Home sharing is the best way to share your iTunes stuff with your local network devices and with other iOS devices, Macs, Apple TV or any Windows PC with iTunes installed. The concept of home sharing allows you to stream music, videos from your iTunes library to different devices and the best part is that you don’t need any physical connection between the devices. You also have the option to stream anything from your windows pc if it has the iTunes software installed. Before we set up iTunes Home Sharing, verify you’ve the following ingredient.
Required devices
- A Mac, Apple TV, any iOS device or a Windows PC with iTunes installed.
- The devices should be connected to the same local network.
- You’re signed in on all the devices with the same Apple ID.
- The host Mac or Windows should be turned on and iTunes should be opened.
Set up iTunes Home Sharing on Mac or Windows
First you have to enable home sharing on iTunes from your Mac or Windows PC and Open iTunes and click on “File” > “Home Sharing” > “Turn on Home Sharing” from the menu bar.
Next step is to sign-in with your Apple ID credentials and click on “Turn On Home Sharing“.
You should see a “Home Sharing is now on” dialogue box similar to as shown below which indicates that you’ve completed the setup on your Mac or Windows. Now you have successfully enabled home sharing.
Enable iTunes Home Sharing on iPhone/iPad
On your iOS device, go to “Settings” > “Music” and tap “Sign In” under Home Sharing.
Enter your Apple ID credentials and tap “Sign In“. At this stage, you’ve successfully configured your iOS device.
Access iTunes Music on iOS
To access iTunes Music, open the Music app on your iOS device and tap on “Home Sharing“. Your iTunes library should now be displayed.
Please note that it take some time so e patient and let it complete. If you’re unable to see your library, verify that both the devices are connected to the same network and signed in using the same Apple ID and try again.
From here, you can access all of your songs, playlists, play/pause music that are stored in your Mac or Windows PC. You can also perform certain actions like deleting the file from the library, rate the song and like/dislike it.
Access iTunes Videos on iPhone/iPad
On your iPhone/iPad, go to “Settings” > “Videos” and “Sign in” using your Apple ID.
Open the Videos app and now you should see your videos listed under the shared library.
Please note that it requires videos to be imported into iTunes on your source Mac or Windows first. The easiest way of doing this is by dragging videos to the iTunes window.
Access iTunes Content on Windows or macOS
Once you’ve set up iTunes Home Sharing on your Windows or Mac, accessing it on another Windows or Mac is quite easy.
Open iTunes on your other Mac or Windows PC and click on the “Music” drop-down menu just below the player controls. You should see your library listed and you can access all the songs from here. If you’re unable to see your library here, verify that both the devices are connected to the same network and try again.
An important thing to remember is that your shared library will be visible to all the users connected to the same network. If you would like to require a password before connecting to the library, click on “iTunes” > “Preferences“. Under the sharing tab, check the box where it says “Require Password” and enter a password and click on “OK”.
While you’re at it, here you can also choose to share your whole library or just individual playlists selectively.
Access iTunes Content on Apple TV
Note: While we did not get a chance to try this on an Apple TV, the process should be very straightforward and similar to what we’ve done above.
If you’ve 4th gen Apple TV, go to Settings > Accounts > Home Sharing.
If you’ve an Apple TV prior to 4th gen, go to Settings > Computers. Select the “Turn on Home Sharing” option. Enter the same Apple ID credentials that you use to set up on iTunes on your Mac or Windows.
To access this shared library, go to the Main menu > Computers > Choose a Library and select the shared library.
Limitations of iTunes Home Sharing
Home sharing requires all the devices to be connected to the same local network WHICH MEANS THE SAME APPLE ID. This implies that it cannot be used to remotely access your iTunes library. If you are looking to access iTunes songs remotely, you may want to upload all your music to iCloud.
Moreover, you can use it with up to five computers only — here computers includes any Mac, Windows, iPhone or iPad. This may seem like a lot of devices, but if you’ve multiple Apple devices in the family, you could easily hit the cap of 5 devices. Also, it requires you to sign in with the same Apple ID on all devices.
You’d have to also make sure that your source Mac or Windows is open with iTunes running all the time.
Set up and Use iTunes Home Sharing with ease
The ease-of-use and sheer usefulness of iTunes Home sharing easily trump its limitations. Thanks to Home sharing, I can stream my (very large) music library from my Mac to the iPhone, which otherwise wouldn’t have been possible owing to my iPhone’s insufficient storage. Perhaps, the best thing is that it works on Windows too, as long as you’ve iTunes installed. If you’ve never set up iTunes Home Sharing before, you should definitely give it a try.
So I hope you found this the most helpful if you have any problem just comment below.