zman999

Q: iOS 8 family sharing - sync contacts

Hi, we previously shared one Apple ID across multiple devices in our family. With iOS 8, we enabled family sharing and set everyone up with their own Apple ID. Everything seems to be working fine now except for one problem. Our contacts were previously shared via iCloud on all devices, but that doesn't seem to be happening now. Am I missing a step to enable contact syncing?

iPhone 5, iOS 7.0.3

Posted on Sep 20, 2014 12:52 PM

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Q: iOS 8 family sharing - sync contacts

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  • by david.menzel,

    david.menzel david.menzel Sep 20, 2014 1:11 PM in response to zman999
    Level 4 (2,409 points)
    Sep 20, 2014 1:11 PM in response to zman999

    Hello zman999,

     

    no you don't miss anything, contacts are simply not part of iCloud Family Sharing. In order to do that, you would still need an account that is configured on all your devices.

     

    Best regards.

  • by zman999,Helpful

    zman999 zman999 Sep 20, 2014 2:19 PM in response to david.menzel
    Level 1 (6 points)
    Sep 20, 2014 2:19 PM in response to david.menzel

    Yeah.... I just got off the phone with Apple Support. Sadly, it looks like family sharing won't really work for me. Maybe my family is unique in that we like to share our contacts (parents, grandparents, school, doctors, etc.) across family members... we've always found it very convenient to always have the latest contact info in sync.

     

    Surprisingly, the Apple rep I just spoke to recommended that we continue to use family sharing, but when we need to sync contacts on the other devices, have each family member logout of their individual Apple ID, then login to my parent Apple ID, merge in contact information then log out. Seems like quite a workaround if you ask me... She tried to convince me that this is more secure way than the old method of just sharing one Apple ID across all family members. Hmm.. right.

     

    I'm loving iOS 8 so far, but this little setback came as a surprise.

  • by david.menzel,

    david.menzel david.menzel Sep 20, 2014 2:40 PM in response to zman999
    Level 4 (2,409 points)
    Sep 20, 2014 2:40 PM in response to zman999

    Hello zman99,

     

    another option would be that


    a) everyone uses their own iCloud account (primary) for their own stuff like Mail, (personal Contacts, but it could be deactivated as well) Calendar, Reminders, Notes, Backups etc. Settings > iCloud,

     

    +

     

    b) everyone uses a shared iCloud account (secondary) just for contacts,

     

    +

     

    c) you set Family Sharing with your ID for purchases and other Family Sharing Features.

     

    Best regards,

     

    David

  • by zman999,

    zman999 zman999 Sep 20, 2014 6:10 PM in response to david.menzel
    Level 1 (6 points)
    Sep 20, 2014 6:10 PM in response to david.menzel

    Thanks for the suggestion, David.

     

    Just so I understand what you're saying..... having a "secondary" iCloud account would still involve having to logout of your primary before logging into the secondary, right? In other words, it's not possible to be logged into both a primary and secondary iCloud account at the same time... (although I realize you CAN do this for iMessage & Facetime).

  • by randers4,

    randers4 randers4 Sep 20, 2014 6:40 PM in response to zman999
    Level 9 (62,845 points)
    Sep 20, 2014 6:40 PM in response to zman999

    I’m not sure if David is still around at the point but his suggestion is correct, and the credit should go to him for the idea.  You can create a shared secondary iCloud account that everyone adds to their devices that syncs your shared contacts.  Your devices will all stay signed into both accounts at the same time.

     

    To set this up, go to Settings>Mail,Contacts,Calendars>Add Account>iCloud, sign in with a new Apple ID to create the shared account and turn on contacts syncing with this account.  Everyone should then add this secondary account to their devices in the same way, signing in with the new ID.

     

    If your shared contact list is in a different iCloud account, you can then go to iCloud.com and download these contacts as a vCard as explained here: http://support.apple.com/kb/PH3606.  You can then sign out and sign back into the new shared account and import this vCard as explained here: http://support.apple.com/kb/PH3605.  The shared contact list should then appear on everyone’s devices in the contacts app and you can sync them as you did before. 

     

    If you are syncing contacts with both your individual primary accounts as well as the new secondary account, you’ll all want to go to Settings>Mail,Contacts,Calendars>Default Account (in the Contacts section) and set the default account to the new iCloud account.  The will ensure that new contacts are added to the shared contact list.

  • by zman999,

    zman999 zman999 Sep 20, 2014 6:53 PM in response to randers4
    Level 1 (6 points)
    Sep 20, 2014 6:53 PM in response to randers4

    Wow.. sounds like a brilliant idea. I'll definitely give this a shot and report back. Thanks to both of you!!

