Home Sharing, but without syncing purchases

appletvhome-sharingitunes-store

At home we have two iTunes accounts. We do not wish to share our purchases as, for example, we have very different tastes in music.

We are looking to purchase an AppleTV that we can both use to stream our content from iTunes.

I've already read on another question that the standard way to handle this situation is to set up home sharing using one of our Apple IDs for all of the devices.

However, I've also read that setting up Home Sharing will cause any purchases on the other account to be added into the library of the home sharing account, and thus copied onto all linked devices. Is there a way to prevent this?

Best Answer

I've got this same situation going at home; two computers with separate iTunes Store accounts, an AppleTV that pulls content from both of them, and iTunes Home Sharing turned on.

The automatic syncing behavior is optional and, I believe, opt-in. When you turn on Home Sharing and select it in iTunes, you'll see this down in the bottom right corner:

Settings button for home sharing

When you click the "Settings" button, you'll see this window:

Automatic transfer options for home sharing

As you can see, you have plenty of options. Simply uncheck the things you don't want automatically synced, and you're good to go.