Traktor Pro 3 on 2 Macs, synced over Cloud

I have 2 Macs (a desktop and a MacBook) which both use the same folder of music files which is stored in dropbox. Any file based data such as title, artist, genre etc is synced nicely between the 2 traktor instances, as these pieces of information are stored in the music files itself and dropbox keeps these synced for me.

What I would like to achieve is to be able to edit cue points and playlists on one machine, and have these available on the other machine.

I know the cue points and playlist data is stored in collection.nml under the traktor install folder, and the default install location for traktor is "/Users/xxx/Documents/Native Instruments/Traktor v.xx.xx".

macOS syncs everything under the Documents folder with iCloud, so in theory if i use identical usernames on both machines and keep my music files in the current shared dropbox location - this should sync the entire traktor install between the machines including the settings files, transients, stripes and collection.nml and also preserve any file paths as they will be identical between the machines.

Is there any reason why this would be discouraged?

I am planning to try this out but would like to hear about anything that I should be aware of that could damage/corrupt a library that may not be obvious at first.

The only thing I can see as a concern is iCloud can be slow to sync and somewhat opaque, as granular control is not possible like it is with other sync services.

Thanks in advance for any input

Find more posts tagged with

Traktor Pro 3

Accepted answers

Stereo Head

It's worth pointing out to anyone reading this that you can't sync between a Mac and a PC. I tried this and the file paths in the collection.nml do not get inferred/converted.

I have had success getting a sync to work between 2 Macs. Using the default installation path (/users/username/documents/native instruments/traktor x.xx.xx) and enabling iCloud Drive sync. My track library is stored in Dropbox, and has the same path on both machines.

The only thing that was cumbersome is waiting for iCloud Drive to pick up the latest changes and sync them onto the 'other' machine, as it can be a little slow.

All comments

mykejb

It should work in theory yes.

I used to have two laptops synced to my main PC with the same drive letters/paths on both machines. One was my "main" laptop while playing out, the other was a backup. I did all the prep on my main PC then synced the Traktor data folder and music folders out to both laptops. When I got back from a gig (or more usually the next day) I synced only the main laptop back to the main PC. This worked perfectly for years. I also had the various Pioneer data folders sync'd as well as I was using rekordbox as well at the time.

-- Mike

Stereo Head

It's worth pointing out to anyone reading this that you can't sync between a Mac and a PC. I tried this and the file paths in the collection.nml do not get inferred/converted.

The only thing that was cumbersome is waiting for iCloud Drive to pick up the latest changes and sync them onto the 'other' machine, as it can be a little slow.

mots

i do something similar, using SyncThing (opensource and not cloud based. but both computers need to be powered at the same time to sync.)

sync track folder, and rescan import when needed
store the cue points in the mp3 files directly (option: "write all tags to files")
i dont sync the library and options, mainly because i have a different user name on each mac.

radley

My Traktor settings and Music library are shared in Dropbox. Dropbox is instantaneous versus iCloud which is hampered by "Apple optimization." The only thing I don't share is the Traktor Recordings folder, because recordings shouldn't be synced while recording.

I use the Music app as my main library. I have a 2018 MBP for DJing, and a M1 Mini for everything else. Dropbox can't sync Music playlists, but it can sync track metadata changes like Genre, Comments, BPM, and Rating.

I sync Music playlists manually because sync apps are unreliable, and I don't actually need two-way auto-syncing. I only need to sync one-way, from main to laptop, once a week (before I play).

Here are the steps:

Quit the Music app on both computers
Copy the Apple Music ".musiclibrary" file from your main computer to your DJ laptop
Option-click the Music app icon on your laptop to launch it
Click Choose Library... and select your new musiclibrary file
Wait for Music to load the new library
Confirm you have the new library

Once that's done, you can load it in Traktor.

Quick links

Unanswered questions