Family Sharing on your Apple devices is a very useful feature, as long as it works. The feature allows you to share your Apple subscriptions with other family members that use an iPhone, iPad, or any other Apple product.
Once added to Family Sharing, everyone can use Apple Arcade, Apple TV Plus, share iCloud storage, and lots more.
In this guide, we'll look at using Family Sharing with Apple Music which can often not work as expected. With this in mind, we've rounded up the best troubleshooting recommendations to fix your plight with getting Family Sharing working with your Apple Music account.
What you'll need
If you want to use Family Sharing with Apple Music you'll need access to an Apple device. There are so many to choose from but we've selected the best iPhone alongside our favorite iPad and Mac at the moment. So if you're looking to start using Family Sharing with Apple Music or looking for a new device, here are our picks:
Fixing Family Sharing on Apple Music
Below, we've got four solutions that could help fix your issues with enabling Family Sharing on Apple Music.
Make sure the family member's device is using the same Apple Music account
Family Sharing requires the devices of other family members to be logged in to their individual Apple IDs. For example, if you're the head of the household, your family member's iPhone or iPad needs to be logged into their account, not yours.
Some users may share Apple Music accounts for purchased content — but to get Family Sharing to work, every account on the family member's device must be linked to that family member's account. You can't have a different Apple ID for Apple Music on the same device.
Log out and in again
Straight to the point — have a family member switch off their Apple Music account by going to Settings > Apple Music, then remove them from the Family Sharing screen if they're there.
You can do this by going to Settings > iCloud > Family Sharing.
Have them enable Apple Music, and once it's back on their device, try to add them back into Family Sharing.
Remove then re-add everyone from your Family account
The apocalyptic option, but it can work — simply remove everyone from your Family Sharing settings. Have all of them delete the Music app on iPhone and iPad, and also have them log out of their Apple ID accounts.
Once this is all done, do the opposite — log back in with their Apple ID accounts on their devices, enable Apple Music, then add them back into Family Sharing.
Chat with Apple Music Support
If you've tried everything and nothing's working still, talk to Apple. Hopefully someone in the team can help walk you through problems with your account and go from there.
One more thing... the reward is when it all works
It's only in the past couple of years that I've begun to see the true potential of Family Sharing. It's an impressive feature, especially for students who may want to share an Apple Music subscription.
My wife and I share some services — such as Amazon Prime, Netflix, and PlayStation Plus, so Family Sharing was the natural step for us, as we only own iPhones, iPads, and Apple Watches.
I have, however, come across some issues in adding a couple of Apple's services to this — random errors would appear, simply refusing me to allow my wife to use Apple Music.
After she signed out of her Apple ID and signed back in, everything worked, and, four months later, everything is still working great.
If you're thinking of setting it up, don't worry about potential issues that may crop up — the above solutions will be able to help you out if needed.
