Migrating to 2TB iCloud family plan when fiancé and I have separate 200GB plans

[felixen]

My fiancé and I both have individual 200GB iCloud plans. She uses less than 100GB while mine is now full. Thus I need to increase to the 2TB version.

Since 2TB is way more than I need, can I then upgrade to 2TB > invite her via the Family Sharing button > she can then cancel her own subscription?

Can we do the above, and if so, will her data stay online but she just uses the new plan instead all seamlessly? Also, is it 2TB combined that we share or do we get 2TB each?

 

[Apple_Robert]

I don't know about the former but, with the latter, it is 2TB total.

 

[gwang73]

You can share your iCloud storage with here via Family Share. This is what I'm doing with my girlfriend now. So both of you will share a total of 2TB. She'll have her own login and password just as if it was her account.

However, her files won't port over so she'll need to download everything, cancel her plan and then resync her files to the shared storage.

 

[chrfr]

However, her files won't port over so she'll need to download everything, cancel her plan and then resync her files to the shared storage.

This is incorrect. The cloud data doesn’t actually move anywhere and there’s no need to move anything; the account just switches to being a family account and the data remains accessible but becomes linked to the family account billing.
There’s also no need to cancel the other account; this happens automatically when the user joins the family account.

 

[chrfr]

My fiancé and I both have individual 200GB iCloud plans. She uses less than 100GB while mine is now full. Thus I need to increase to the 2TB version.

Since 2TB is way more than I need, can I then upgrade to 2TB > invite her via the Family Sharing button > she can then cancel her own subscription?

Can we do the above, and if so, will her data stay online but she just uses the new plan instead all seamlessly? Also, is it 2TB combined that we share or do we get 2TB each?

You should just invite her to the family account. She should not cancel her own account as this happens automatically when joining the family, and she will get a refund for anything she’s already paid once she switches to the family storage. Some of this is detailed in Apple’s page: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208147

 

[gwang73]

This is incorrect. The cloud data doesn’t actually move anywhere and there’s no need to move anything; the account just switches to being a family account and the data remains accessible but becomes linked to the family account billing.
There’s also no need to cancel the other account; this happens automatically when the user joins the family account.

That's pretty cool. I wonder if this is new with iCloud+? I did this so long ago I thought it was all manual.

 

[chrfr]

That's pretty cool. I wonder if this is new with iCloud+? I did this so long ago I thought it was all manual.

It's not new. I've added people to my family account years ago, and there was no need to move data around to do it.

 

[rui no onna]

You should just invite her to the family account. She should not cancel her own account as this happens automatically when joining the family, and she will get a refund for anything she’s already paid once she switches to the family storage. Some of this is detailed in Apple’s page: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208147

Interesting. I wonder when they changed their policy. When we made the switch before, I had to manually cancel the $0.99/50GB subscription for one of my family members.

 

[felixen]

Thanks for the replies everyone. That sounds like good news!

 

[TimFL1]

This is incorrect. The cloud data doesn’t actually move anywhere and there’s no need to move anything; the account just switches to being a family account and the data remains accessible but becomes linked to the family account billing.
There’s also no need to cancel the other account; this happens automatically when the user joins the family account.

The auto-cancel on join is not true. My girlfriend joined my iCloud family a while ago and we only just recently noticed that her 200GB sub is still on and being billed to my card.