iphone

Multiple iPhones with one computer (*windows users)

Posted on April 28, 2013 Updated on April 28, 2013

This came up today as I sat downloading songs to my iphone then loading them via itunes. I turned to my wife Kate and asked if she wanted me to add the songs to her iphone as well. We both thought,

Will it mess up my itunes or iphone if I try to add music to another iphone using my own computer/itunes?

There may be other ways to go about it, but here’s a few things to hopefully help. Option 1. If you share your computer with other people, you can maintain separate user accounts for each person who uses the computer. This is useful especially if each user has different tastes in music or other media; users can maintain separate, personalized iTunes libraries and can customize their devices’ sync settings accordingly.

1. Quit iTunes.
2. Locate your iTunes Media Folder. (This folder may instead be named “iTunes Music” if your iTunes Library was created before iTunes 9). It is stored by default:
  
  Windows XP and Windows 2000: \Documents and Settings\username\My Documents\My Music\iTunes
  Windows Vista and Windows 7: \Users\username\Music\iTunes
  
  Note: By default, the Windows version of iTunes does not copy all of the music you add to your iTunes library to your iTunes Media folder. You can get iTunes to copy all of the Music in your library to your iTunes Media Folder (if you have enough hard drive space) by choosing Consolidate Library from the Advanced menu.
3. Drag the iTunes Media folder to a publicly accessible location. The publicly accessible music folder is:
  
  Windows XP and Windows 2000: \Documents and Settings\All Users\Documents\My Music
  Windows Vista and Windows 7: \Users\Public\Public Music
  
  Important: Do not move the iTunes folder, the iTunes Library file or the iTunes Library.xml file.
4. Open iTunes.
5. From the Edit menu, choose Preferences.
6. Click Advanced.
7. Click the Change button.
8. Navigate in the Change Music Folder Location dialog to the location of your iTunes Media folder.
9. Click OK.
Repeat these steps for each account that is sharing music with other users.

Note: If multiple users on your computer are storing music in one publicly accessible folder, duplicate song files appear when a user imports music from a CD that has already been imported by another user.

error: ! Windows could not connect to the internet – would you like to go online to check for a solution?

I’m trying to find solutions that make sense – see if this helps too – Option 2.

Create a separate iTunes library for each device. Note: It is important that you make a new iTunes Library file. Do not just make a copy of your existing iTunes Library file. If iTunes is open, quit it.

Mac users: Hold down the Option key while you open iTunes.
Windows users: Hold down the Shift key while you open iTunes.
In the dialog that appears, click Create Library.
Name and save the alternate library file. iTunes opens with your brand new library file.
Open iTunes Preferences. Choose iTunes > Preferences (Mac) or Edit > Preferences (Windows).
Click the Advanced tab.
Deselect the “Copy files to iTunes Media folder when adding to library” checkbox if it is already selected and click OK. This will prevent iTunes from creating duplicates of your existing media files in the new library folder.

Add the specific media files you want on your device to iTunes either by dragging them into iTunes or choosing File > Add to Library (Mac) or File > Add File to Library or Add Folder to Library(Windows).
Once you have the iTunes Library just how you want it, connect and sync your device.
Once the sync is complete, quit iTunes.
(Mac users: Hold down the Option key while you open iTunes. )
Windows users: Hold down the Shift key while you open iTunes.
Click Choose library.
Choose your original iTunes Library and click Choose (Mac Users) or Open (Windows Users). You can now switch back and forth between the different libraries for different devices.