storing a music library on each Mac or PC on your network. Conversely, you might prefer to segregate your musicput your kids' music on their iMac and your music on yourswhile still giving each Mac access to every song. You might want to set up a jukebox Mac to dish out tunes to the office. Or use AirPort wireless networking to listen at poolside using your PowerBook.

If you use a Mac that supports Apple's FrontRow software, you can also access shared music libraries using FrontRow's Music mode.

The sharing feature relies on streaming: when you listen to another Mac's music, the song files are streamed across your network. The files are never actually copied from one Mac to another.

Activating Sharing

To share your music library with other Macs on your network, choose Preferences from the iTunes menu, then click the Sharing button.

Note

Be sure you're using the same version of iTunes on each computer on the network. Apple has changed the iTunes sharing feature a couple of times, and as a result, different versions of iTunes aren't always able to share libraries. If a shared library appears grey and an error message appears when you select it, it's probably because the shared library is coming from an older version of iTunes.

Accessing Shared Music

If you've checked the Look for Shared Music box in the Sharing portion of the Preferences dialog box, iTunes automatically scans your network and finds shared libraries.

To view a shared library, click its name in the Source list. If the library requires a password, a dialog box appears.

Tips for Sharing

Shared Songs Are Play-Only

Because shared songs don't reside on your hard drive, you can't add them to playlists, delete them, burn them to a CD, or modify their information.

Up to Five a Day

Up to five computers can connect to a shared library on a given day. If a sixth user tries to connect, he or she sees an error message along these lines: The shared music library "Jim's Music" accepts only five different users each day. Please try again later.

There is but one solution to this restriction: wait until tomorrow.

Disconnecting

To disconnect from a shared library click the Disconnect button ( ) in the lower-right corner of the iTunes window, or Control-click on the library in the Source list and choose Disconnect from the pop-up shortcut menu. Or, click on the eject button that appears next to the music library's name in the Source list.

Authorization

If you want to play a purchased song from a shared library, you'll have to authorize your Mac by supplying your account name and password. As noted on page 38, you can authorize up to five computers per account.