Family Sharing

Share what you love with who you love.

Set up a Family Sharing group and give five of your family members access to the subscriptions you love for free.1 Keep track of your childrens" screen time, loved ones’ whereabouts and more. Meanwhile everyone maintains privacy on their own devices, so the whole household gets more of what they want.

Get started

On an iPhone or iPad with iOS 18 or later, go to Settings > your name > Family. On a Mac with macOS 10.10 or later, go to Settings > your name > Family Sharing > Set Up Family Sharing.

Learn more

Setup

Get started in
seconds. We timed it.

Check that your device is using the latest OS and follow the steps below.

  • Go to Settings
  • Tap your name
  • Tap Family
  • Choose who to include
  • And you’re all set
iPhone screen showing the Family page in Settings, Memojis of individual family members, each set against its own colourful circle, arrayed at the top, same Memojis in a list beneath them showing all members of the Family Sharing group

Privacy

It’s not called
Family Oversharing for a reason.

As the organiser, you’re always in control of which purchases, files and other data are shared, and when. Especially when it comes to your kids.

Everyone uses their own Apple Account to access the features and services you share.

If you’re sharing an iCloud+ subscription, everyone’s photos and files remain theirs alone.

Subscriptions and Purchases

Let everyone in
on the fun.

With Family Sharing, your Apple subscriptions are shared with your family members at no extra cost. That includes eligible subscriptions from the App Store, as well as eligible purchases of apps, media and books when you enable Purchase Sharing. You can even hide individual purchases that you want to keep private.

Parental Controls

Better than eyes in the back of your head.

Keep track of your family with Location Sharing. Customise notifications to stay up to date with everyone’s locations — online and off. And use built-in features like Ask to Buy and Screen Time to manage what your kids do and see online.

Ask to Buy

Protection from
surprise purchases.

Two macOS notifications in the top-right corner of a Mac screen, each showing purchase requests, the first for Night Sky from the App Store, the second for the album MUNA from the iTunes Store

Location Sharing

They’re all
over the map?
You’re all over it.

A Memoji sits in the centre of concentric rings, mimicking the radar-like UI of Location Sharing in Find My, three additional Memojis arrayed on outer rings

Screen Time

Keep an eye
on
what
they’re eyeing.

Screen Time bar graph shows a user

Notifications

Now you know
if they’re coming
or going.

iPhone screen shows a confirmation that a Find My notification has been set up, text reads “You

Questions? Answers.

  • As the organiser, you can easily invite anyone who has an Apple Account and even create an account for a child who doesn’t have one yet. Just go to Settings > Family and tap + in the top‑right corner. Then tap Invite Others and follow the onscreen instructions.

  • You can join up to two Family Sharing groups per year, but you can belong to only one family at a time.

  • No. All members must share the same home country.

  • As the organiser, you’re responsible for adding to and managing your Family Sharing group. If you turn on Purchase Sharing, you’ll be billed for existing and future media purchases and subscriptions made by all family members. And if you set up Ask to Buy, you’re responsible for approving or denying purchase requests from members who aren’t yet adults.

  • Their existing subscriptions and purchases remain their own. But if you enable Purchase Sharing, their eligible purchases of apps, media, and books will be shared with the whole group.

  • Definitely. If you have iCloud+, all your photos, files and documents remain yours and yours alone — unless you decide to share them. That goes for everyone in your Family Sharing group. If you share other subscriptions, like Apple Music, Apple Fitness+, Apple TV+ or Apple Arcade, each person has their own preferences, history and recommendations. And if you want, you can even keep individual purchases of apps, media and books private.