Limiting iPod sync -- solved! See post 4.

[Little Shepherd]

Both my Dad and I have iPods, and we share a single computer, so a little issue has come up:

We rip music to the computer, and now an iPod sync puts all of both our music and podcasts on both iPods. Is there a way to tell iTunes to only put certain songs and 'casts on each iPod when I sync them so that my Dad and I don't both keep ending up with a bunch of stuff we don't want taking up valuable iPod space?

[$cirisme]

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=300432

[Little Shepherd]

Sweet!

[Little Shepherd]

Ok, I know this is an old thread now, but I came across some new info that might be of interest to anyone who uses iTunes/iPod and were wondering the same thing. Embarrassingly, it was my dad of all people who figured this out. I guess you'd have to know him to understand why I say embarrassingly.

The simple answer to this problem is -- playlists! When your iPod is connected to your computer, you can go into iTunes and adjust that iPods settings. I found out you can do the following:

Limit the songs that download to your iPod. It's so easy. Embarrassingly easy. You go into your iPod's menu in iTunes, and under one of the tabs you can tell it what playlists to sync. It will download only the songs on those playlists to your iPod. So obviously now both of my parents and I have our own "master" playlists that contain all of our songs, and have each of our iPods set to only sync with our respective playlist. You're not limited to only one playlist, of course, so if you have specialized playlists for whatever reason you just make sure they're selected in your iPod's menu as well and you're good to go.

Limit other things like video files, album artwork, and podcasts in a similar manner. I found this really useful for podcasts because my parents kind of went overboard when they discovered podcasts and the dozens of "episodes" they downloaded were taking up a huge section of my iPod space. My PC hard drive is massive, so no problem there. My iPod . . . big, but not so massive. So yay!

And now you know, and it's way totally easier than setting up multiple computer usernames(my parents and I have no weird trust issues for which we'd need to do that anyway -- your living situation may vary), and definitely easier than using the CTRL method for Windows detailed in that link up in post #2.

[Conductor42]

If you use different user accounts that'll solve the issue too.

[Little Shepherd]

If you use different user accounts that'll solve the issue too.

And now you know, and it's way totally easier than setting up multiple computer usernames

Um . . . yeah.

[Conductor42]

Oops... didn't see that one. But what's so hard about setting up another account? I takes what, 5 whole seconds?

[Little Shepherd]

I have no idea. I've never done it, and have no reason to do it.