¿“Maximum Items?” ”… first remove an AirTag that you are sharing…”

[DominikHoffmann]

My wife just upgraded to an iPhone 15 Pro. Being incredibly update-averse, this forced her to go to iOS 17.0.3. Now, finally, I can share a few AirTags we use with her: Apple TV remotes (frequently hidden to keep the kids from watching) and car keys.

I have successfully added one of my sons who is on Sonoma and iOS 17 to those items. He is not 18, yet, but older than 13, which means that his iCloud account is not a child account.

Trying to add my wife I get this:

Maximum Items—To share this AirTag, first remove an AirTag or other compatible item that you are sharing, or is shared with you.

Essentially the same is shown on my phone, when I try it there. Is this a feature or a bug?

Would it be, because her computer is a 2017 MacBook Pro, which can’t be upgraded to Sonoma, even with OpenCore Legacy Patcher? She is running macOS 16.6 on that.

 

[floral]

Well, how many items do you have?

 

[DominikHoffmann]

Well, how many items do you have?

Good question! Seven. That hardly seems like it could be too many. Plus, like I indicated, I was able to share five of those with my son—without being asked to reduce the number of AirTags.

Wouldn’t Apple want me to have 20 or even 30 AirTags for any manner of items?

 

[floral]

Good question! Seven. That hardly seems like it could be too many. Plus, like I indicated, I was able to share five of those with my son—without being asked to reduce the number of AirTags.

Wouldn’t Apple want me to have 20 or even 30 AirTags for any manner of items?

Seven does seem like a pretty average amount for a family. If this was really the limit, I'd expect a lot more families to complain about this.
Maybe there are duplicate items because you and your son share some items, which might confuse it...?

 

[DominikHoffmann]

Seven does seem like a pretty average amount for a family. If this was really the limit, I'd expect a lot more families to complain about this.
Maybe there are duplicate items because you and your son share some items, which might confuse it...?

The more I think about it, it’s a bug.

 

[DominikHoffmann]

Learning from a Senior support advisor at Apple that the maximum number of AirTags that can be tied to one Apple ID is sixteen (16).

 

[floral]

Learning from a Senior support advisor at Apple that the maximum number of AirTags that can be tied to one Apple ID is sixteen (16).

Five airtags isn't sixteen. This is very weird!

 

[DominikHoffmann]

The advisor I spoke with extrapolated from a documented case, where a user could not add an AirTag to his or her Apple ID, when he or she only had fourteen (14) of them. Apparently, Bluetooth devices not in Find My count toward the 16-device limit. AirPods count as two devices.

After deleting two of my Bluetooth devices (not my AirPods) and one AirTag, I was able to add my wife to the three remaining AirTags I wanted to share. After putting the removed AirTag back, I couldn’t share it with anyone.