(Updated on 7/10) I have too many digital media files and they’re getting disorganized. I want to be able to add stuff to my iPod on the road, so my MacBook Pro is therefore my “main” iTunes library. I typically buy new digital music or TV shows on that laptop and rip CDs or DVDs on it. So, in theory at least, it’s the master library.
But when I’m in my office, I’m typically using my iMac’s music library, so it needs the music files. And because my laptop has much more limited hard drive space any Tv and movie files I’m not interested in watching currently (sorry, Battlestar Galactica season 1) get off-loaded to the iMac. Which means my “master” library isn’t so master anymore.
What I need is a software synchronization solution that’s iTunes-aware. You could just crank up Chronosync (or your own standard, hometown file-syncing program) and have it push missing files back and forth. That solution has at least two problems. First, it would be hellish to get Chronosync to exclude just the movie and TV files I don’t want on my laptop. Also, it knows nothing about my metadata — star ratings, play counts, last played date and so on — that iTunes is tracking separately on each computer.
So I’m testing out a free 30-day trial of a program called Syncopation (version 2.1) which claims to sync iTunes libraries exactly the way you want while keeping all the metadata honest. It’s a tiny download and then you install a copy on each of the computers you want to keep in sync. The free trial supports two computers while the paid version ($25) can do its tricks on five computers. Once the program is running on each computer, it syncs just as you require over a wired or wireless network, either in the background or on-demand.
Syncopation also offers lots of useful options. First off, you can choose whether all libraries are equal (“peer to peer” syncing) or one is a master. You can choose on each computer whether to include or exclude syncing TV shows, movies and/or podcasts. I’ve set it top sync TV shows from my Macbook Pro to my iMac but not the reverse, for example. You can also limit it to specific playlists and decide whether or not it should have the power to delete files. Finally, you can select any or all of six pieces of metadata for syncing (genre, rating, play count, last play date, skip count, last skipped date). If you’re setting up a central iTunes library on a network server somewhere, Syncopation can also add tracks to another computer’s library without actually importing the data files. All in all, a very savvy and slick app.
UPDATE: It appears that metadata syncing happens only once, not continuously. That is, if you buy some songs on one computer, listen to them and rate them, then hit Syncopation for a sync, the songs will transfer over to your other computers with the ratings and last play dates from the purchasing computer. But no metadata appears to be synced after that or for any songs with new metadata but which are already on both computers.
UPDATE2: I’ll do a new post on this, but the problem of metadata not syncing was a bug and one that developer Alan Pearson jumped on with an update 2.1.1 within days after I told him about it. That’s a great software developer in action! Now fixed.
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