iTunes Question

A Question for all you Mac/iTunes users: Is it possible to get iTunes to play music from across a network? I have a file server, upon which I store MP3 versions of many of my CDs. There’s far more music than there is space on the Mac. I’d like to simply play those files, through iTunes. I don’t want iTunes to download them to my mac, or anything like that, just play them. Can I fool the Mac into thinking that the network drive is local somehow? Of course, this file server is running Windows (XP Pro), so that may be an added wrinkle. But it would seem logical to me that Apple doesn’t expect people to keep their data locally in this networked age, and so I’m assuming I’m the one being a git, not Apple. But! Any instruction would be most appreciated, as a (admittedly brief) browse through the help didn’t reveal anything.

6 Replies to “iTunes Question”

  1. On the XP machine, share the folder to the network…

    On the Mac, assuming Jaguar; in Finder, Go Menu, choose “Connect to Server…” and enter the server name to connect to… choose the folder you exported on the XP machine, and voila… virtual disk mounted on desktop.

    So, yeah, install Jaguar.

  2. On the XP machine, share the folder to the network…

    On the Mac, assuming Jaguar; in Finder, Go Menu, choose “Connect to Server…” and enter the server name to connect to… choose the folder you exported on the XP machine, and voila… virtual disk mounted on desktop.

    So, yeah, install Jaguar.

  3. Hey, so yeah, all that is done. The share is mounted, it’s on the desktop, and I got iTunes to add to library from it, and yet still it wants to copy the tracks down to the local, rather than just playing across the network. Maybe I need to be doing something else besides just adding to library, or dragging a playlist into iTunes?

  4. Hey, so yeah, all that is done. The share is mounted, it’s on the desktop, and I got iTunes to add to library from it, and yet still it wants to copy the tracks down to the local, rather than just playing across the network. Maybe I need to be doing something else besides just adding to library, or dragging a playlist into iTunes?

  5. By default iTunes ‘wants’ to copy all new music to the user’s library on the boot drive. It’s a preference you can change:
    iTunes > Preferences > Advanced > “Copy files to iTunes Music folder…” Uncheck this box and you can play your network music w/o copying. -Njoy

  6. By default iTunes ‘wants’ to copy all new music to the user’s library on the boot drive. It’s a preference you can change:
    iTunes > Preferences > Advanced > “Copy files to iTunes Music folder…” Uncheck this box and you can play your network music w/o copying. -Njoy

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