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Coordinate Family Sharing to share apps by one person with iCloud of another person

We just set up Family Sharing with my wife as the organizer, so we could share her iCloud subscription. We also want to share purchased apps, but I have purchased almost all of the apps. It looks like I cannot share my purchased apps with my wife because she is the organizer. It looks like we could switch IDs, so I become the organizer, but we are afraid that doing so would lose our iCloud sharing and she could lose her large library of iCloud photos. We need help on how to proceed. For example, should I start an iCloud subscription, then switch to myself at the Family Sharing organizer, and then drop her iCloud subscription? Would her iCloud content be kept but included in my new subscription? We cannot risk losing her iCloud photos, but we do not want to pay for two separate iCloud subscriptions.


iPad Pro 11-inch Wi-Fi

Posted on May 23, 2022 6:31 PM

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3 replies

May 24, 2022 4:27 PM in response to DeanBMD

You cannot swap organizers easily. As far as I know the only way is to disband the family and then set it up again. You can only change families once a year, so not something you want to get wrong. The 90-day limit you talked about is called association. See Authorization vs. association - Apple Community for gory details. If you're seeing that when you're trying to share apps then you are doing something wrong. Each of you can choose whether or not to share your purchases, but when you do this allows the other access to your past purchases. In the app store tap your icon in the Today screen, then Purchased, then tap your wife's name to access her apps. She can mirror those actions to see yours. If you were to disband the family I'm sure the shared iCloud storage amount would want to revert to individual subscriptions. I would expect you to get a chance to agree to terms that keep all the data intact, but it is not something I've actually tested.


tt2

May 24, 2022 3:29 PM in response to turingtest2

Thank you for trying to help, but I had a more specific question. I know how to set up Family Sharing and share apps. The issue is that my wife has an iCloud subscription with large storage to store photos. So we set up Family Sharing with her as the organizer, so I can share her large iCloud Drive. However, I tend to purchase the Apple Store apps. She now wants to access my apps, but cannot because she is the organizer, not me. We don’t understand why Apple insists that Family Sharing does not actually allow sharing, since it seems to require that all apps and subscriptions have to be purchased by only one person. In any case with this limitation, we are trying to figure out how to coordinate our apps and the iCloud subscription. We know we can change (once every 90 days) to me as the organizer, so my wife can get access to the purchased apps, but I think the shared iCloud subscription would be broken (separated). I might lose some stored files. Even if I do not immediately lose files, it seems like I would then have to buy a separate iCloud subscription, which undermines the purpose of having Family Sharing. The biggest issue is what exactly would happen if I took these steps (Changed me to organizer and purchase iCloud subscription) if we then tried to stop my wife’s iCloud subscription and have her share with my new subscription? The critical issue is that we do not want to lose her large collection of iCloud photos during this transition between me sharing her drive to her sharing my drive. What are the exact sequence of steps should I take?

Coordinate Family Sharing to share apps by one person with iCloud of another person

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