iTunes 9: Understanding Home Sharing

  • Last Modified: October 12, 2009
  • Article: HT3819

Summary

With Home Sharing in iTunes 9, you can stream and transfer music, videos, and more with up to five other computers on your local network. 

Note: Movie rentals cannot be streamed or transferred using Home Sharing.

Home Sharing requires:

  • iTunes 9 or later
  • iTunes or App Store Account
  • Local Network connection (Ethernet or Wi-Fi)

This article discusses enabling and using Home Sharing. For troubleshooting assistance see iTunes: Troubleshooting Home Sharing

Products Affected

iTunes 9

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Enabling Home Sharing

  1. Open iTunes.
  2. Select the Home Sharing icon on the left-hand side of iTunes:

    Home Sharing icon

    If the Home Sharing icon is not visible, choose Advanced > Enable Home Sharing from the menu bar. (You can disable or enable Home Sharing for your computer using the Advanced menu.)

    Note: After enabling Home Sharing, the Home icon representing your computer is no longer visible.

  3. When prompted, enter your iTunes or App Store account name and password:

    Home Sharing Setup
    Note: Be sure to use the same iTunes / App Store account name when enabling Home Sharing on all computers you intend to share with.
     
  4. Click Create Home Share.
  5. Use the above steps to enable Home Sharing on additional computers on your local network.

Using Home Shares

  1. Locate and click the Home Share you want to connect to under Shared on the left-hand side of iTunes:


     
  2. View the contents of that Home Share.
  3. While viewing that Home Share you can:
    • Stream Music and Video to your computer: Double-click a file to listen to music or view video content in the iTunes library
    • Manually Transfer iTunes Content to your iTunes library: Select the content in the Home Share that you want to transfer to your iTunes library, then drag the content to your iTunes library. You can also select the content in the Home Share that you want to transfer to your iTunes library, then click the Import button in the bottom-right corner of iTunes:

      Home Sharing Import
       

Automatically transfer iTunes Store content between your Home Shares

  1. Select the Home Share for the computer that you want to transfer content from.
  2. Click Settings in the bottom-right of iTunes, and specify what type of iTunes Store content you want to transfer.

    Home Sharing Settings
     
  3. The next time you download iTunes Store content on that Home Share computer, iTunes automatically transfers the content to your iTunes library.

Note: Home Sharing does not automatically transfer iTunes Store content that was purchased before you turned on Home Sharing. You can still manually transfer iTunes Store and other content between Home Shares.

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