Family sharing with 2 Apple IDs

Hello! I just upgraded to Yosemite from Mavericks, and have a question about Family Sharing. The family just consists of 2 adults (with 5 Apple devices between us). I have my own Apple ID for iCloud stuff, email, etc., and the other family member has her personal ID, plus we have an old Apple ID of mine that is used as a shared ID for purchases. That is, I have [email protected] as my personal ID [not the real ID, just an example], she has [email protected], and we share the old [email protected], and we use that last ID for iTunes, App Store, and Mac App Store purchases. That way we can both download music, apps and book using the same ID and share them across all 5 devices. This was set up for us at an Apple store and has worked well - it is an old way of doing family sharing.
Questions:
1. Is there any good reason to switch over to the new Family Sharing setup instead of just keeping this?
2. If I do switch to the new Family Sharing, would I use my newer [email protected] as the primary, or keep this old .mac ID? Or does it matter?
3. If I do switch to the newer [email protected], would we lose all my old purchases made with the old .mac ID?
Thank you all so much!
- BH

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Family sharing & two Apple IDs

I have two AppleIDs - one for my iCloud (email etc) and a second for all Store purchases. I share the Store AppleID with my kids' iPads so that we can share purchases as per this recommendation ( Using your Apple ID for Apple services ). And that has worked 100% for years :-)
So today I'm trying to set up family sharing - I _think that I need to share the 2nd AppleID account - the store one right - so that all my existing purchases are accessible?
Trouble is that when I set up Family Sharing on my iPhone, it defaults to the AppleID I set ios8 up with - in this case, my iCloud email AppleID.
So to change that, I need to log out of iCloud and log in again with my other ID (the Store purchases AppleID) in order to share it on Family Sharing...
But I've stopped at this step ... if I do this, will I be able to back out again and change my default iCloud account back to my primary (email) one ??
Am I missing a trick here because surely loads of people have used the two AppleID approach to share purchases with other devices ?
Thanks for any info :-)
tim

No. All iTunes store IDs in a family sharing group must be from the same country/region.

Family sharing with apple ID not primary iCloud ID

hi! before family sharing existed, we set up a new apple id in iTunes (a gmail address) for my children to share so they could have the same purchases on their iPads. they also had their own unique apple id's for mail, contacts, etc. now that we're trying to work with family sharing, how do we accept the invitation for this account, as it's not technically associated with an iCloud account. their iPads, my mac, my iPad and phone all have our own iCloud accounts. from what i've read, the recipient of the invitation needs to be logged into their account on a device or a mac, but i suspect it means logging in to iCloud in order to accept the email invite, not just logging into iTunes. but if i do that on my mac or other device, it wants to delete everything else from my primary apple ID account. is there a way to accept the invitation in an email if it's not a primary iCloud email?

yesterday i've played with that issue also. Here are my results:
When you assign an appleid to your user account, you have to verify it's properly linked. You can do so by going to the users & groups pref pane. unlock it and right click on your user account. You should see "additional options" then. Go for it. Now take a look to the "Aliases" Section. You should see the mail adress of your linked appleid there. right below there should follow a line, starting with "com.apple.idms.appleid....". This seems to be some kind of Unique ID of your AppleID. If this entry is present, your AppleID is correctly linked to your account. If there is only the mail adress, the linking was not successfull. In this case, make sure you have Internet connection. This is important, because the information of the AppleID must be taken from apple's servers. so if you link the AppleID without Internet Connection, it will not work at all. After you have ensured a working internet connection, remove and reassign the AppleID to your account. After that, the entries should be OK.
When you have done this on both computers, you now should be able to connect a remote computer using your AppleID. But only for Filesharing. Screen Sharing seems not to work this way at the moment. I have played around about 2h yesterday without finding a clue to get this authentication method working.
After reading around in the web for a while, i found several posts which indicate that this feature only work, if you connect to the other mac using the IP Adress and not the hostname. Because i personally do not have the possibility to check that at the moment, maybe someone else can check this. Just go to safari and enter "vnc://IPofRemoteMac" in the adress bar. Connection should be established using IP adress then. Maybe this works
Message was edited by: JohnDoe1978

Family sharing with multiple apple ids

Just a question about family sharing. My husband and I have decided to have separate apple ids but family sharing allows us to share purchases but does this also include iCloud storage or do we each have 5GB. Also if we do this route with our son what happens to his purchases we've approved when he decides he doesn't want to be on family sharing when he's 18.

