Setting up Home Sharing on Your iPad, iPhone, or iPod

Home Sharing is designed to let you stream and transfer music, videos, and more with up to five other computers on your local network. Before iOS 4.3, Home Sharing was only for PCs, but now you can stream your entire iTunes library over your home Wi-Fi network from your Mac or PC right to your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch. This is a great, simple way to enjoy all of your media anywhere throughout your house.

Things you’ll need:

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• The latest version of iTunes
• Apple ID associated with an iTunes or App Store Account

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Setting up Home Sharing

To stream your iTunes library to your iOS device, you will first need to enable Home Sharing on your computer. To do this, you’ll need iTunes 10.2 or later. Select the Home Sharing icon on the left-hand side of iTunes and enter your Apple ID credentials. If the Home Sharing icon is not visible, go to the “Advanced” menu, select “Turn on Home Sharing”. Repeat this process on each computer you want to use for Home Sharing. In order to use Home Sharing with multiple computers, you must configure Home Sharing on each computer. In addition, each Home Share must use the same iTunes or App Store account name.

Now that you’ve set up Home Sharing on your computer(s), Here’s how to set up and use Home Sharing on your iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch.

Home Sharing on your iPhone

On your iPhone, Go to “Settings,” “iPod,” and enter the same Apple ID credentials.

To play home sharing content, on your iPhone open the iPod app and tap “More.” Go to “Shared” and select an iTunes library name.  You can play your shared music and videos from within the iPod app

Home Sharing on your iPad

On your iPad, tap Settings > iPod and enter the same Apple ID credentials.

To play home sharing content, on your iPad, for videos, tap on Videos > Shared and select a shared library and for music tap on iPod > Library and select a shared library.

Home Sharing on your iPod Touch

On your iPod touch, tap Settings > Music and enter the same Apple ID credentials.

To play home sharing content, on your iPod touch, for videos, tap Videos > Shared and select a shared library and for music tap Music > More… > Shared and select a shared library.

Notes:

1-Movie rentals cannot be streamed or transferred using Home Sharing.

2-You can only have a maximum of five computers per Home Sharing account, if you want to deauthorize one of the computers, go to iTunes, head to the “Store” menu, and then “Deauthorize this computer.”

3-Use the same iTunes / App Store account name when enabling Home Sharing on all computers you intend to share with.

SK( Managing Editor )

Obsessed with tech since the early arrival of A/UX on Apple, Sudz (SK) is responsible for the editorial direction of AppleToolBox. He is based out of Los Angeles, CA.

Sudz specializes in covering all things macOS, having reviewed dozens of OS X and macOS developments over the years.

In a former life, Sudz worked helping Fortune 100 companies with their technology and business transformation aspirations.