Family Sharing. Share your favourite things with your favourite people.
Family Sharing lets you and up to five other family members share access to amazing Apple services like Apple Music, Apple TV+ and Apple Arcade. Your group can also share iTunes, Apple Books and App Store purchases; an iCloud storage plan; and a family photo album. You can even help locate each other’s missing devices.
Getting set up is simple.
Choose what you want to share, invite your family members to join and enjoy each other’s digital company.
Christopher Pedersen
Organizer
Lanchi Pedersen
Parent/Guardian
Emily Pedersen
Adult
Drake Pedersen
Age 6
Derek Pedersen
Age 5
Get organised.
One adult in your family — the organiser — invites all the other members to join and sets up accounts for anyone under the age of 13.1 Once family members join, Family Sharing is set up on everyone’s devices automatically. The group then chooses which services and features they’d like to use and share.
Whether it’s music, TV and movies, or games, Apple entertainment services have something for everyone. And with Family Sharing, your whole group can share the same subscriptions. Family members access each service from their own Apple Accounts, so they see only their own content, preferences and recommendations — not the whole family’s.
Apple TV+
Original shows and movies from the world’s best storytellers.
Your entire family can share a single iCloud storage plan large enough to store everyone’s photos, videos and files. Each person’s files and documents remain private, but it’s easy to see how much storage everyone is using. If you need more space, you can upgrade to a larger plan at any time.
All your family’s purchases on all your family’s devices.
When you set up purchase sharing, everyone in the group gets immediate access to the songs, albums, movies, books and apps purchased by family members who choose to share them. New purchases appear in the Purchased tab in Apple Books, the App Store or iTunes for each family member. Just select the family member whose collection you’d like to browse, then download or play the content you choose. Other family members can access your collection in the same way. If you want to keep some purchases private, you can choose to hide individual items.
When your family sets up purchase sharing, all new Apple Books and App Store purchases will be billed to the organiser’s account. But if Ask to Buy is turned on for children in the family, the organiser can still call the shots. When a child initiates a purchase, an alert is sent to the organiser, who can review the download and approve or decline it from their own device. This applies to both purchases and free downloads.
Before your children can make a purchase, they must ask for your permission.
You reply from anywhere.
A notification appears on your device. You can review the request, then approve or decline it.
Be more aware of how your kids use their devices.
Screen Time can give you a better understanding of how much time your kids spend using apps, visiting websites and on their devices overall. When you use Screen Time with Family Sharing, you can review your kids’ activity reports and set time limits for specific apps from your own device. You can also name another family member as a parent/guardian, so that you’re always on the same page when it comes to your kids and their screen time.
Find My makes it easy to keep track of one another, whether you’re coordinating a meet-up spot at a shopping centre or you just want to know when the kids get home from school. Simply send an invitation for them to share their location. And if anyone’s device goes missing, everyone else in the group can help find it, even if it’s offline.
When you set up Family Sharing, a shared album is created automatically in the Photos app on all family members’ devices. Everyone can add photos, videos and comments to the album whenever they like and get notified when something new is added. Family Sharing also sets up a family calendar where everyone can view, add or change events and appointments, and get an alert when something changes. And anyone can use the Reminders app to send time or location reminders to the family. So when it’s school photo day, pizza night or just a trip to the beach, everyone’s in the know.