It is common knowledge that Apple does not allow one iPhone to sync with multiple iTunes libraries, because they want to prevent users from sharing their songs (and lower Apple’s music sales).

Is there a way to Sync iPhone with iTunes multiple libraries?

If you ever try to sync your iPhone with a different iTunes account, you will receive a warning. If you continue with the syncing, then all your contents will be replaced with the ones iTunes library you are trying to sync to. There is no danger to lose contacts, calendars or settings, only your media content.

Fortunately there is a way to do that, this is why the following tutorial was created for!

Tutorial to Sync iPhone with iTunes multiple libraries

This tutorial is for OS X, but you can apply it to a Windows machine (I will inform you at the end how to do that!).

To the Mac you Sync your iPhone – Sync iPhone with iTunes multiple libraries



Step 1:

On the Mac in which you normally sync your iPhone, open a “Finder” window and navigate to “Go” in the top menu bar. Then click on the “Go To Folder”

Step 2:

Type “~/Music/iTunes” and click on the “Go” button.

Step 3:

You will see a list of files, select them all and create a back up! (Very important step)

Step 4:

Open the file “iTunes Music Library.xml” with TextEdit and copy/paste the Library Persistent ID (16-character string). DO NOT MAKE ANY CHANGES TO THAT FILE!

To the Mac you want to Sync your iPhone – Sync iPhone with iTunes multiple libraries

Step 5:

Repeat all the steps from 1 to 3!

Step 6:

After doing all the backups, make sure that iTunes is closed and then delete all the .itl files in the “Previous iTunes Libraries” folder. There is a chance that this folder will not exist, if so skip this step.

Step 7:

Open the “iTunes Music Library.xml” file with TextEdit, and replace the Library Persistent ID with the one you copied in the Step 4! Save it!

Step 8:

Open “iTunes Library.itl” with TextEdit and delete all its contents! Save it!

Step 9:

Now, open iTunes. An error should appear, but you will be able to ignore it by clicking on OK.

You can proceed to Sync iPhone with iTunes multiple libraries without erasing your previous content!

If you want to apply this tutorial to a windows machine, do the following changes:

The folder is “C:\Users\USERNAME\Music\iTunes“

Instead of TextEdit, use Notepad!

You will also find interesting the following article which explain you how to install 7.1.1 iOS version through iTunes!