How can two Apple IDs see ALL files and ALL photos on iCloud?

Question

How can two Apple IDs see ALL files and ALL photos on iCloud?

I have set-up Family Sharing (in order to allow my wife and I to use AirPods at the same time). But when I am using the secondary Apple ID on my iPhone, I cannot see any of our files on iCloud, and I can only see photos that were shot using my own iPhone.

Before this AirPod issue arose, we shared one Apple ID, and we have thousands of files together on iCloud and thousands of photos together as well. It is totally impractical to share these with each other, one at a time.

How can we be logged into our family using two Apple IDs (so we can each use our AirPods), but still see all of our shared files and photos?

iPhone X, iOS 11.2.5

Posted on Feb 11, 2018 3:47 PM

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Answer 1

LACAllen

Level 8

43,602 points

Feb 11, 2018 4:23 PM in response to Mercury_Morris

With Family Sharing, you only see photos explicitly shared in an album to you or that are placed in the family album. It is not meant to allow access to each other's full photo library.

As well, you can share individual files from iCloud Drive, but not all of your iCloud Drive storage at once.

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Answer 2

LACAllen

Level 8

43,602 points

Feb 11, 2018 6:56 PM in response to Mercury_Morris

>>> http://apple.com/feedback

I doubt this will change. Sharing an Apple ID these days is like sharing a phone number.

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Answer 3

Feb 11, 2018 6:46 PM in response to LACAllen

That's what I suspected. But that *****. That doesn't solve the problem for folks who have been sharing an Apple ID, but have been forced to start using two in order to be able to use AirPods.

Seems to be an item to add to an OS update. Either allowing multiple IDs to share all, or allowing one ID to share two AirPod connections.

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Answer 4

Feb 11, 2018 6:59 PM in response to LACAllen

Understood. Just unfortunate because I know many folks were sharing IDs before "Family Sharing" came along, and everything was roses for us until we were forced to split in order to use AirPods. Just surprising that something as incidental as AirPods have blown-up my personal Apple ecosystem. For now, we'll have to go back to only one of us being able to use our AirPods at any given time since we have thousands of files in iCloud that we both need access to (we work together, and those are all work files).

In any case, thank you very much for taking the time to reply!

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Answer 5

LACAllen

Level 8

43,602 points

Feb 11, 2018 7:07 PM in response to Mercury_Morris

I am not sure why you feel you need separate Apple IDs to use Airpods. There is some auto setup stuff that happens with iCloud, but you can use them independently as well.

I don't believe you have to accept the auto setup feature.

Use your AirPods - Apple Support

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Answer 6

Mar 14, 2018 8:42 PM in response to Mercury_Morris

I have the exact same issue and hate that we both have to go back and manually select, add, and share photos between each of us. While I can appreciate having separate ID's for some things, having seperate ID's is just a pain. Who wants to add multiple photos to a shared album all the time? Apple products are supposed to just work - while this certainly doesn't. Why can't we select all photos to automatically share to the dreaded shared album? Don't get me started on the other files we used to be able to share...

Sorry for the rant, but you are not alone in this problem that I wished Apple would give us a better fix for.

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Answer 7

LACAllen

Level 8

43,602 points

Mar 14, 2018 8:53 PM in response to Canuck-guy

Apple products are supposed to just work - while this certainly doesn't.

And they do. In the way they were designed to work.

Why can't we select all photos to automatically share to the dreaded shared album?

Feedback for Apple goes here >>> http://apple.com/feedback

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How can two Apple IDs see ALL files and ALL photos on iCloud?

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