  • by randers4,

    randers4 randers4 Sep 20, 2014 7:10 PM in response to zman999
    Level 9 (62,845 points)
    Sep 20, 2014 7:10 PM in response to zman999

    You're welcome.

  • by zman999,

    zman999 zman999 Sep 21, 2014 4:06 PM in response to randers4
    Level 1 (6 points)
    Sep 21, 2014 4:06 PM in response to randers4

    Well I'm sad to report that this solution didn't work

     

    When I went to settings>Mail, Contacts, Calendars>Add Account>iCloud and created a brand new Apple ID, and set it to only be used for contacts, for some reason, Apple then sees this as my primary Apple ID. I tried it a few different times, using both new iCloud email addresses and new Gmail addresses.

     

    Here's what happens... once I've created that secondary Apple ID, I can see that my primary Apple ID is still logged into iCloud and iTunes. That all seems to be working. BUT, when my daughter then asks for permission to download an app from her device, I get the notification on my phone, but then it forces me to login to the secondary Apple ID in order to approve the purchase. This obviously doesn't work since the credit card isn't attached to this Apple ID. There is no way (that I can see) to tell it to log into the primary Apple ID, which of course it should be logging into, since the primary ID is the one linked to iCloud and iTunes.

     

    I'm at a loss.

  • by randers4,

    randers4 randers4 Sep 21, 2014 5:14 PM in response to zman999
    Level 9 (62,845 points)
    Sep 21, 2014 5:14 PM in response to zman999

    I guess I don't understand that either.  Of course, the internal plumbing of Family Sharing is still a mystery and we're all learning as we go.  The primary account is set in Settings>iCloud; secondary accounts are listed in Settings>Mail,Contacts,Calendars.  Why Family Sharing is confusing the two doesn't make sense.

     

    Did you try allowing the purchase by providing the password for the secondary ID even though this isn't the one that your Family Sharing group credit card is linked to?  You might test this with a free app to see if it goes through anyway.

  • by zman999,

    zman999 zman999 Sep 21, 2014 6:25 PM in response to randers4
    Level 1 (6 points)
    Sep 21, 2014 6:25 PM in response to randers4

    Just tried it now.... My daughter chose a free app, and I got the notification on my phone. It asked me for the password of the secondary iCloud account in order to approve the app download, so I entered it. It didn't accept it... after about 5 seconds, it just pops the 'enter your password' box again. It does this over & over...

     

    Oh well, we gave it a valiant effort.. Appreciate all the help! For now, I think I'll have to go back to a single Apple ID for my family.

  • by randers4,Helpful

    randers4 randers4 Sep 21, 2014 6:27 PM in response to zman999
    Level 9 (62,845 points)
    Sep 21, 2014 6:27 PM in response to zman999

    Sorry you went through all that and it didn't work.  Maybe at some point the reason it didn't will make sense to me, but at the moment I'm as confused as you.  Good luck though!

  • by mlind06,

    mlind06 mlind06 Sep 23, 2014 4:05 PM in response to zman999
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Sep 23, 2014 4:05 PM in response to zman999

    zman999, I'm in the same boat as you. Please share if you figure anything out...

  • by randers4,Helpful

    randers4 randers4 Sep 23, 2014 5:03 PM in response to mlind06
    Level 9 (62,845 points)
    Sep 23, 2014 5:03 PM in response to mlind06

    There's actually a fairly easy solution to this that you could both use: use a Gmail account to sync your shared family contacts instead of iCloud.  (I should have mentioned this earlier but I got carried away trying to do this with iCloud). 

     

    To do this, create a free Gmail account (here).  Then go to Settings>Mail,Contacts,Calendars>Add Account>Google on all your devices, sign into the account and only turn Contacts on in this account (if that's all you want to sync).  Then go to iCloud.com and download the your shared contact list from whichever iCloud account it is in as a vCard as explained here: iCloud: Export contact information as a vCard, and upload it to your Gmail account as explained here: https://support.google.com/mail/answer/183711?hl=en.  The shared contacts will then appear in the contacts app on everyone's devices and sync changes just like did with iCloud.  Since this is an entirely separate service that doesn't use and iCloud ID it will have no effect on your Family Sharing or iCloud accounts.

  • by maskgasc,Helpful

    maskgasc maskgasc Sep 23, 2014 6:36 PM in response to zman999
    Level 1 (9 points)
    Mac OS X
    Sep 23, 2014 6:36 PM in response to zman999

    Same concern, Apple, please give us the choice to share what we want in the "Family Sharing", Contacts, reminders, safari, key chains etc...

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