Use iCloud Family Sharing
If you live in a household where multiple family members would like to share the digital media they purchase from Apple (music, movies, TV shows, books, and apps)—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 Library.)
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. If your family fits that profile, here’s what you’ll get for up to six family members:
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 (who can get special Apple IDs of their own even if they’re under 13) can request media purchases from a parent, who must approve each one individually.
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 (with Find My Friends) and locate their devices (with Find My Device).
A family can join Apple Music as a group for $14.99 per month instead of paying $9.99 per person per month—or $4.99 per college student.
If the family organizer is paying for iCloud Drive space, that storage quota can be applied to the family instead of just the organizer.
Starting in iOS 12, parents can limit their kids’ screen time; 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, in-app purchases can’t be shared, and I’m also annoyed that 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.
Enable Family Sharing
You can enable Family Sharing on either a Mac or an iOS 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 device, the process is similar except you go to Settings > Your Name to start. Do this:
On a Mac, go to System Preferences > iCloud.
Click Set Up Family.
Click through several informational screens, confirming that you really want to do this, 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.
Choose whether you want to share your location with family members, and click Continue.
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 important advice on choosing a password.) You’ll have to select an Apple ID (that is, a string of your choice followed by @icloud.com) for your child; this will also become the child’s email address. If the Apple ID you specify is unavailable, a message appears below the field, in red, to tell you so.
To add another member, click the plus
button and repeat this process.When you’re done, click Done.
To add or remove people later, go to System Preferences > iCloud and click Manage Family. You can then change family members or adjust their details (Figure 6).
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 > iCloud > Manage Family > My Apps & Services, and select a category on the left:
Purchase Sharing: Enable or disable purchase sharing within the family generally or for your own purchases specifically, change which iCloud account is used for sharing, or change your payment method.
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.
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.
Click Done when you’re finished making changes.
Use Find My Noun
Family Sharing makes it easier for family members to use Find My Friends and Find My Device (see Find My Nouns):
Find My Friends: Turning on Family Sharing automatically adds all family members to each others’ Find My Friends app, so you can find out where each family member is (or, to be more accurate, where each person’s primary iOS device is).
Find My Device: On any or all of the family’s Macs and iOS devices, family members can enable Find My Device (Find My Mac, Find My iPhone, etc.) in System Preferences > iCloud (Mac) or in Settings > Your Name > iCloud (iOS).
Once that’s done, when you open the Find My iPhone app for iOS, 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.
Use Ask to Buy
If your family includes children, you may want to use Family Sharing’s Ask to Buy feature. Follow these steps:
Go to System Preferences > iCloud > Manage Family (Mac) or Settings > Your Name > iCloud > Family Sharing (iOS), select a family member, and turn on Ask to Buy (it’s on by default for new children’s accounts).
To designate another adult as a parent or guardian who can approve purchases, go to System Preferences > iCloud > Manage Family, select that person, and select Parent/Guardian.
On each child’s device, log in with the child’s Apple ID in both iCloud (System Preferences or Settings) and each media app (iTunes, App Store, iBooks).
On each adult’s device, log in with the adult’s Apple ID in all the same places.
Thereafter, after 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.