Use iCloud Family Sharing

If you live in a household in which multiple family members would like to share the music, movies, TV shows, books, and apps they purchase from Apple—and especially if your family includes children who use Apple devices—you’re the target audience for iCloud’s Family Sharing feature. (If not, there’s nothing to see in this chapter—skip ahead to Use iCloud Music Features.)

Family Sharing requires Yosemite or later, or iOS 8 or later, so I recommend using it only if all your family’s devices meet these requirements. Assuming your family fits that profile, here’s what you’ll get for up to six family members (including you):

• All family members’ purchases of media from Apple are charged to the credit card of the person designated as the family organizer. (Family members who have enough credit in their own Apple ID accounts can use that credit to buy something without using the shared card.)

• Kids can request media purchases from a parent, who must approve each one individually. (You can register special Apple IDs for kids, even if they’re under 13.)

• All family members can access each others’ media, although you can hide particular items of your own that you don’t want to share.

• A shared family photo album, calendar, and reminder list are created.

• Family members can more easily share their locations and locate their devices (with Find My).

• A family can join Apple Music as a group for $14.99 per month instead of paying $9.99 per person per month.

• If the family organizer is paying for 200 GB or 2 TB of iCloud Drive space, that storage quota can be applied to the family instead of just the organizer. Each family member’s data remains private to them, even though the total available storage is pooled.

• Parents can limit their kids’ screen time (on devices running iOS 12 or later, or iPadOS); see Tonya Engst’s article Parents Rejoice! iOS 12 Provides More Helpful Parental Controls at Simply Mac.

I won’t pretend Family Sharing is perfect—for example, can’t add someone with a billing address in another country, and Family Sharing offers no way to share data like contacts, bookmarks, and passwords within a family—but it’s definitely helpful for what it does. (One encouraging sign: starting in macOS 11, iOS 14, and iPadOS 14, it will finally be possible for in-app purchases to be shared within a family, assuming app developers enable this feature.)

Enable Family Sharing

You can enable Family Sharing on either a Mac or an iOS/iPadOS device. Once it’s enabled on one of your devices, it’s enabled on all of them. I’ll explain the steps on a Mac here; if you use an iOS or iPadOS device, the process is similar except you go to Settings > Your Name > Family Sharing to start. Do this:

1. On a Mac running Catalina or later, go to System Preferences > Family Sharing; in Mojave or earlier, go to System Preferences > iCloud and click Set Up Family.

2. Click through several informational screens, confirming that the Apple ID shown is the one you want to use as the family organizer, that you want to share your purchases (or not), that you agree to the terms and conditions, and that you understand purchases will be charged to the credit card associated with your Apple ID.

3. Choose whether you want to share your location with family members, and click Continue.

4. On the Family Members pane of the dialog that appears, click Add Family Member to add one or more family members:

   • For adults (and children with existing Apple IDs): Select “Enter a family member’s name, email address or Game Center nickname,” enter the name or address, click Continue, and follow the prompts. Each invited family member must either enter their password on your computer or follow the steps in an email invitation they receive to join the family account.

   • For children without Apple IDs: Select “Create an Apple ID for a child who doesn’t have an account,” click Continue, and then follow the prompts. (See the sidebar Your Child’s Password, ahead, for password advice.) You must select an Apple ID for your child—that is, a string followed by @icloud.com; this will also become the child’s email address. If the Apple ID you pick is unavailable, an alert appears; keep trying until you pick one that works.

   To add another member, click plus and repeat this process.

5. When you’re done, click Done.

To add or remove people later, or adjust their details, go to System Preferences > Family Sharing (Catalina or later; Figure 8) or System Preferences > iCloud > Manage Family (Mojave or earlier).

Figure 8: Manage payment method and family members in this dialog within the iCloud preference pane.

Your Child’s Password

Your child’s account password, like any iCloud account password, must meet Apple’s minimum requirements: “at least 8 characters, a number, an uppercase letter, and a lowercase letter.” In general, I suggest making passwords significantly stronger than this minimum (by using, say, 12 or more random characters).

However, in the case of a password for a very young child—I speak from experience here—consider keeping it on the simpler side. That’s because the child will need to enter the password in order to Use Ask to Buy—and if your child has to pester you to look up and enter a long, complex password every time they want to download a game, that defeats part of the purpose of Ask to Buy in the first place, in that the child can’t complete the first part of the process independently of the parent. On the flip side, the presence of Ask to Buy (assuming you have it enabled) reduces the security risk of a weaker password.

