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  • iTunes too many computers authorized? Fix??

iTunes too many computers authorized? Fix??

February 26, 2011 / Dave Taylor / Computer & Internet Basics, iPod & MP3 Player Help, Windows PC Help / 10 Comments

Crazy frustrating. I have a laptop of my own and a desktop computer at work and when I went to my parents house to share some movies on their new AppleTV, it complained that I’d already authorized five computers with my account and wouldn’t proceed. Sucks! How do I fix this?

As you now know, iTunes and the iTunes Store are multi-computer friendly, which is great when you want to share your purchased music, audio books, movies and other video material across your work, your home, your AppleTV, and so on. Problem is, you only get to authorize five computers and once you hit that limit, you’re out of luck. So if you had a couple of laptops, two AppleTV units and a desktop server, you might not be able to enjoy your purchased iTunes Store content on your work computer too. No way around it.
On the other hand, it appears that the authorizations are tied to system serial numbers, so if you replace a computer with a new one and forget to deauthorize the old computer, it’s going to take up one of those precious five slots even though it’s completely inactive. It’d be cool if Apple kept track and after six months, say, of a given authorized machine never checking in with the server to see if it’s still authorized, it automatically deauthorized that device, but that’s not how it works today.
In fact, the only way to clean out any of the five auth slots is to wait until you’re completely full and getting just the error message you’re seeing, then deauth every computer and reauthorize them one-by-one. That’s what I’m going to show you how to do. It’s easy!
I’ll show you the sequence on my PC system running Microsoft Windows 7 too, so you can see how it works there, though the sequence is 100% identical if you’re a pure Mac user finding the same problem.
First off, here’s a movie I’ve copied onto the Win7 PC and want to watch:

win7 itunes too many store authorizations 1

Quite cute, and doubly so if you have kids that like Monsters, Inc.. When I click on the “play” button, I’m asked to authorize the computer. No surprise there:
win7 itunes too many store authorizations 2

Sometimes ya just ain’t lucky and the servers are busy…
win7 itunes too many store authorizations 3

No worries. I wait a few minutes and try again, just to find out when I enter the account password that I’ve already authorized five computers on my iTunes Store account and am maxed out:
win7 itunes too many store authorizations 4

It’s surprising that this error “you cannot authorize more than 5 computers” doesn’t offer up much useful information on how actually fix the problem, but that’s why you have me on the case, right? 🙂
Click on “OK” then go to the iTunes Store within iTunes. Now, on the top right you’ll see your email address (if you don’t, log in first). Choose “Account”:
win7 itunes too many store authorizations 5

The account summary has some useful information, including your payment method and billing address. More importantly it has a button labelled “Deauthorize All”:
win7 itunes too many store authorizations 6

You want to click on the “Deauthorize All” button (and yes, you will have to re-authorize each and every computer that you want to have access to your iTunes Store account. But it’s really easy, you’ll see)…
win7 itunes too many store authorizations 7

Yup, that’s what we want to do. Click on “Deauthorize all computers” and…
win7 itunes too many store authorizations 8

Done. That’s it.
Now, on each computer, you can authorize them with your iTunes Store account by going into iTunes and choosing “Authorize This Computer…” from the “Store” menu:
win7 itunes too many store authorizations 9

Enter your password properly on the subsequent window…
win7 itunes too many store authorizations 9b

You’ve just authorized the computer. Better, it also shows you a running count so you can tell how close to that magic number 5 you reach:
win7 itunes too many store authorizations 9c

Oh, and that movie? Now it’ll play just fine…
win7 itunes too many store authorizations 9d

Hope that helps you get a handle on the authorizations tied to your iTunes Store account!

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Starbucks coffee cup I do have a lot to say, and questions of my own for that matter, but first I'd like to say thank you, Dave, for all your helpful information by buying you a cup of coffee!

10 comments on “iTunes too many computers authorized? Fix??”

  1. Chuck says:
    September 23, 2012 at 5:58 pm

    Better to back up your media and app files to a non-mac device. That way you need not worry about Apple possibly deleting or locking you out of your media.

    Reply
  2. Kelly says:
    May 31, 2012 at 9:06 am

    I am looking forward to trying the above suggestions. When I de authorize all the computers will I loose apps/movies/etc.?

    Reply
    • Nancy says:
      May 2, 2017 at 3:22 am

      I’m wondering the same thing. Did you get an answer? None of the authorized computeres exist anymore. My music was all transfered to,my new PC when I got it, The songs show up in my library, but faded out with a cloud symbol and won’t play. Turns out they aren’t downloaded to my current computer, they were only transfered to my itunes folder, and now they arent in there anymore.

      Reply
  3. Mary Lou Kayser says:
    April 22, 2012 at 9:32 pm

    So glad I found this post! Two old laptops have since gone bye bye, yet they remained authorized for my iTunes accounts. My kids have been driving me crazy to set up home sharing, but I couldn’t because of the maxed out number of computers iTunes claimed I had for my account. A quick keyword search led me to you, and your instructions to fix this issue are flawless. Now, I have happy kids AND all the new computers properly authorized! Thanks so much. 🙂

    Reply
  4. Sandra says:
    January 1, 2012 at 2:20 am

    Okay I get what you say but what if the case is that you did not knew this before now … and all the computers that have been used for the authorisation (sorry my english) do not exist anymore? Me and my mom have had a lot of problems with computers going down and have then had new computers and now I don’t know what to do … but help would be more than just very apreciated.
    Sandra from Denmark.

    Reply
  5. Dave Taylor says:
    August 20, 2011 at 11:00 am

    Ken, I believe the fix for that is to choose “Add To Library…” from the “File” menu in iTunes and let it rescan for tracks. Be aware that it’s possible it’ll copy them into your iTunes Music folder, eating up a lot of disk space. If that happens, just delete the originals. And if you already have them in the right place, this should fix things.
    Oh, one more thing! Also choose “Check for Available Downloads” off the “Store” menu in iTunes too.
    Good luck. iTunes is a mixed blessing as a media management tool. 🙂

    Reply
  6. ken says:
    August 19, 2011 at 2:30 pm

    Dave, thanks for the directions. I just followed them and they worked great. However, my songs are not showing up in the library of my newly authorized computer. What do I need to do?

    Reply
  7. mimi says:
    June 7, 2011 at 3:07 am

    Thanx your post was very helpful to me

    Reply
  8. Anne Lindsay says:
    March 2, 2011 at 1:41 pm

    I’ve used this feature (deauthorize all) several times. But you can only do this once a year!!!
    Very handy if your ipod dies or your laptop is stolen.
    You can deauthorize and reauthorize each of the 5 computers many times but the “all” option is once annually.
    To “fix” the problem of the limited (5) authorizations, I routinely deauthorize my netbook in favour of another computer (and reverse the process when needed).
    With an iphone, ipad, work and home computer and a netbook, let alone the media centre I run the at the edge. I think apple should extend the limit if they truely wish the users to have access to their own stuff.

    Reply
  9. Michael says:
    February 26, 2011 at 12:36 pm

    Just remember you can only do this once every year as well!

    Reply

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