Can I use my MacBook Air to sync with two different iTunes accounts?

Question

I recently bought a MacBook Air with OS X Lion. I have an iPad (iOS 5) and my wife has a iPhone 4S. We each have our own iTunes accounts and that's the start of the problem!

I successfully opened iTunes on my new Mac and pulled all my stuff down to my Mac (movies, music, etc). I set up another account on the Mac for my wife (a non-admin account if that makes any difference) and open iTunes while logged in as her. I tried to sync up with her iTunes account without luck.

I'm beginning to suspect that Apple only allows you to sync with one iTunes account. Is that true? It would seem crazy. The whole point of a desktop/laptop computer is to assign separate account for people and have them keep their own stuff (in this case iTunes movies and music).

Any ideas on how I can see my iTunes account from my MacBook Air user account and my wife can see her iTunes account from her user account?

Answer 1

Yes - make one user account for your iTunes library and a second user account for your wife.

As far as I see, this is no problem at all having two independent user accounts on one system, each using a separate Apple ID to login to the Cloud and iTunes. I tested it on my Mac (10.8) just now using my work Apple ID under a freshly created separate user account and found it to work.

This method has worked since OS X was first developed and it's unlikely to change anytime soon. You can search here for other questions that cover how to share some or all of the songs between separate accounts, but it's always easy to combine things later than it is to start mixed and separate things later.

Answer 2

You can hold the ALT key before clicking on the iTunes icon to launch iTunes with the dialogue "Choose Library". This way you can use two separate libraries on the same user account in OSX. I've used this on Lion and Mountain Lion.

If you use iTunes Match then you can't use the same Match on both accounts.

Answer 3

I don't understand what your problem is? You have two Mac account, two iTunes account, two iTunes library, and only one iPad, right? And you want to sync that iPad to two iTunes account, that means, two iTunes library, right?

If what I understand is true, then the thing here is that you tried to sync with two different iTunes library. The right way to do this is actually create a unified iTunes library, and use that to sync.

There are a few ways to do this. One is to have only one iTunes library for you and your wife, which means everything is mixed together. That's quite simple, I'm sure you can figure it out. It's just that the only iTunes library needs to be authorized with TWO iTunes account. Go to "Store" - "Authorize this computer" to do it. Also, remember to reauthorize old iTunes libraries.

Another cool way is to have another new library, and have that library access both your libraries. Meaning to have both you and your wife's song without copying them. Go to "Preferences" - "Advanced", and you will find option not to copy things when they're added to the library. The downside is that you still have to authorize both accounts for that library. Meaning, you have to authorize both accounts twice on the same computer.