TRANSFER OF MUSIC TO MY WIFE'S ACCOUNT

[AARON O'DICKYDIDO]

On iMac Is it possible to transfer my music from iTunes to my wife's iTunes account?

If so how, please?

Aaron.

[Jhieminga]

That depends on whether we're talking about your own music (ripped from CDs for example) or paid content from Apple. If it's the music you purchased from the iTunes store, then it's nearly impossible to transfer this as paid content is linked to one specific Apple ID.
As a workaround, you can try using home sharing. But that needs two devices and I'm suspecting that it's one single computer that you're talking about. See here: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201085
Another option would be to change the details for your Apple ID to transfer the control of this account to your wife, but the music would still be linked to that (your) Apple ID and would only be available when signed in with that ID. See here: https://www.lifewire.com/can-purchased-itunes-songs-be-associated-with-another-account-2438292

[AARON O'DICKYDIDO]

Jhieminga

Thanks for that. Yes it is my iTunes music. Oh well never mind.

Aaron.

[Jhieminga]

This is a quirk of digital music and online shopping in that the license to listen to that particular bit of music, which you purchased, results in you getting a digital file with a restriction built in. Without that restriction, there would be nothing preventing you, or anyone else, from distributing that file to the rest of the internet world. If you have more than one Apple device, an iPhone or iPad next to your iMac for example, I would suggest looking into the Home Sharing, or Family Sharing option. A phone is always on anyway, and if you then set up home sharing on this phone so that your wife's ID can listen to your music, the end effect will be pretty much the same as what you were asking about. There appear to be some differences between the two, but one phone call to Apple support might be worthwhile as well, they can suggest the correct solution for your situation.
(see here for Home Sharing: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202190, the family sharing link is in my previous post.)

[MightyGem]

Yes it is my iTunes music. Oh well never mind.

If you have a CD/DVD drive, you could create an audio CD and then your wife can import from there. Probably more trouble than it's worth, but it's an option.

[AARON O'DICKYDIDO]

Thanks for all that.

"If you have more than one Apple device, an iPhone or iPad next to your iMac for example, I would suggest looking into the Home Sharing, or Family Sharing option".

Between us we have 1 x iMac, 2 x iPads and 2 x iPhones. Does that make any difference.

Aaron.

[Jhieminga]

Hello Aaron,

I think that you can use family sharing to sort this out. First thing is to decide which Apple ID will become the head of the family, yours or your wife's Apple ID. Any future purchases will be applied against the payment method linked to this ID.
Set up Family Sharing on a device that's signed in to the main ID by following these steps: https://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT201088
Use the steps further down on that page to add the other ID to the same family. Once you've done this, you should be able to download each other's iTunes purchases, if needed, see here: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201085

If you run into problems with this, consider calling Apple support, they're really helpful and will usually help you out with this during a phone call.

[obgraham]

Both Mrs O and I have bought new tablets recently. I keep my old one around, re-registered to her Kindle account to allow me to read her books if I wish. Could do the same with Apple.

[flensr]

If any of the music is available as an MP3 download, you could also manually download the MP3 "DRM Free" version, and then just import it to your wife's library. That's why I have been buying my music from amazon instead of Apple, pretty much all of the stuff from Amazon is DRM free so if you don't want to go through the trouble of setting up the family sharing, you can just download the MP3 files and manually import them. Works great in iTunes, just copy the music in it's own folder to the iTunes music folder and tell iTunes to import that folder.

If it's an MP3, iTunes assumes you own the license to listen to it so there's no hassle involved. And because both iTunes and Amazon have family sharing for a limited number of accounts and playback devices, it's legal as long as you don't share it outside of their allowed limits.

That said, I recently linked my wife's amazon account to mine to share digital media. It's pretty simple and as others have pointed out, it's not terribly difficult to do it with iTunes either. The only difference is that the apple DRM will prevent you from copying the music to random generic devices. Of course, you DO have the option of burning a digital music CD with iTunes that will convert even DRM iTunes music to MP3 files for the purpose of archiving them on CDs or DVDs. Once they're converted to MP3 format, anyone can import them to their library. Again, don't abuse it and it's completely legit and legal. That's the other way to put iTunes music on non-apple devices that fit within their definition of allowable use. iTunes just kind of hides the option to convert to MP3 in the burn to CD feature.