Hi Nat8506,
Happy Holidays! I've included complete information for Family Sharing below, but to answer your specific questions:
Each Apple ID has it's own 5 GB of iCloud Storage
Once you son turns 18, if he decides to leave the Family Sharing, any purchases made with his Apple ID will remain his and no longer available to the family.
Family Sharing - Apple Support
http://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201060
Leave Family Sharing - Apple Support
http://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201081
What happens to your content when you stop sharing?
When you leave Family Sharing, your Apple ID is removed from the family group, and you stop sharing music, movies, TV shows, books, and apps with any remaining family members. In addition, any photos, calendars, and reminders shared by the family group will be removed from your devices. If you chose to share your location, you'll stop sharing your location with other family members, and your devices will be removed from the family Find My iPhone device list.
Any content that your family shared with you isn't automatically removed from your device. You can purchase it again or remove it to free up space on your device. If you downloaded an app from a family member’s purchase history and made In-App Purchases, you'll need to purchase the app yourself to access your In-App Purchases.
Any DRM-protected music, movies, TV shows, books, or apps that you previously downloaded from other family member's collections will no longer be usable, and other family members won't be able to use content downloaded from your collection. Learn more about Digital Rights Management (DRM) in iTunes for Mac or iTunes for Windows.
You'll keep any purchases you initiated while part of the family group. However, if the organizer was paying for your iCloud storage or any other ongoing subscriptions, you'll need to start paying for them yourself using a valid payment method on your account. Learn how to add a credit or debit card to your iTunes Store account.
Cheers,
Judy

Another "This itunes account is set up to use family sharing with a different icloud account than Apple ID "

I saw another thread on the matter but thought I would post because the circumstances are different. Here is how it happened.
I have had an Apple Store account for years and until recently our family has only had our one Mac and my iPhone 4. Thus any purchases we have made on the Apple App Store were made only with this account.
We recently purchased two iPhone 5S's--one for my wife and one for my daughter. Neither had Apple IDs so first we set up my wife's iPhone and created an Apple ID for her. Next we used the Family Sharing feature to set up an account for our "under age 13" daughter.
Because I am still waiting for my iPhone 6 Plus to arrive, and because the iPhone 4 cannot upgrade to iOS 8, and because my Apple ID is the only account with any apps that have been purchased in prior years, I set up my wife as the Family Organizer but when I set up her account, I chose the option to "share purchases from a different account" and entered the information for my Apple ID.
My daughter is able to view my prior purchases on her iPhone, but when my wife tries to view my prior purchases, she receives the message "This iTunes account is set up to use Family Sharing with a different iCloud account than <her Apple ID>."
I hope Apple is reading this. I would be more than willing to help them on this one as this feature is one of the main reasons I put our family on iPhones.

I had this problem. I finally figured it out yesterday. Try this:
On the device that is having trouble seeing purchases, go to Settings>iCloud>Family Sharing> Then tap on the user of the device you are on. Under "Family Purchases" make sure it has the AppleID of the person for that device. Mine originally had my husbands AppleID in there (he is the Organizer), but I changed it to mine. That doesn't make it so that the purchases are under me. The purchases remained under my husband, but my ID had to be in this spot for it to work.
After that, I closed settings, then I went to Settings>iTunes and App Store> click on the AppleID and Sign Out, even if it has the right AppleID in there. Then Sign In again using the AppleID of the person on that device. Again-- even if it has the right ID in there to start, still sign out and back in.
See if they show up. If they don't show up still, try doing a restart (hold down power button and home button until it restarts).
They should show up by then, but if they don't, at that point, try to go into iCloud and Sign Out and back in.
I think the key is having the right ID in "Family Purchases". I hope this works for you.

