iOS 8 family sharing - sync contacts

iOS Family Sharing shares many things: "iTunes, iBooks, and App Store purchases, an Apple Music Family Membership and an iCloud storage plan... photo album, calendar, and reminders" (from Apple's Family Sharing).

Unfortunately, to the obvious disappoint of many (me included!) Contacts isn't one of them.

I don't know the answer to the obvious WHY!?! but I have shared my How To that works well in How do I sync contacts between 2 iCloud accounts with iOS 8 | StackExchange.

maskgasc reply on Sep 24, 2014 is a well worded reply & worked perfectly on iOS 10, (when I finally took the plunge and set up Family sharing) With maskgasc's answer I managed to:

1. separate all my family's phones, so things like my daughters homework reminders don't pop up on my devices

2. allow daughters to have their own contacts (good for my spouse and I because of work contacts etc)

2b. but allowed my wife and I to have a mirrored contacts

3. slight aside - my wife did not want to synch the multitude of calendars, so I shared only the ones she wanted to her phone via sharing in the calendar app on the macbook

aaronfromsaint james wrote:

Here is how to share contacts https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gc0Or9TKtas

If anyone wants to know how to share iCloud contacts between devices, ignore this video. It is simply a video that tells you how to set up a Gmail account an then use that for sharing contacts. While there is nothing wrong with that, it's not terribly useful advice to people who want to use iCloud.

Best way to share contacts with iCloud is with a 'dummy' Apple ID. Use that iCloud account for all shared contacts.

any contacts in individual accounts which are not shared should be left out of the dummy.

my wife and I share all our contacts so the only single entry in our own accounts is our own.

the options for adding contacts on any device are in; your own iCloud, your device or dummy iCloud.

it works perfectly

Anyone willing to do an explain for dummies? I don't understand the posts about having an extra iCloud account.

separately, I can't believe Apple still hasn't fixed this. It's no different from sharing calendars between family

Agreed, we've been long time apple users, the kids are now getting devices. I'm on the fence whether we should all use the same icloud account which is too single-user focused, or the inflexible family structure. Apple please look at this problem. I'd suggest significantly building out the family sharing manager to be specific on what is shared and synced (and sync direction) on the different family services.

Possible solution for you....

Don't just create apple id's for people, also create them for purpose. There are dozens of ways to configure all of this and I have changed up my receipt several times for various reasons....

In my household, we have our individual iCloud accounts.

Mine is the main one that we use for billing (iTunes) and for the adult calendars.

We then have a house iCloud account with an iCloud calendar that is shared with everyone. Only "Family" events are posted on this calendar and this is the one (and currently the capability limit for alexa) calendar that is synced with her. (I don't need my work schedule broadcasted through the house by alexa if a kid asks)

Since the family iCloud calendar is shared with everyone, don't select that calendar on your i-device.... you will already see it as a calendar under your iCloud account since it is shared with it.

We then merged all the family oriented and joint friend contacts into the home iCloud contacts. So, on your iDevice, add the family iCloud account to each device, but only add the contacts.

Done! Now you can each have your own contacts and calendar events separate from the eyes of your kids and your shared contacts and calendars that everyone can see. I hope that helps.

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.

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

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.

You're welcome.