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+--- Thread: Synchronizing shared music library for two people (/thread-13593.html)
Synchronizing shared music library for two people - ronnie - 07-21-2025
Hi all,
maybe someone can help us implementing the following:
Me and my husband have a large shared collection of sheet music. I spent a lot of time putting meta data on the sheet music, so I have a nicely sorted MobileSheets library now.
Our goal is that my husband uses the same library (pdfs, meta data, audio), but is still be able to add his own annotations without seeing mine.
Our idea is that I regularly synchronize my library to a Drive folder which I share with my husband, who can import this folder without importing my notes. Then he backups his library (which is my pdfs + his annotations) to a different location. Is that feasible or has anyone a better long-term solution?
Another problem might be that he already added a lot of the sheet music I also have to his Mobile Sheets app, but with different pdf names. How can he keep his annotations? Is there maybe a way to "copy" his annotations manually to the newly imported, sorted sheet music?
Thanks y'all!
Edit:
I did some more tests. Sharing a Google Drive folder doesn't work because MobileSheets only has access to "normal" Drive files, not shared ones. Alternatively, I could export my whole library as .msb file and give it to my husband regularly.
I tried that on a test data set but couldn't figure out so far how to tackle annotations. I am willing to move all of his annotations manually in the beginning (those are around 50 songs) but afterwards, library updates should be automatic. No matter what I tried, I always ended up having his annotations deleted or not editable anymore.
Edit 2:
The best way I found so far is as follows:
1) My husband exports the file wih annotations
2) He imports my .msb file containing the same song with nice meta data / audio
3) He goes into the songs settings, chooses "swap files" and chooses his annotated file
This solves ALMOST everything. Sadly, his annotations are then not editable anymore (and if the setting "allow editing of embedded PDF annotations" is checked, the whole page gets a grey-ish tint and behaves weirdly)
RE: Synchronizing shared music library for two people - ronnie - 07-25-2025
Partially answering my own question: We found a way that works. It's a little clunky and we'd still be happy if someone has a better idea or if some update will make the process easier, but for anyone attempting the same, here is the steps we follow now:
- He synchronizes his whole library to a folder, using the function "Sync Library -> Synchronize to a cloud folder"
- I export everything I want to share (songs + metadata/audio) to a .msf file using "Share -> Export as .msf", and also export the setlists I want to share
- He imports this .msf file (and the setlist file) using "Import -> Local File" with the option 'update existing song' applied to all duplicates, which updates all the songs in his library that are also in the msf-file but doesn't touch the rest. Now he has the correct meta data, pdf files and audio for each song, but lost his annotations if the song was already imported
- He uses "Sync Library" again, but now with the Sync Type "Update Device" and only the option "Sync annotations" checked. Audio Files should be on "Ignore Audio Files" and Merge Behaviour on "Always use data from folder". (Note that his old pdf files are transferred as well as annotations, but meta data and audio is kept from the imported msf file)
Amazingly, this also worked although his song titles / file names were slightly different than mine. Good job here to check for similar files, Mike!
As I said, if anyone has an idea how to make this process easier to apply more regularly, we're still open for it.
Cheers!
RE: Synchronizing shared music library for two people - Zubersoft - 07-26-2025
Ronnie,
MobileSheets should have access to shared Drive files and folders - you just have to tap the "Shared with Me" folder to get access to those.
It's very strange that you are seeing that behavior when you enable "Allow editing of embedded PDF annotations". I've never seen that before. Unfortunately, MobileSheets can't merge annotations from two different users - you have to take annotations from one device or the other. If you select "Prompt user for decision" when synchronizing, you can choose to take all of the changes from one tablet, but keep annotations if desired. Or you can uncheck the option to "Sync annotations" which would ensure annotations are untouched. It's unclear to me when you can't just synchronize normally but with the "Sync annotations" unchecked. I'd like to hear more about that.
You'll definitely run into more issues with synchronizing if you have the same song titles but different PDFs used by those songs, as the sync will want to take one or the other. So you'd have to ignore those differences by using "prompt user for decision" if that's going to be occur frequently. I might suggest just using unique song titles for those if you are going to use different PDF names though, and uncheck the option to delete songs so that they don't get removed during the sync.
If none of this helps and your current process is working for you, by all means, you can stick to it.
Mike