One External Drive with Two Computers?

[Moosbrugger]

I've got two Mac Minis.  A late 2014 running Big Sur that I use to send music by USB to my Peachtree amp. And a Late 2020 running Monterey that I use for work.  I have about 700 gb of music files on an external drive, that I usually leave connected to my 2014 Mini.  I'm trying to figure out the best way to sync music to my iPhone.  If the music drive is connected to the 2014 Mini, I need to sync with the 2014 mini to sync the music.  But then I can't sync with my 2020 Mini to sync all my other files and work stuff.

 

Apparently, the iPHone cant sync with two computers.  But, can I just bring my external drive and connect it to my 2020 mini in order to sync, and then put it back on the 2014?  I'm a bit concerned to test this, because I don't want one of the computers to delete the external drive by accident.

[kumakuma]

Moving an external drive from one Mac to another shouldn't normally delete anything on the drive.

 

I've got five or six external drives connected to my desktop computer on a permanent basis and I connect and disconnect other external drives to back up these drives and the internal drives every week. Just make sure to eject the drive from the finder before disconnecting.

 

How are you syncing your work files to the external drive?

[GregWormald]

Will "home sharing" do what you want?

If not, there are apps out there that will transfer music files to the iPhone without having to sync via iTunes or Music.

Of course you could always just buy another external drive and duplicate the library on both Macs. That way you also have a backup copy of your music.

[Moosbrugger]

Thanks. 

I don't sync work files to the external drive.  (I have another external drive that I used to back up my Work computer and my iTunes drive.)

[Moosbrugger]

Ok.  somehow I managed to screw up my music library.  I connected my external drive to my Work computer and designated it as the location of iTunes music.  It imported the music.  But many files are duplicated or missing.

For example, I have some albums where every song appears twice in the library, but one version of each song has the exclamation point next to it and the filed are missing.  I guess I can highlight each of these, but it's a pain in the butt to go through all of them.

 

More troubling, some albums have many of the songs listed, but with the exclamation point.  I'd have to go through each one and locate the song on the drive to fix it.

 

Is there any easier way to do this?  I assume if I just import all of the music on the external drive into the library, I'll end up with duplicates?  

Can I wipe the library somehow and start over?

[DavidL]

I note you said 'designated it as the location of iTunes music'. In the past I've had similar problems when I pointed to the 'iTunes Media' folder, rather than the 'iTunes' folder at the higher level. I guess you may be missing the other library meta files. I suggest therefore that you start again with a clean disc and copy the 'iTunes' folder (with all its contents) to the the disc and then point to this folder.

[Moosbrugger]

I just deleted the music library.musiclibrary file from itunes and re-imported everything on my external drive.  It seemed to have worked, except some of the album covers are associated with the wrong albums.  I can live with that if I can't figure out how to fix it.

 

Thanks for help.

[Moosbrugger]

If I make a change to the metadata for songs while the drive is attached to one computer, will that automatically update on the other computer?  

Similarly, if I add new music to the drive on one computer, will I have to import the files when I connect to the other computer?