My library files (*.itl, *.xml, etc) are on My Cloud
I’m running iTunes 12.0.1.26 on PC
In iTunes, there is a drop down list (under the menu bar) that shows “This Computer” or “WDMYCloud”. As my media is all on My Cloud, all of my music shows up here, No music shows up under This Computer…which makes sence as I moved it to My Cloud.
When, under the WDMYCloud dropdown, I click on file/new/playlist, the play list will be created under the This Computer dropdwon and since there is no music under This Computer, I can’t add songs to the play list.
I recently reinstalled iTunes to try figure this out but I can’t resolve. Ultimately, I’m trying to create a playlist from music on My Cloud and sync the playlist thru iTunes to my iPhone.
What is the approach to creating a playlist and syncing? Thanks in advance for your help…John
You can google around to put your iTunes library on the NAS and access it from your computer as if it were stored locally on your computer. This makes synching to iphones and stuff really easy, although network performance will affect the responsiveness of iTunes and the synching.
I found it was more reliable to leave the iTunes library and iTunes Media folders on the computer and replace the folders under iTunes Media with symbolic links to shares on the NAS. Symbolic links are a little bit like shortcuts, and the OS acts as if the files were actually local (default OS shortcuts won’t work).
This is different from using the iTunes server that is available on this NAS. When the iTunes server is on, you create a shared iTunes library that iTunes can see. You cannot sync to your iphone using this library though; you can only play content on the computer. iTunes server doesn’t show up on iOS devices.
You need to make sure that iTunes is correctly picking up the index moved to WD MYCloud and not a newly created one on your pc hard drive.
To do this:-
Before opening iTunes, hold down the shift key, then double click your iTunes icon and instead of iTunes running, you will get a window “choose iTunes library”.
select “Choose Library”
Navigate to the folder on your MyCloud which may be something like /public/shared music/iTunes/iTunes Library.itl
Select “iTunes Library.itl”.
next time you open iTunes it will be using the index on your NAS drive and not your PC hard drive.
Using this method you can easily swap between indexes as well if you want more than one folder of iTunes - works for me.
Would I then need to move all of the music under my public/shared music/iTunes folder? Can all of the computers on my home network be able to access this massiv playlist?
Sugest copy , do not move. - all the iTunes folder and it’s content onto the NAS drive.
With the iTunes directory now pointing at the NAS drive, continue to import musc into iTunes as normal - it’ll all be stored on the NAS drive
Yes -all of the computers on your home network plus any other shared authorisations can access your playlist in this manner. Just repoint the iTunes directory on those computers also as detailed in the post above. They can always be swapped back to any iTunes directory on a hard drive.
Thanks to everyone for the usefull comments and tips.
A follow up to Etupes:
You can google around to put your iTunes library on the NAS and access it from your computer as if it were stored locally on your computer. This makes synching to iphones and stuff really easy, although network performance will affect the responsiveness of iTunes and the synching.
I’ve googled until I’m blue in the face to find this work around but can’t find the approach. Could you elaborate on this or point me to a helpful link. As I mentioned, I’m looking for an approach/work around to sync my iphone with music stored on WD My Cloud using shortcuts or what ever.
I found it was more reliable to leave the iTunes library and iTunes Media folders on the computer and replace the folders under iTunes Media with symbolic links to shares on the NAS. Symbolic links are a little bit like shortcuts, and the OS acts as if the files were actually local (default OS shortcuts won’t work).
In this scenario, are you suggesting that the media files remain on the NAS and ONLY links on the pc to the NAS. If I understand this correctly, and if I point iTunes to the NAS for downloads, than I would have to update links back to the pc periodically?
