Family Sharing is an easy way for up to six family members to share iTunes, Apple Books, and App Store purchases, an Apple Music family plan, and an iCloud storage plan. All purchases will be billed to the organizer’s account. Turn on Ask to Buy for the children in the family. When a child tries to make a purchase, an alert is sent to the organizer, who can review the download and approve or decline it right from the organizer’s device. This applies to both purchases and free downloads. Family Sharing offers much more than just purchasing control.
What Else Does Family Sharing Do?
- Members of the family can share a photo album in the Photos App on all family members’ devices
- Members of the family can share a calendar so everyone view, add, or change events and appointments, and get an alert when something changes
- You can automatically share your location with the other members of your family
- You can use family sharing to set up the iOS 12 feature Screen Time on your children’s devices from your phone
- Family Sharing enables you to set up an iCloud account for children under 13 in your household
- Lose a device? Anyone in the Family Sharing group can locate a misplaced device
How to Set up Family Sharing Using Your iPhone
- If you are using iOS 10.2 or earlier, Go to Settings
- Tap [your name] at the top of the screen
- Tap Set Up Family Sharing
- Follow the onscreen instructions to set up your family and invite your family members
- If you are using iOS 11 or later, choose the first feature you’d like to share with your family. Then follow the instrction to invite your family members using iMessage
How to Set up Family Sharing Using Your Mac
- Choose the Apple menu
- Click System Preferences
- Click iCloud
- Click Set Up Family
- Follow the onscreen instructions – after you set up Family sharing, you can invite your family mebers to join
Is this Another Subscription Service?
In a word, no. Family Sharing is a free iOS feature. You will assign credit card for ALL family purchases( iTunes, iBooks Apps etc.). You do have the option of setting up family iCloud storage that everyone in your family can use. This does come with a monthly fee, depending on how much storage you want.