Configure Apps and Services

In most cases, the setup process I just described will be all you need to do, but you may want to add or adjust certain settings after the fact. To do this, go to System Preferences > Family Sharing (in Catalina or later) or System Preferences > iCloud > Manage Family > My Apps & Services (in Mojave or earlier), and select a category on the left:

• Purchase Sharing: Enable or disable purchase sharing within the family or for your own purchases, change which iCloud account is used for sharing, or change your payment method.

• iCloud Storage: Change your storage plan, or enable or disable sharing that plan with your family (see Share Storage Space).

• Location Sharing: Select which family members, if any, can see your location.

• Screen time: In Catalina or later, select which children (if any) you’ve enabled Screen Time for.

• Apple Music: View or modify an Apple Music family membership. Depending on the specifics of your situation, you may only be able to see the name of the person sharing an Apple Music family membership with you, or you may be able to click Change Plan to switch to an individual or college student plan.

• TV Channels: In Catalina or later, see which extra channels, if any, you’ve subscribed to.

• Apple Arcade: In Catalina or later, see the status of your Apple Arcade subscription, if any.

• Apple News+: In Catalina or later, see the status of your Apple News+ subscription, if any.

When you’re finished making changes, close the window (in Catalina or later) or click Done (in Mojave or earlier).

Share Calendar and Reminders

Each participating family member automatically has a Family calendar added to Calendar (on macOS, iOS, and iPadOS, and in the Calendar web app) and a Family reminder list added to Reminders. So, any events or reminders you assign to Family will appear for all family members.

But what if you already had a shared family calendar (whether or not it was called “Family”)? That calendar will still exist alongside the new one. If you want to switch over to the new Family calendar without losing all the events in your old family calendar, do this:

1. In Calendar on a Mac, click the Calendars button on the toolbar to see the sidebar and select your old family calendar.

2. Choose File > Export > Export, enter a name and choose a destination, and click Export.

3. Choose File > Import, select the calendar you just exported, and click Import.

4. In the Add Event dialog that appears, choose your new Family calendar. Click OK.

5. After Calendar imports the events into your Family calendar, you’ll have two copies of each one—one each on the old and new family calendars. Skim these to make sure all your events are indeed present on the new calendar.

6. Select your old family calendar, choose Edit > Delete, and click Delete to confirm.

The new family calendar will be used for family events from now on.

Tip: If you also had a shared family Reminders list, you can follow the same basic steps in Reminders to move those items to the new Family reminders list.

Share Family Photos

Family Sharing creates a new shared photo album called Family on all the family’s devices. Add photos to this album just like any other album, and they’re available to all family members. For more information on shared photo albums, refer to Share Photos, Videos, and Albums.

Use Find My

Family Sharing makes it easier for family members to use Find My (see Find My Nouns):

• Find family members: Turning on Family Sharing automatically adds all family members to each others’ Find My app, so you can find out where each family member is (or, to be more accurate, where each person’s primary iOS or iPadOS device is).

• Find family members’ devices: On any or all of the family’s Macs and iOS/iPadOS devices, family members can enable Find My Device in System Preferences > Apple ID > iCloud (Mac, Catalina or later), System Preferences > iCloud (Mac, Mojave or earlier), or Settings > Your Name > Find My (iOS or iPadOS).

  Once that’s done, when you open the Find My app for iOS/iPadOS, or the Find My iPhone web app on the iCloud website, your personal devices appear at the top of the All Devices list (under a My Devices heading), followed by headings for each family member’s devices.

Share Media

Once Family Sharing is set up, media purchased from Apple by any family member is available to the other family members, and new purchases are charged to the organizer’s credit card. This is similar to how you can re-download your own media.

To see and download another family member’s purchases:

• Mac apps: In the App Store app on your Mac, click your name in the sidebar and then choose a family member’s name from the “Purchased by” pop-up menu at the top.

• iOS/iPadOS apps: In the App Store app, tap your picture at the top of the screen followed by Purchased, and tap a family member’s name.

What Limits Shared Apps

Some apps are not shareable among family members, because Apple left that choice to each developer’s discretion. (I have no idea why a developer would want to prevent sharing within a family.) You can check in an app’s description in the App Store if it’s shareable, you’ll see a Family Sharing entry under the “Supports” heading (below “Information”).

