Hi, There’s an issue with your idea about HomeSharing from the external drive. In order to set up HomeSharing, you need to be running a iTunes with a computer attached to that external HD. So, just having your Library stored on the external will not allow HomeSharing. There are some Network Attached Storage solutions that have iTunes Music Sharing capabilities, but they only allow for streaming music from that device, no HomeShare copying style of capabilities.
Your best bet is to probably have two Libraries like you’re wanting. By far, the easiest method of doing this is to simply copy your existing iTunes folder from your MBA over to the external HD. so, 1. Go to your Desktop. 2. Press cmd-shift-h to bring up your Home folder. 3. Open the Music folder. 4. Locate the iTunes folder and press cmd-c to Copy it. 5. Paste it to your external HD. Now, you just press the Option key as iTunes is starting and you can pick from either Library. The limitation in this scenario is that the external HD must be physically connected via USB or Thunderbolt. The other method you may try is to only move the iTunes media to the external HD and create two independent libraries on your MBA. Follow the same steps as above but after #3, open the iTunes folder and locate the iTunes Media folder. Copy that folder instead over to the external HD. Then if you hold down the Option key while starting up iTunes, you can tell iTunes to create a new library. You could name the new library iTunes Everything, or something else meaningful to you. Now, with two iTunes libraries, you can pick and choose which items go in which Library as they are independent of each other. In this scenario, you’d need to choose the iTunes Media folder located on the external HD for the second iTunes Library. This is done by going into your iTunes Prefs, in the Advanced pane, and choosing the iTunes Media folder located on the external drive. The main thing to note here is that the xml and other iTunes database files remain on the local MBA but the actual media is located elsewhere. This is a necessary evil due to the way that iTunes interacts with these local files. Hope this makes sense. The option drag function that the individual was speaking of in your earlier post is simply the MacOS way of duplicating an item using mouse drag processes. That is, if a sighted user tried to drag a folder from one location to another on the same volume, it is usually just moved whereas when you hold down the Option key, it makes a copy of the original item in the new location. Later… Tim Kilburn Fort McMurray, AB Canada On Dec 3, 2013, at 2:23 PM, Andrew Lamanche <andrew.laman...@gmail.com> wrote: > Hi Tim > > Thanks for this. The thing is I've already downloaded the films. Also, I have > lots of DVDs which I want to transfer into my computer. In this case, would > it be best to put my entire iTunes library onto a large external disk and > stream music, podcasts, movies tv series etc. from there? And if I wanted to > have some content on macbook air, could I via home sharing option transfer a > playlist onto the hard drive of my macbook air to take with me wherever I go? > > I'm just thinking that - apart from the few films which I've purchased > recently which are in iTunes iCloud - the rest of my content sits on my hard > drive of the macbook air. And I'm constantly adding audiobooks and other > documents to the collection. > > How about this, Tim. If I move my entire library onto an external drive, then > I create a second library on my macbook air, and then via home sharing import > only the content I wish to carry on my macbook air. Would this work? what's > your opinion? > > Thanks for taking the time to answer. > > Andrew > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "MacVisionaries" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to macvisionaries+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. > To post to this group, send email to macvisionaries@googlegroups.com. > Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/macvisionaries. > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "MacVisionaries" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to macvisionaries+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to macvisionaries@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/macvisionaries. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
