Using multiple iTunes accounts on an Apple TV

Tip of the Day

Using multiple iTunes accounts on an Apple TV

By Jesse Hollington

@jhollington ● Thursday, August 15, 2013

If you have an Apple TV in your household and share multiple iTunes Store accounts in your family, you’ll be happy to know that you don’t have to tie your Apple TV into only a single account. Since last year’s Apple TV 5.1 update you can easily configure and save more than one iTunes Store account on the Apple TV and easily switch between them. Not only does this allow you to use a different account for purchasing or renting content, but it also provides quick and easy way to switch cloud-based movie and TV show libraries; switching to a different account immediately provides access to browse and stream all of the content that was purchased with that account. Note that the accounts specified here are completely separate from the account you use for Home Sharing, so there’s no need to worry about losing access to your local library when switching to a different iTunes Store account.

This even works with accounts in different countries. You will initially need to change your country setting to match each account when first logging into it, however once the credentials have been saved, the Apple TV will automatically switch to the appropriate country when switching accounts. As with iTunes on the desktop, switching accounts will turn iTunes Match off, requiring it to be re-enabled when returning to your primary iTunes Store account. Unlike iTunes and iOS devices, however, there is no 90-day restriction on using content from different accounts, presumably since content can only be streamed to the Apple TV and not downloaded and saved for use on other devices.

Comments

I'm an American living in Italy. Just discovered today that purchases made ON the Apple TV in for example the Italian Store CANNOT be moved to my computer, iPad or iPhone without the 90 day restriction rule, where I can't move these devices back to the American store. I called Apple and got connected to the Apple iTunes store. They will let me download everything that I have purchased from the Italian store, and then they will allow a one time unlock to go back to the American store. If you need the items from 2 different iTunes stores in 2 different countries, buy the items from the "non-native" store on your computer, and then they can be streamed on the Apple TV, and moved to your IOS device. As far as watching programs outside your country, or watching US programs when outside the US, you can't do this "dual-citizenship" thing with the Apple TV, but there is an easy way around this. If you have hopefully a Mac, or an IOS device, go to netshade.net and buy the program Netshade ($29), or buy it from the App store if you only have an iOS device. They do offer free limited trials so you can make sure this works. Best way if you have both a Mac and an IOS device is to buy it for the computer , then add all iOS devices for only $10. Now you can watch programs from most countries anywhere on your iPad, Mac, or iPhone. Then, using Airplay, you can stream them to your Apple TV.
Posted by Nathan Smith on 2014-04-17 15:02:01 I heard that if you switch accounts/countries on Apple TV it will lock you to that country for a period of time. Is this correct? I'd like to switch between a US account and another country account from time to time.
Posted by Jon on 2013-12-23 17:38:06 Jesse, thanks for the tip. Do you know if different accounts can have different IP addresses on the Apple TV device? If I want to watch content on iTunes in Canada I can only do so with a Canadian IP address. If I want to watch US programs like HULU I need to change the IP address to a US based on which requires many steps. Wondering if just switching iTune accounts would do the trick if the accounts could be set up with differen IP profiles?
Posted by AG on 2013-10-26 10:26:33

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