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1 iCloud Account, 2 Users (married couple)

R

rwk02

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Him: iPhone 7, iPad Air 2

Her: iPhone 7, iPad Pro 9.7"



1 shared iCloud account created when we each got new iPhone 7s in Fall 2016



Question: Is there an easy way to share an iCloud account but keep contacts separate between our devices?
 
Don't share an iCloud account. It's a terrible idea and not what it was designed for.

Use Family Sharing instead. It is a feature that allows you to share purchase made in the App Store and iTunes while still having separate iCloud accounts.
 
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Brookzy said:
Don't share an iCloud account. It's a terrible idea and not what it was designed for.

Use Family Sharing instead. It is a feature that allows you to share purchase made in the App Store and iTunes while still having separate iCloud accounts.
Click to expand...

Thank you Brookzy, getting separate iCloud accounts is the path we are going. Why is it a terrible idea though?
 
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rwk02 said:
Thank you Brookzy, getting separate iCloud accounts is the path we are going. Why is it a terrible idea though?
Click to expand...
All data in everything would be sync'd between you which ends up messy.

Example - you park in a massive multiplex go shopping and forget where you've parked. Meanwhile your wife's across town nipping over to her moms. You launch maps to find your car to see it's at your mother in laws...
 
rwk02 said:
Thank you Brookzy, getting separate iCloud accounts is the path we are going. Why is it a terrible idea though?
Click to expand...

There is nothing at all wrong with sharing an iCloud account if that is what you prefer. My wife and I share one and it works perfectly for us.

If you want to use one iCloud account but not see all each other's contacts. You could put your contacts in a "his" group then the wife's in a "hers" group.... then in the Contacts setting on each phone tell it to only sync the his or hers group. You could even have some people in both groups if you like.

Gav2k said:
Example - you park in a massive multiplex go shopping and forget where you've parked. Meanwhile your wife's across town nipping over to her moms. You launch maps to find your car to see it's at your mother in laws...
Click to expand...

I don't follow your example. The Apple Maps parked car feature is based on where the phone was when the Bluetooth connection to the car was dropped (when you parked). I don't see how it has anything to do with sharing an iCloud account.
 
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Weaselboy said:
There is nothing at all wrong with sharing an iCloud account if that is what you prefer. My wife and I share one and it works perfectly for us.

If you want to use one iCloud account but not see all each other's contacts. You could put your contacts in a "his" group then the wife's in a "hers" group.... then in the Contacts setting on each phone tell it to only sync the his or hers group. You could even have some people in both groups if you like.



I don't follow your example. The Apple Maps parked car feature is based on where the phone was when the Bluetooth connection to the car was dropped (when you parked). I don't see how it has anything to do with sharing an iCloud account.
Click to expand...
Yep and all recent activity syncs over devices.
 
dennysanders said:
the parked car feature doesn't even require you to be signed into icloud at all
Click to expand...
I know... that is why I am not following the example given. But even if you do have iCloud on, I have never seen the parked car location synced to another device.
 
Weaselboy said:
There is nothing at all wrong with sharing an iCloud account if that is what you prefer. My wife and I share one and it works perfectly for us.

If you want to use one iCloud account but not see all each other's contacts. You could put your contacts in a "his" group then the wife's in a "hers" group.... then in the Contacts setting on each phone tell it to only sync the his or hers group. You could even have some people in both groups if you like.


Weaselboy, thank you, your description of contacts is exactly what I want to accomplish. Do you mind explaining how you do that? I looked through the settings of both iCloud and Contacts but cannot figure out how to isolate contacts only between devices of my choosing (e.g. My contacts only seen on my iPhone & my iPad).
Click to expand...
 
Maybe my issue isn't associated with iCloud then... I'll have to look into it.

Ok what about notes contacts calendars not to mention divorce!
 
rwk02 said:
Thank you Brookzy, getting separate iCloud accounts is the path we are going. Why is it a terrible idea though?
Click to expand...

Weaselboy said:
There is nothing at all wrong with sharing an iCloud account if that is what you prefer. My wife and I share one and it works perfectly for us.
Click to expand...

Getting off topic now, but the most prominent reasons it is bad to share an iCloud account from my perspective:
  • It messes up Apple Music; you can't have two subscriptions on one Apple ID (without Family Sharing) so if you and your partner want to both listen to Apple Music at the same time, you can't. Even if you don't want this today, you may do in the future - by which time unravelling your accounts is nigh-on impossible.
  • If you're Apple-o-holics, sharing an account limits you to five devices each (which I and my partner would easily exhaust... 😱)
  • You don't get separate email addresses.
  • Your contacts, calendars, reminders, photos, and so on become merged. While someone of @Weaselboy's technical literacy would have little issue separating these into lists/albums/whatever, the user who shares an iCloud account tends to be novice and unfamiliar with this.
  • In the unfortunate but common instance of a break-up, you can't easily split your content and you can each activation lock each other's devices... 😱
Like anything, it's doable but vary rarely is it a good idea.

