How to sync iTunes with a cloud service?

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50n0f508

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#207635 6-Jan-2017 09:00

I want to keep my iTunes library on my hard drive and maintain a synced copy online which mirrors any changes made such as new music, deletes, plays, ratings etc. What cloud service can do this for me? I've spent ages googling this but nothing seems to come up that meets my needs - it all seems to be about changing the location of my library so that iTunes points to the cloud and that's not what I want. I tried OneDrive but in order to copy my library it seems I need to have enough disk space to duplicate my library in order for it to copy and sync with the cloud.

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#1699199 6-Jan-2017 09:04

Does iCloud Match fit some of those requirements?

Downside is you do lose control over your music to an extent.

SheriffNZ

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#1699200 6-Jan-2017 09:04

Or is it iTunes Match???

josephhinvest

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#1699201 6-Jan-2017 09:10

I think an Apple Music subscription will do what you want. Canonical library in cloud but you can keep a full local copy. Will upload local songs that do not exist in iTunes catalogue. The family plan is pretty good value, I now have 4 family members using one sub for $20 per month.

Cheers,
Joseph

Edit. I realise you want to keep the primary library on your local drive which this doesn't do. But like with iCloud Photo Library, having the cloud copy be the primary one is pretty easy to get used to.

Behodar

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#1699202 6-Jan-2017 09:16

Be careful with iTunes Match/Apple Music - it sometimes replaces tracks with similar-sounding ones. For example, it's replaced some of my songs with different mixes, and I've seen other complaints about it swapping uncensored tracks with censored ones.

jonherries

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#1699206 6-Jan-2017 09:20

If you buy a synology, you can make this available remotely (works with itunes)...

But key question is why it needs to be "in the cloud"?

Jon

PoHq

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#1699209 6-Jan-2017 09:26

There is a service called Mac drop Any.

Link is here http://www.zibity.com/macdropany.html

What it does is sync any folder to a cloud storage provider. So you'd simply need to tell it to sync your iTunes folder to your preferred cloud storage provider.

I've used it before and it works great. Any changes that occur in your iTunes folder i.e. will sync to your cloud storage. It's a simple free utility that I think would fit your needs.

You'd obviously need to have your preferred cloud storage provider installed on your mac and also have enough space available.

I have made an assumption you are using a mac.

I'd steer well clear of trying to accomplish your needs using Apple Music, iTunes Match and a local library. This has disaster written all over it.

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50n0f508

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#1699214 6-Jan-2017 09:41

I don't want to use iTunes Match/Cloud Drive because I much prefer Spotify and am not about to start subscribing to a second streaming service. Plus I have also heard about the same stories of Apple replacing songs with different mixes/versions. I want my music synced online or in the cloud - forgive my terminology - because backing up to an external hard drive is not safe enough by itself. Sounds like I'm going to have to make do with doing periodical copies to a cloud rather than keeping things synced...

jamesrt

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#1699220 6-Jan-2017 09:56

I use "box.com" as cloud storage, and they have a sync app for both OS X and Windows. Their app syncs folders from the cloud into a "Box Sync" folder on your hard drive - for Windows, for example, as C:\Users\<name>\Box Sync (from memory - typing this on a non-Windows device). OS X in a similar location.

If your preferred cloud provider does something similar (and I know that Google Drive does), then you could MOVE your existing iTunes library from it's existing location into the "Box Sync" (or functionally similar) folder. You can then point iTunes at the new location, and just let the Sync app do it's thing.

One copy of iTunes library locally, being synced to the cloud on whatever schedule the sync app does.

Sounds like that would work to me - with the side-effect being that the iTunes folder would be in a non-standard location.

50n0f508

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#1699223 6-Jan-2017 10:01

PoHq: There is a service called Mac drop Any.

Link is here http://www.zibity.com/macdropany.html

What it does is sync any folder to a cloud storage provider. So you'd simply need to tell it to sync your iTunes folder to your preferred cloud storage provider.

I've used it before and it works great. Any changes that occur in your iTunes folder i.e. will sync to your cloud storage. It's a simple free utility that I think would fit your needs.

You'd obviously need to have your preferred cloud storage provider installed on your mac and also have enough space available.

I have made an assumption you are using a mac.

I'd steer well clear of trying to accomplish your needs using Apple Music, iTunes Match and a local library. This has disaster written all over it.

I like the sound of that, it's exactly what I'm after but I'm a PC user...

jonherries

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#1699240 6-Jan-2017 10:11

Oh you want a back up...

You need local and remote redundancy.

Ie. Another copy on another local drive - a convenient way to do this is with a NAS eg. Synology. This works by having two drives which are mirrored available over the local network.

You then need a remote copy (protects against the house burning down). You have two options - a cloud solution, or another drive which you can keep somewhere else and update regularly - eg. Every month or two - depedning on how quickly it changes.

Turns out with a NAS like a Synology with v6 you can now get a cloud backup so you cover both of these options. The Synology will also let you do streaming to your phone like Spotify using your library.

Jon

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#1699257 6-Jan-2017 10:43

What about something like CrashPlan where you could just backup your whole PC to the cloud? Something like $60US PA.

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rb99

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#1699262 6-Jan-2017 10:55

I presume you've checked it out already, but you can't just sync to Google Drive or something, apparently you can choose which folder to sync, unless there's too much music for you to sync https://support.google.com/drive/answer/2375083?hl=en

Syncing locally could use Resilio Sync, or whatever its called now - can sync from one pc to another at a different location.

Even a media player like Emby apparently has plug-ins to sync media to Dropbox or Google Drive.

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rb99

50n0f508

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#1699280 6-Jan-2017 11:40

rb99:

I presume you've checked it out already, but you can't just sync to Google Drive or something, apparently you can choose which folder to sync, unless there's too much music for you to sync https://support.google.com/drive/answer/2375083?hl=en

Syncing locally could use Resilio Sync, or whatever its called now - can sync from one pc to another at a different location.

Even a media player like Emby apparently has plug-ins to sync media to Dropbox or Google Drive.

That Google Drive solution sounds ideal but it hinges on whether or not the 'My Drive' folder occupies local disk space or not. That is the problem I encountered with OneDrive; in order to move my library to my OneDrive I need enough disk space to essentially duplicate my iTunes library before anything is copied online. I do not have any space to do that...but it does lead me on to another question for dropbox/googledrive/onedrive users; assuming that the local folders these use take up disk space, does that mean if I were to change the location of my iTunes library to one of those folders that iTunes will be syncing with local hard drive files whilst the cloud service keeps changes in sync online?

jamesrt

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#1699283 6-Jan-2017 11:50

50n0f508: if I were to change the location of my iTunes library to one of those folders that iTunes will be syncing with local hard drive files whilst the cloud service keeps changes in sync online?

That's exactly what I was suggesting earlier.

50n0f508

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#1699297 6-Jan-2017 12:08

jamesrt:

50n0f508: if I were to change the location of my iTunes library to one of those folders that iTunes will be syncing with local hard drive files whilst the cloud service keeps changes in sync online?

That's exactly what I was suggesting earlier.

Ok...so in order to move the iTunes library to my local OneDrive I will have to make a copy to my external drive, delete it on my PC to free up disk space, then use the external drive to copy the library to my local OneDrive folder, which once complete will sync to my online OneDrive?

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