My wife and I share a Mac at home, and we both use iTunes.

We each log in to a different account, and we realized we have some duplication in our separate iTunes libraries.

How can we share one library so that either of us can add music and it shows up in the other's library?

F.T., Arlington

Good idea on the library sharing. There is really no need to have duplicate music files on the same computer.

Right now, your music is stored in the Music folder inside each user's home directory in a folder called iTunes.

You'll need to take some time and consolidate your music library. Choose one library and move the unique music from the second iTunes folder into the first iTunes folder.

Then move the newly consolidated iTunes folder into the folder called Shared inside the Users directory at the root level of your hard drive.

Next, make sure you delete or move the iTunes folder from each user's home directory.

Then log in as each user, launch iTunes and open the iTunes preferences from the iTunes menu. Choose the Advanced tab and at the top of the General window you'll find a place to set the location of your iTunes music folder.

Choose "change" and navigate to the users{gt}shared directory and pick the consolidated iTunes library.

You'll also want to click the button to enable the "copy files to iTunes Music Folder when adding to the library" option. This makes sure any added music lands in the right place.

Jim Rossman is technical manager for Macintosh support for A.H. Belo Corporation.

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