Also, re Apple Maps, this might be okay today but is an example how future software features are designed around the principle that one iCloud account = one person, thus you might be locking yourself out of future features.
 
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rwk02 said:
Weaselboy, thank you, your description of contacts is exactly what I want to accomplish. Do you mind explaining how you do that? I looked through the settings of both iCloud and Contacts but cannot figure out how to isolate contacts only between devices of my choosing (e.g. My contacts only seen on my iPhone & my iPad).
Click to expand...

First login to icloud.com and follow this to setup your groups.

Then go to your iPhone and open Contacts. At the top left tap Groups. Now UNcheck everything except the group you want to see. For example, it will say iCloud, his, and hers. You can uncheck iCloud and hers and only see contacts in the his group.
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Brookzy said:
Getting off topic now, but the most prominent reasons it is bad to share an iCloud account from my perspective:
  • It messes up Apple Music; you can't have two subscriptions on one Apple ID (without Family Sharing) so if you and your partner want to both listen to Apple Music at the same time, you can't. Even if you don't want this today, you may do in the future - by which time unravelling your accounts is nigh-on impossible.
  • If you're Apple-o-holics, sharing an account limits you to five devices each (which I and my partner would easily exhaust... 😱)
  • You don't get separate email addresses.
  • Your contacts, calendars, reminders, photos, and so on become merged. While someone of @Weaselboy's technical literacy would have little issue separating these into lists/albums/whatever, the user who shares an iCloud account tends to be novice and unfamiliar with this.
  • In the unfortunate but common instance of a break-up, you can't easily split your content and you can each activation lock each other's devices... 😱
Like anything, it's doable but vary rarely is it a good idea.

Also, re Apple Maps, this might be okay today but is an example how future software features are designed around the principle that one iCloud account = one person, thus you might be locking yourself out of future features.
Click to expand...

I understand all the pros and cons. It works perfectly for my wife and I. She has her own iCloud account used only for mail. So on her iPad she has my iCloud account as the primary with everything except Mail turned on. Then I added her iCloud account and turned on only Mail. Works out just fine. I understand why some may prefer it otherwise, but this works for us.
 
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Gav2k said:
Maybe my issue isn't associated with iCloud then... I'll have to look into it.

Ok what about notes contacts calendars not to mention divorce!
Click to expand...
what you should be bringing up is...what is the benefit of sharing an icloud account? it's just so simple to create your own, and then discussion over. you're dividing your icloud storage in half when you share 1, also. whatever you want to do with a shared icloud account, you could easily accomplish by setting up family sharing.
 
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Weaselboy said:
I actually prefer having all those things synced in one place. 🙂
Click to expand...

I'm sorry, I still don't see the upside for you here. You can share whatever you like between two separate Apple accounts in a family. I guess you're just assuming one account must be easier than two, but it's really not. In fact, it causes more problems than it solves.

As already pointed out above, you're also missing out on an extra 5GB of iCloud space, and limiting your usage of Apple Music, for no good reason that I can see.
 
sharing ok for itunes because from iOS at least u can decide to share not not sync auto-downloads etc... to other devices

With icloud drive,, u would actually want Family sharing..
 
M. Gustave said:
I'm sorry, I still don't see the upside for you here. You can share whatever you like between two separate Apple accounts in a family.
Click to expand...

Family Sharing only shares a family calendar. That does not share contacts, and notes like I want. Like I said, I am very familiar with Family Sharing and my options here and I find it easier to share an iCloud account to sync everything. It causes no problems whatsoever for me.
 
Weaselboy said:
Family Sharing only shares a family calendar. That does not share contacts, and notes like I want.
Click to expand...

Well, you could have a shared Gmail account, for example, just for contacts that all your family devices are synced to. The nice thing about that is they would be available on non-Apple devices as well.

Weaselboy said:
It causes no problems whatsoever for me.
Click to expand...

Only because of your particular use-case, where you don't use more than 5GB of iCloud space, you don't use Apple Music, and you actually want to share all contacts, photos, notes, etc. But it's not good general advice to use a single account for multiple people.
 
rwk02 said:
Thank you Brookzy, getting separate iCloud accounts is the path we are going. Why is it a terrible idea though?
Click to expand...
What do you want shared and what do you want separate? My vote goes to having separate iCloud accounts as well. My wife and I have our own phones/iPads as well, and all we share are calendars, reminders, and iTunes purchases (we share an iTunes account for this part). It was much simpler to use separate iCloud accounts for us.

It may have been an isolated incident, but back when you could start having messages go to both an iPhone and an iPad, we had issues with it working if we didn't add our iCloud to the send/receive in message settings. When we deleted the email from that setting, it stopped syncing. If we used the same iCloud there it would've messed things up on the iPads for which set of messages to receive.

Also, like some have already mentioned, our own iCloud storage quickly ran out for us for backing up photos and phone backups. Using one 5GB batch between us wouldn't have worked.
 
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Late to the party, but I'd suggest 3 accounts:

iCloud account for him
iCloud account for her
"iTunes account" for both

That will keep contacts, messaging, etc separate but allow you to share iTunes content.
 
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