I set up family sharing with a secondary ID and now can't add my primary ID to the group.

I signed up for family sharing with a secondary Apple ID that I use for the iTunes store, and included my wife in the group. When I try to also include my primary Apple ID, I get an error message that says "You cannot send an invitation to your own account." The iOS Family Share page lists the secondary ID as the account to share purchases but also shows my primary ID at the top of the page, so apparently has my family group linked to that account as well. I do have some apps in my main account that I need to include in the family group, so I do I get Apple to allow me to include both IDs in that group?
<Email Edited by Host>

In my case the email I had for the family share account was my secondary ID, also listed on my primary account as a backup. I removed it as a backup, but family share still shows that primary ID listed under my name in the Family Share account, but the secondary as the account that will share purchases in Family Share. It still won't let me add the apps in the primary account into family share.

Family sharing with a non primary iCloud ID?!

I have been living in different countries for the past couple years.
I have:
Account A - primary iCloud account (also as developer account) set to HK (no iOS App purchases)
Account B - my App Store account in HK
Account C - my old Canadian iTunes account where I bought apps and most of my movies (even now) when iTunes wasn't available in HK.
My question is .... My iPhone, iPad, Macbook are all using my Account A as primary account. iPhone, iPad can let me set iTunes with a different account (Account B & C) other than my primary iCloud account.
When I tried to set up family sharing with Account C so my brother and sister can share the movies I bought from Canadian iTunes, it asked me to log out my iCloud Account A from iPhone and login with the one I want to share. But my all my Apple devices are using my Account A as primary where phone book, calendar and more are associated with. How may I set family sharing on Account C ONLY without setting up Account C as my iPhone iCloud account on my phone or any other Apple devices?
Thank you very much and looking forward to hear from anyone of you.
Regards,
Richard

Howdy Willoughbee,
It sounds like you want to know if you can use Family Sharing to share purchases with with other family members when you aren’t the Organizer. Yes, the article linked below provides a lot of great information about Family Sharing and will walk you through sharing purchases with family members.
Sharing purchased content with Family Sharing
I hope this helps.
-Jason

How can I set family sharing with my mom living in Europe?

hi, i just bought new iphone for my mom who is living in Europe and I wanted to set family sharing with her to share pictures but I can't because I live in USA ... is there any way how to set it? Thanx

Seeing how itunes store is not international, cause every locale has to comply with different set of laws - you probably can't use family sharing feature, but you can use photosharing.
http://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202786

This itunes account is setup to use family sharing with a different icloud account

I am doing the Family Sharing with my sister. When she tried to download from my purchased on her ipad, she got error massage as the title said...and couldn't see my list of purchased. Can someone help on this?
We are using our individual itune,apple ,and Icloud accounts.

Yeah - not sure why that is happening only for Apps. Might be best for you to give Apple Support a call. You are still within your 90-day period, so the support will be free of charge. Here's the link - just follow the prompts and it will take you to a page where you can set up a call:
https://getsupport.apple.com/GetproductgroupList.action
Sorry I couldn't be of more help
GB

"this itunes account is set up to use family sharing with a different iCloud account"

I set up an iCloud family. Until now, everyone had their own iCloud account, and we had a separate iTunes ID (not an iCloud e-mail address) that all of our purchases were made under.
So, I set up that Apple ID as the master account and added everyone's personal iCloud accounts as members.
Then, I went into iTunes prefs and logged in as my iCloud account.
When I go to the App store and go to Purchased, it says:
"this itunes account is set up to use family sharing with a different iCloud account than <my iTunes Apple ID>." Then there is a Learn More link that takes me to my iCloud and shows my family group with the same Apple ID as the organizer.
Does anyone have any idea what happened to cause it to think that I am not in the same family group?
Thanks.

