How to set up Family Sharing on macOS High Sierra

With Family Sharing on macOS High Sierra, you can start a new family group and invite people to join, or you can join someone else’s family group.  This makes it easy for up to six people in your family to share iTunes, iBooks, and App Store purchases, an Apple Music family membership, and an iCloud storage plan, without sharing accounts. 

When the family organizer turns on purchase sharing, you can pay for family purchases with the same credit card and approve kids’ spending right from a parent’s device. Family Sharing also lets you share photos, a family calendar, and more to help keep everyone connected.

You can be a part of only one family at a time. To set up Family Sharing on macOS High Sierra, your need an Apple ID signed in to iCloud and iTunes. Now on your Mac:

• Choose Apple menu > System Preferences, then click iCloud.
• Click Set Up Family.Follow the onscreen instructions.
• After you set up Family Sharing, you can invite your family members to join. Here’s how:
• Choose Apple menu > System Preferences, then click iCloud.
• Click Manage Family.
• Click +, then follow the onscreen instructions.

If your family member is with you, they can enter their Apple ID password on your device to accept the invitation. You can also send them an invitation, and they can accept from their device. 

If you have multiple Apple IDs in iTunes, you can invite each of your accounts to the group, so you can share purchases from your other Apple IDs with your family. After your family members join, the features of Family Sharing are set up on everyone’s devices.

(This how-to is based on my experiences and info on Apple’s support pages — where the images sometimes come from.)

Like this article? Consider supporting Apple World Today with a $5 monthly Team AWT membership.