Family Sharing is Apple’s way of letting small groups (up to 6 people) share iTunes purchases, Apple Music, apps, photos, calendars, reminders and locations with each other. The members of the family can maintain their own collections of private information, and choose what to share with the group.
Family Sharing is built around Apple IDs, which are used for iCloud, iTunes & App Store. If one member purchases a song, video or app, others can use it at no additional charge. You can even set up children with their own Apple account, and their purchases can be approved (or not) by an adult in the family.
Some features of Family Sharing can be useful to other small groups of unrelated people. What’s required is the group’s purchases must all be billed to the same credit card.
Learn how to set up and utilize Family Sharing with iMore’s excellent Ultimate Guide to Family Sharing.
- Get started with Family Sharing
- Accept a Family Sharing invitation
- Designate someone as a parent or guardian with Family Sharing
- Create a new child ID with Family Sharing
- Use Family Sharing with Find My iPhone
- Use Family Sharing with Calendars
- Share tasks with Reminders and Family Sharing
- Sharing photos with Family Sharing
- Transfer existing data on an Apple ID to a new Family Sharing Child ID