Update...I now notice:
Going to: App Store>Updates>Purchases:
1) The message “This iTunes account is set up to use family sharing with a different iCloud account other than <her iCloud ID>...” Is now showing up on my iPhone and can no longer see any of my purchases or hers.
2) The same message above is now showing on my iPad mini (it didn’t before). But, I can still see both hers and my purchases on my iPad mini.
3) The message "This iTunes account is set up to use family sharing with a different iCloud account other than <my iCloud ID>…” still showing on her iPhone and she still can’t see her or my purchases.
iTunes Family Sharing still works fine.
Note: If I Go to Settings>iTunes & App Store then log out of my Apple ID, then go to App Store>Updates>Purchases and log into my Apple ID from there, My purchases show up (not hers). I then toggle between Updates and Purchases and the message pops up and unable to see any purchases, again. Same thing happens when I do it to her phone except her purchases show up (not mine).
I emailed this update to Apple...waiting for a reply.

Setting up multiple iPads w/Family Sharing with different Apple IDs (previously shared one Apple ID).

My three children each receive iPad minis from their generous grandparents last year; all were using my Apple ID so that we could share purchased content. However, they could not play games with each other using GameCenter (all one Apple ID) and it would be good to iMessage/FaceTime each other. So Family Sharing seems great, but it seems to me that I will have to sign out of my Apple ID on each of their devices, which means that they will love all of their data, etc.
Can I change each child's iPad mini from my Apple ID to theirs and then use a backup to restore their data?
Thank you.

I apologize, but my grammar and spelling were full of errors They "received" iPad minis...
And I am afraid that they will "lose" (not love) all of their data.
Thanks.

Family Sharing with more than one apple id

I understand family sharing having my mom be the organizer so I have access to anything purchased on her account without having to use her apple id. However, is there a way to reciprocate family sharing so she has access to the things I purchase? If I set up a family sharing account with my apple id will this work?

Howdy Willoughbee,
It sounds like you want to know if you can use Family Sharing to share purchases with with other family members when you aren’t the Organizer. Yes, the article linked below provides a lot of great information about Family Sharing and will walk you through sharing purchases with family members.
Sharing purchased content with Family Sharing
I hope this helps.
-Jason

Setting up family sharing with new Apple ID

I have an apple ID with lots of music and apps on it. When my son (14) got an iPod Touch, we set it up using my apple ID so that he could access all the music and games I had already purchased without buying them again. We then associated his own email address with it for FaceTime and iMessage.
Now I want to set up an Apple ID for him using his email address and then set up family sharing. But I am concerned that when we sign out of my iTunes account and into his new one, he might lose the content already on his iPod. We can always add it all again as it is all on my account and on iTunes Match, but it will be a pain to do.
What will happen when we change over the apple ID on the iPod?
Also a follow up question - my 11 year old daughter has a 4th gen iPod on ios6. I assume she can't use family sharing?

Have you worked through the guidance on Family Sharing given in:Family Sharing

Our family has multiple apple ids and we are setting up a new apple tv. Does it matter which apple id we use if we have home sharing enabled?

I have an apple id from my mobile me account; I also have the apple id from my itunes account (with which I purchase content for my powerbook); and my husband has an apple id for itunes which he purchases content for his itunes library on his PC.
Does it matter which apple id we use to set up our new apple tv?
what issues are caused by my multiple apple ids?

You cannot merge apple ids, but you can sign out of the apple id and sign in under the other one either on your phone or your mac. On your phone, go to settings, itunes and appstore, tap your apple id, tap sign out, then go back to home screen, then back into itunes an appstore and sign in with the apple id you want to use.

