iCloud Family Storage Sharing Now Working + Questions

[VSMacOne]

I just saw that iCloud Family Data Sharing is enabled in iOS 11 beta and was able to turn it on for my family. I haven’t been able to find much about this feature and the beta release notes do not mention any current issues with this feature. I have enabled devices on iOS 10 to use this features as well and now I’m wondering if anybody has additional info about it before I jump into this. I know it’s a beta feature but since it’s already showing up on iOS 10 devices I’m wondering if I should expect any resets of data (like when iCloud Drive first came out) or if it’s pretty safe to use.
Just trying to gather any information that any of you might have about this feature in one thread. Thanks in advance!

 

[AbSoluTc]

I would be hard pressed to use this as of right now. Beta and all. Expect anything, including data loss.

 

[jomirrivera]

I just saw that iCloud Family Data Sharing is enabled in iOS 11 beta and was able to turn it on for my family. I haven’t been able to find much about this feature and the beta release notes do not mention any current issues with this feature. I have enabled devices on iOS 10 to use this features as well and now I’m wondering if anybody has additional info about it before I jump into this. I know it’s a beta feature but since it’s already showing up on iOS 10 devices I’m wondering if I should expect any resets of data (like when iCloud Drive first came out) or if it’s pretty safe to use.
Just trying to gather any information that any of you might have about this feature in one thread. Thanks in advance!



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How did you get this working on iOS 10?

 

[VSMacOne]

On my iPhone, I went to Settings/iCloud/iCloud Storage/Manage Storage and then enabled Family Sharing. After which I followed the steps above to activate it from my other iOS 10 devices on the Family plan.
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I would be hard pressed to use this as of right now. Beta and all. Expect anything, including data loss.

Maybe, but so far from what I've seen there is no delete and re-upload of the iCloud Photo Library. It seems like it stays just the same, but the storage counts against the main Family plan. It's very smooth.

 

[Sal09]

I just saw that iCloud Family Data Sharing is enabled in iOS 11 beta and was able to turn it on for my family. I haven’t been able to find much about this feature and the beta release notes do not mention any current issues with this feature. I have enabled devices on iOS 10 to use this features as well and now I’m wondering if anybody has additional info about it before I jump into this. I know it’s a beta feature but since it’s already showing up on iOS 10 devices I’m wondering if I should expect any resets of data (like when iCloud Drive first came out) or if it’s pretty safe to use.
Just trying to gather any information that any of you might have about this feature in one thread. Thanks in advance!



View attachment 703515

Hi Bud,

I pay for four icloud accounts for four family members with four different Apple id. Im thinking of upgrading mine to 2TB tier and share storage with family. I contacted Apple support and they advised that all family members need to be using same Apple id for sharing to work (which for me defeats the purpose). Can you please advise if this is correct or it can be shared with members with different Apple id.

Thanks
Sal

 

[AndyK]

I contacted Apple support and they advised that all family members need to be using same Apple id for sharing to work (which for me defeats the purpose)

This is wrong but also right since their support material / training won't include iOS 11 until much much closer to its release. If you're the head of the family in the share, upgrade one of your devices to iOS 11 & turn it on then opt your family members into it on their devices & you can all share a 2TB package. You can then downgrade back to iOS 10 if you want & it stays active.

 

[firewire9000]

For me is not working, I click the button “share” and nothing happens.

 

[Sal09]

This is wrong but also right since their support material / training won't include iOS 11 until much much closer to its release. If you're the head of the family in the share, upgrade one of your devices to iOS 11 & turn it on then opt your family members into it on their devices & you can all share a 2TB package. You can then downgrade back to iOS 10 if you want & it stays active.

Thats brilliant. Thanks Bud. Will give it a go later today

Sal

 

[VSMacOne]

Hi Bud,

I pay for four icloud accounts for four family members with four different Apple id. Im thinking of upgrading mine to 2TB tier and share storage with family. I contacted Apple support and they advised that all family members need to be using same Apple id for sharing to work (which for me defeats the purpose). Can you please advise if this is correct or it can be shared with members with different Apple id.

Thanks
Sal

Yeah that’s not true. But you can’t rely on Apple support because like the previous poster said they won’t have anything official until iOS 11 release. That’s why I would tread carefully. Make sure you do backups if you’re doing this route. And yo don’t need all he devices on iOS 11 for this to work just your main one and make sure they other Apple ids are part of your Family Sharing.
Again I’m not sure how this feature will change between now and September so there’s no telling what will become of our data.
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For me is not working, I click the button “share” and nothing happens.

Wait on that screen for it to be enabled. It may take a few minutes.

 

[urkel]

Don't forget to downgrade your existing individual plan in order to avoid recurring charges. My "Free Tier" accounts automatically joined the share but it seems that my wife's individual paid account didn't automatically downgrade when she joined the share. (I know its beta and all but if this is a "Feature" then Apple is going to be making a lot of money on people forgetting to turn off their individual buckets...)

 

[VSMacOne]

Don't forget to downgrade your existing individual plan in order to avoid recurring charges. My "Free Tier" accounts automatically joined the share but it seems that my wife's individual paid account didn't automatically downgrade when she joined the share. (I know its beta and all but if this is a "Feature" then Apple is going to be making a lot of money on people forgetting to turn off their individual buckets...)

Did you backup your individual photo libraries?

 

[urkel]

Did you backup your individual photo libraries?

Yeah. Its funny because my wifes library is essentially a duplicate of mine. Whenever we get new photos we have to share with each other in order to maintain two identical libraries (each taking 40GB EACH on our 200GB shared plan). So we're the perfect candidates for a unified shared library.

 

[AZhappyjack]

Yeah. Its funny because my wifes library is essentially a duplicate of mine. Whenever we get new photos we have to share with each other in order to maintain two identical libraries (each taking 40GB EACH on our 200GB shared plan). So we're the perfect candidates for a unified shared library.