Through iOS/iPad 13 and Catalina, in-app purchases and subscriptions were never shareable among family members. However, starting with iOS 14/iPadOS 14 and macOS 11 Big Sur, Apple now lets developers offer both categories of app add-ons to Family Sharing, too. Developers aren’t required to, and not all developers have opted to do so.

• Books: In Books (or iBooks) for Mac, go to Store > Book Store Home (or Store Home) and click the Purchased link. Then choose a family member’s name from the pop-up menu next to Purchased at the top.

  In Books for iOS/iPadOS, tap Reading Now, and then tap your picture in the upper-right corner. Then tap a family member’s name.

• Music, TV shows, and movies: In Music or iTunes for Mac, choose Account > Family Purchases, and choose a family member’s name from the pop-up menu next to Purchased at the top.

  On an iOS or iPadOS device, open the iTunes Store app and then go to More > Purchased (iPhone) or Purchased > My Purchases (iPad) and tap a family member’s name.

  On an Apple TV, go to Movies > Purchased > Family Sharing or TV Shows > Purchased > Family Sharing and select a family member’s name (see Use iCloud on an Apple TV for more information).

Note: If you subscribe to iTunes Match, your matched or uploaded tracks won’t be available via Family Sharing because they weren’t purchased from Apple.

Hide Purchased Apps

To hide an app you’ve purchased from other members of your family, do this:

• iOS/iPadOS: Go to App Store > Your Picture > Purchased > My Purchases, swipe an app name to the left, and tap Hide.

• Mac: In the App Store app under Catalina or later, click your name in the sidebar, click the More button, and choose Hide Purchase from the contextual menu. Under Mojave or earlier, go to Updates > Purchased, right-click (or Control-click) an app, and choose Hide Purchase from the contextual menu. Click Hide Purchase to confirm.

Use Ask to Buy

If your family includes children, you may want to use Family Sharing’s Ask to Buy feature. Follow these steps:

1. Go to System Preferences > Family Sharing (Mac, Catalina or later), System Preferences > iCloud > Manage Family (Mac, Mojave or earlier), or Settings > Your Name > Family Sharing (iOS or iPadOS) and select a family member. On a Mac running Catalina or later, click that person’s Details button. Now turn on Ask to Buy (it’s on by default for newly created children’s accounts).

2. To designate another adult as a parent or guardian who can approve purchases, go to the same location as above but select the adult instead, and select Parent/Guardian.

3. On each child’s device, log in with the child’s Apple ID in both iCloud (System Preferences or Settings) and each media app (Music/iTunes, App Store, Books/iBooks).

4. On each adult’s device, log in with the adult’s Apple ID in all the same places.

After making these changes, whenever the child clicks or taps the Buy or Install button in any of Apple’s apps where media can be downloaded and enters their password (see Your Child’s Password), an Ask Permission alert appears. When the child clicks or taps the Ask button in that alert, parents get a notification that they can approve or decline.

Share Storage Space

iCloud users who purchase storage at the 200 GB level or above can share that storage space with members of their iCloud Family Sharing group. This includes those with Apple One subscription at the Family or Premier tier.

Note: All files and synced data stored in or managed by iCloud for each member of a Family Sharing group remains absolutely private and unreachable from each other. The “shared” space is really just a financial and accounting option.

To share space as the family organizer:

• Mac: Go to System Preferences > Family Sharing > iCloud Storage (Catalina or later) or System Preferences > iCloud > Manage Family > My Apps & Services > iCloud Storage (Mojave or earlier) and click Start Sharing. Then click Done.

• iOS/iPadOS: Go to Settings > Your Name > Family Sharing > iCloud Storage and tap Share Storage Plan. (If you have another family member who’s already paying for storage, you can optionally tap Send Invitation to invite them to switch to your plan.)

Other family members on the free 5 GB storage tier can immediately use the shared space, while family members with their own paid plans can choose to use the shared space or to continue paying on their own.

If they choose to use your shared space, they can either follow the instructions they receive by email (if you invited them using iOS or iPadOS), or on a Mac, go to System Preferences > Family Sharing > iCloud Storage (Catalina or later) or System Preferences > iCloud > Manage Family > My Apps & Services (Mojave or earlier) and click Use Family Storage.