If I pair AirPods Max with my iCloud account, and I have multiple users on my Mac, will other users be able to also use the AirPods Max or only when the Mac is signed into my Mac account?
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
AirPods Max / Mac Question???
- Thread starter James Godfrey
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
Funny you should ask this -- I was just coming here to ask people if they have any tips about it.
I have two user accounts on my Mac. One main one which is signed in with the same Apple ID I use with my iPhone and my AirPods Max, and a secondary one I use for work, signed in to a different Apple ID.
In the primary account, the APM pair up and work fine. When I log into the secondary work account, they unpair immediately and don't show up in Bluetooth or anywhere else. It's incredibly frustrating. The only way I've found to get them to work at all under my work account is to actually reset them and re-add them to the computer -- at which point they get renamed "[work account]'s AirPods Max" and are no longer discoverable by my iPhone or my main Mac account.
Super, super frustrating. I get that they don't want any random Mac to be able to hijack your headphones, but surely there's a better way to do this. Especially for $550 headphones.
I have two user accounts on my Mac. One main one which is signed in with the same Apple ID I use with my iPhone and my AirPods Max, and a secondary one I use for work, signed in to a different Apple ID.
In the primary account, the APM pair up and work fine. When I log into the secondary work account, they unpair immediately and don't show up in Bluetooth or anywhere else. It's incredibly frustrating. The only way I've found to get them to work at all under my work account is to actually reset them and re-add them to the computer -- at which point they get renamed "[work account]'s AirPods Max" and are no longer discoverable by my iPhone or my main Mac account.
Super, super frustrating. I get that they don't want any random Mac to be able to hijack your headphones, but surely there's a better way to do this. Especially for $550 headphones.
Last edited:
Would be a nice feature for the Mac itself to be enabled for the AirPods regardless of which user is logged in, but I suppose it’s a technical reason so as not to have your AirPods auto connecting to the Mac when another family member is using it etc…
However, a prompt asking if you want to use the AirPods wouldn’t go a miss…
Since the AirPods Pros and AirPods Max have to be initially set up connected to an iPhone (which then "distributes" the information to the Bluetooth settings on all the devices connected to the same Apple ID), not surprising it didn't work with a different log in automatically. Maybe you could do something like a Family Share thing between the two different Apple IDs and get it to work?
Unfortunately I don’t think Family Sharing shares actual devices… which is a shame, be great if Apple allowed family sharing of things like AirPods as that would be awesome!
Good luck with that. Apple multiuser management is a total embarrassment.
Switching user accounts is breaking every feature Of continuity and handoff, since it’s inception with Yosemite.
I have two user accounts on my Mac one for me one for my partner, when I log into her account I see my AirPods under the Bluetooth list, I’ve never paired them with her iCloud account.
When I log into my account I see her AirPods, again, never paired with mine.
For this reason, the system gets all confused and automatic AirPods switching between my devices doesn’t work at all.
I just got a pair of Max with the Black Friday deal and I haven’t even tried yet. I know already how it’s gonna be and I know I will be upset about it.
I sent tens of feedback reports and have been in touch with an apple engineer for a good 8 months now. Every macOS release breaks something instead of fixing stuff.
The multiuser support sucks.
Not to mention the confusion with user permissions when you copy a document between one account and the other, but that’s a different topic and I don’t have a month and a half to rant about it now.
macOS turned into a disaster
Switching user accounts is breaking every feature Of continuity and handoff, since it’s inception with Yosemite.
I have two user accounts on my Mac one for me one for my partner, when I log into her account I see my AirPods under the Bluetooth list, I’ve never paired them with her iCloud account.
When I log into my account I see her AirPods, again, never paired with mine.
For this reason, the system gets all confused and automatic AirPods switching between my devices doesn’t work at all.
I just got a pair of Max with the Black Friday deal and I haven’t even tried yet. I know already how it’s gonna be and I know I will be upset about it.
I sent tens of feedback reports and have been in touch with an apple engineer for a good 8 months now. Every macOS release breaks something instead of fixing stuff.
The multiuser support sucks.
Not to mention the confusion with user permissions when you copy a document between one account and the other, but that’s a different topic and I don’t have a month and a half to rant about it now.
macOS turned into a disaster
Nah, forget it.. it will never get fixed.
They just keep breaking features at every release. Now you also can’t disable the head tracking on Apple TV. You select off and it stays on.