I am not able to see my wife's stuff in iCloud, nor is she able to see mine. All we see under Mange Storage is Family Usage (her name/my name) 41.3 GB... and our own stuff on our devices.

 

[k.alexander]

Yeah. Its funny because my wifes library is essentially a duplicate of mine. Whenever we get new photos we have to share with each other in order to maintain two identical libraries (each taking 40GB EACH on our 200GB shared plan). So we're the perfect candidates for a unified shared library.

Question: With the new share, is it going to be possible then for you to keep one photo library in iCloud and have it so that it's equally accessible and manageable by both you and your wife, other fam members?

 

[Kceb83]

Question: With the new share, is it going to be possible then for you to keep one photo library in iCloud and have it so that it's equally accessible and manageable by both you and your wife, other fam members?

This 100 times. Anyone know? I've been dying to have a fully functional shared photo library instead of having to log my wife into my icloud account.

 

[utwarreng]

I would be hard pressed to use this as of right now. Beta and all. Expect anything, including data loss.

I started using it last week shortly after it was announced, then added it to my fiance's iPhone 6 on iOS 10. Neither of us has had any issues with our backups.

 

[VSMacOne]

Question: With the new share, is it going to be possible then for you to keep one photo library in iCloud and have it so that it's equally accessible and manageable by both you and your wife, other fam members?

This 100 times. Anyone know? I've been dying to have a fully functional shared photo library instead of having to log my wife into my icloud account.

I don't think this will be possible. From what I've seen right now each account still has their separate iCloud Photo Library with no way to access data from a different account. For me this is great, but maybe in the future Apple will add an option to give access to all of the Libraries in one place.
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I started using it last week shortly after it was announced, then added it to my fiance's iPhone 6 on iOS 10. Neither of us has had any issues with our backups.

It's really impressive how smooth the whole thing was. It doesn't seem to have moved any photos, but instead just remapped the Library to the new storage plan. Pretty seamless. My only concern is if there are any future resets before the public launch. But honestly I don't foresee any. Still this is a beta so anything is possible. This is why I have downloaded all of my wife's pictures and will be making weekly backups.

 

[Alhagar]

What I didn't realize is that family members with paid iCloud storage need to go into their iCloud settings on an iOS device and manually change to family storage sharing and then downgrade their plan.

 

[Cavan2211]

Question: With the new share, is it going to be possible then for you to keep one photo library in iCloud and have it so that it's equally accessible and manageable by both you and your wife, other fam members?

So you basically want that several Apple IDs act like they are one. That doesn't make sense.
Why not just use the same for iCloud and different ones for FaceTime/IMessage, etc?!

 

[k.alexander]

So you basically want that several Apple IDs act like they are one. That doesn't make sense.
Why not just use the same for iCloud and different ones for FaceTime/IMessage, etc?!

What I, and I know many others, want is to be able to have one central iCloud Photo Library for all of our family photographs that could be equally accessed/viewed and managed by all family members; to make it easy say husband and wife for ex. This is not currently possible. And is one of the main reasons why personally I am using a different product from a different company.

What you are suggesting is not possible because on iOS, and for that reason of macOS, there is no way to sign in to a one AppleID for Photos only, and another for everything else like iMessage/FaceTime/Calendar/Contacts/etc.

 

[TurboPGT!]

Seems to be working just fine, and is backwards compatible with devices still on iOS 10.

When you "Start Sharing" with the Family, Family members that have a free plan are automatically set to use it. Family members that have their own paid plan are not. From that Family member's device, you can go into settings and elect to join the Shared storage, at which point their paid plan is automatically downgraded to Free. Pretty awesome.

 

[Cavan2211]

What I, and I know many others, want is to be able to have one central iCloud Photo Library for all of our family photographs that could be equally accessed/viewed and managed by all family members; to make it easy say husband and wife for ex. This is not currently possible. And is one of the main reasons why personally I am using a different product from a different company.

What you are suggesting is not possible because on iOS, and for that reason of macOS, there is no way to sign in to a one AppleID for Photos only, and another for everything else like iMessage/FaceTime/Calendar/Contacts/etc.

It is! Because that's what I'm doing. Just use the same ID for iCloud an deactivate the things you don't want to share, like contacts safari,etc. Than add your personal ID in Mail and sync the stuff you want. Same goes for iMessage, GameCenter, etc.
Piece of cake. And it works just as you want it.

 

[k.alexander]

It is! Because that's what I'm doing. Just use the same ID for iCloud an deactivate the things you don't want to share, like contacts safari,etc. Than add your personal ID in Mail and sync the stuff you want. Same goes for iMessage, GameCenter, etc.
Piece of cake. And it works just as you want it.

Wait a second, you're saying that on iOS in Settings at the very top (as per one of the recent 10.version), you have it set up to use the joint AppleID (the one with all the photos), and there you've turned off things like contacts/calendars/reminders/notes/news/etc (pretty much everything but photos).

And then you've set all those things up how again? Where? I know the AppStore AppleID can be set up differently. I see under Facetime a place to set up/login to an AppleID but I don't see the same thing under iMessages. And what about all your PIM stuff (Contacts/Calendars/Reminders/Notes)? Not to mention of other things under the top in settings iCloud menu: such as syncing of News, Wallet, Keychain, Find My iPhone, iCloud Backups, Drive, etc.?

 

[Cavan2211]

In settings/mail add your personal ID as an email account. Then turn on contacts, calendar,reminders and notes. Everything that uses the iCloud Drive is shared however, obviously thats the purpose.
In iMessage in Send&receive you can change the Apple ID.

 

[ganja24]

Does Family Sharing work without entering payment details?