Home Sharing and Apple IDs

I apologize in advance if this doesn't make sense or has been answered elsewhere - it is nearly 1am and I am so done with research. I'd have given up by now except that this is important to deal with before I dig myself into an even bigger hole.
My daughter got an iPad mini. She didn’t have her own Apple ID (since she is only 7), so I synced it up with her older brother’s iTunes library/Apple ID on our PC. She had been playing games on his iPod and downloaded some of her own favorites using his account. Now she's gotten progress built up on her iPad and even had big brother buy her some games under his Apple ID just for her use.
I have an Apple ID and iTunes library but only download music (no apps) since I don’t have any Apple devices.
Now, I recently got her her own Apple ID so she can use iMessage. She has been getting iTunes gift cards for her birthday, so I was planning on letting her use her own account for downloads too. This way the accounting between the 2 kids will make sense (they can’t use up each other’s gift card balances and I don't have to keep track of it). Since there is a 13-year age limit I suppose the question is moot – I shouldn’t even be trying to do this. But the question will come up in 6 years anyway … or sooner if I come to the dark side and give up my Blackberry
I would like to share the music and apps that we have purchased instead of having to spend money again to put them on both of their devices. She is also worried that she will lose progress in the games she plays that she got from her brother.
Q1: If I re-purchase the games under her account and then sync with her library (iTunes tells me it will wipe her iPad before syncing to this new library), will she lose progress even though the game will be removed and re-installed right away? I suppose I could ensure I have a good backup of her iPad using his iTunes library and then try to sync it up with her library. If it loses her progress, I could just restore using his library and try something different.
Q2: Would home sharing help? I read about it and am still confused. Is it just so I can use multiple machines to host my library (all with same Apple ID) or can I use it to share content with my family members’ libraries (even though we have different Apple IDs)?
This is so frustrating. I am a technically literate person (I work in IT), but don’t have unlimited free time to spend becoming an expert in all things Apple just so I can get these devices working the way I expect they should. It shouldn’t be this difficult or time consuming. I’ve wasted hours I don't have reading articles, going into the Apple store (which is not convenient), and still feel unable to make a decision because the wrong one could get me into an even more confusing/costly situation. Sorry I am whining. I'm so tired

Hi JustTired,
OK, so to answer your first question - if your daughter's iPod is sync'd with a new iTunes library, then even if you do purchase games to reside in that library, the games she was playing that were purchased under a separate Apple ID will not "transfer" her progress. Essentially, you are loading a brand new game on her device.
For your second question - to the best of my knowledge, Home Sharing will not help you to share multiple iTunes libraries that live on the same physical computer under separate Apple IDs:
Home Sharing requires a computer using the latest version of iTunes,* and one or more of the following devices on the same home network:
Another computer using the latest version of iTunes.* You can use Home Sharing with up to five computers.
An iOS device with iOS 4.3 or later
Apple TV (2nd generation) with Apple TV software version 4.2.1 or later
Apple TV (3rd generation)
*Additionally, you should install any available updates for your version of Windows or Mac OS X.
Home Sharing requires all computers, iOS devices, and Apple TVs (2nd generation and 3rd generation) to use the same Apple ID.
Home Sharing is designed to share iTunes libraries on multiple computers (and devices), not mulitple libraries on the same computer.
You can, however, share your iTunes library with your daughter. To do this, you would sign on her Apple ID to "your" iTunes and Authorize the computer for her ID. Then you would sync her device as new with your iTunes library. This would require you to be logged on to the computer, but it would be her device (and Apple ID) that were syncing with the library. Based on how you then set up her device profile, she can sync anything in the library to her device.
The only thing you would need to keep in mind is that anything purchased in iTunes under your ID would be linked to your ID. That means that your daughter would not be able to re-download, say an App that accidently got deleted, wirelessly. She could re-sync it using a USB cable, but would not have access to your iTunes purchase history to be able to actually re-download it. Also, future app updates would require that she know your Apple ID password.
Now, if when setting up her Apple ID, you are also going to set it up with a Credit or Gift card so her purchases can be done with her ID, then that last caveat would not apply. In that scenaio, she would sign into "your" iTunes library (you logged onto the computer), and then do her purchases through the iTunes store. Your purchases and her purchases would live in the same library, and you would control what gets sync'd where via the individual device profiles.
Hope this helps and provides a viable answer for what you are wanting to do.
Cheers,
GB

Family sharing with 2 Apple IDs

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