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How to have iCloud Contacts with no "me" card?

J

Jeffois

macrumors regular
Original poster
Mar 30, 2010
121
32
Is there a way in my Mac, and therefore my iCloud, Contacts, to not have a "Me" card? I had myself selected as such, so I deleted my contact, and re-added one. All good there so far.

But then Mac Contacts (contacts.app) seems to have created a new "Me" card separate from the new one that I created for myself as a kind of suggested contact. I've clicked "Ignore" for that, but is that enough to not have a "Me" card?

Thanks in advance!
 
Well, my wife and I share contacts and calendars. My iCloud account is the secondary one on her Mac and her iPhone, we share app store purchases, music (Match), Contacts and Calendars. She doesn't like that her devices show my name, and that Siri calls her my name. Perhaps a minor annoyance to many, but one I'd like to resolve for her if I can.
 
Jeffois said:
Well, my wife and I share contacts and calendars. My iCloud account is the secondary one on her Mac and her iPhone, we share app store purchases, music (Match), Contacts and Calendars. She doesn't like that her devices show my name, and that Siri calls her my name. Perhaps a minor annoyance to many, but one I'd like to resolve for her if I can.
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You should really do separate iCloud accounts.

If you want to share one calendar, one of you would be the keeper of the calendar and the other would have read/write access via "Share Calendar".

As for sharing contacts, I'm not sure if that's an available feature.

App Store purchases can still use the same AppleID if you'd like. That's what my wife and I do. It's completely separate from iCloud.

I would guess that Apple Music works the same as the App Store, but I can't say for sure.
 
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Family Sharing is an issue for a few reasons, including that our iTunes Match wouldn't work that way. Also, you're right, Contacts aren't a part of that.

I wonder if sharing our contacts via a new Gmail account would solve the problem?
 
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Jeffois said:
Family Sharing is an issue for a few reasons, including that our iTunes Match wouldn't work that way. Also, you're right, Contacts aren't a part of that.

I wonder if sharing our contacts via a new Gmail account would solve the problem?
Click to expand...
It's not family sharing, although I do have that with my kids.

My wife and I have separate iCloud accounts so our Contacts are completely separate. We share our calendars and notes with each other and are allowed to update each others' calendars.

For iTunes/App Store, we login using my AppleID. My purchases for songs and apps show up on her iTunes/Music app.

I suspect that if I subscribed to AppleMusic, we would both be listening on the same account, therefore the suggestions and histories would be all messed up. I don't like her music choices.

The App Store is completely separate from iCloud. I think this confuses a lot of folks because most people use the same email address as their iCloud and AppStore login. Plus, Apple doesn't do a good job explaining the differences. They like to throw the term "AppleID" around and aren't very consistent in the meaning.

Can't help you with the contacts deal. I personally couldn't imagine having my contacts list full of my wife's acquaintences and friends. It would drive me nuts. Plus I'm kinda anal about how she inputs info on her contact cards and I'd be editing her entries of people I don't even know.
 
ftaok said:
It's not family sharing, although I do have that with my kids.

My wife and I have separate iCloud accounts so our Contacts are completely separate. We share our calendars and notes with each other and are allowed to update each others' calendars.

For iTunes/App Store, we login using my AppleID. My purchases for songs and apps show up on her iTunes/Music app.

I suspect that if I subscribed to AppleMusic, we would both be listening on the same account, therefore the suggestions and histories would be all messed up. I don't like her music choices.

The App Store is completely separate from iCloud. I think this confuses a lot of folks because most people use the same email address as their iCloud and AppStore login. Plus, Apple doesn't do a good job explaining the differences. They like to throw the term "AppleID" around and aren't very consistent in the meaning.

Can't help you with the contacts deal. I personally couldn't imagine having my contacts list full of my wife's acquaintences and friends. It would drive me nuts. Plus I'm kinda anal about how she inputs info on her contact cards and I'd be editing her entries of people I don't even know.
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We also share our AppleID for purchases and iTunes Match. We don't do Apple Music. But with iTunes Match, she selectively downloads what interests her to her devices. She sometimes buys things that I don't like, so I just don't download them to my computer. It works for us.

She has her iCloud account as the primary on her Mac/phone/iPad, so that her photos are her own, as she prefers, and what was originally just my iCloud account as a secondary, so that we can sync Contacts and Calendars.

As for the Contacts, I'm wondering if turning off Siri Suggestions will do the trick. That's really the only irritant for her, is the fact that my name displays on her devices.
 
Jeffois said:
We also share our AppleID for purchases and iTunes Match. We don't do Apple Music. But with iTunes Match, she selectively downloads what interests her to her devices. She sometimes buys things that I don't like, so I just don't download them to my computer. It works for us.
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That's exactly what we do, except I download everything she buys too, so that it gets backed-up. I don't trust the record companies removing songs from the catalog (note - I've had this happen on at least one song, probably more).

She has her iCloud account as the primary on her Mac/phone/iPad, so that her photos are her own, as she prefers, and what was originally just my iCloud account as a secondary, so that we can sync Contacts and Calendars.

As for the Contacts, I'm wondering if turning off Siri Suggestions will do the trick. That's really the only irritant for her, is the fact that my name displays on her devices.
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Ahh, I see what you're doing now.

While I have no idea as to whether this would work, but perhaps she could enable contacts on her iCloud account with her information as the "me" card.

Maybe iOS/macOS devices are smart enough to associate the "me" card from the primary iCloud account and ignore the "me" card from the secondary iCloud account.
 
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Jeffois said:
I wonder if sharing our contacts via a new Gmail account would solve the problem?
Click to expand...
That would solve your problem. I'm currently using iCloud for calendars and a bunch of other stuff, but I'm syncing my contacts with Gmail because I use that a lot more than iCloud mail. I see the same contacts in my Contacts app on my iPhone, the Contacts app on my Macs, and in Gmail's contacts at http://contacts.google.com. A change made in any one place syncs reliably to the others.

All you have to do is set up a new, shared Gmail account and sync your contacts to it and also set your wife's devices to sync contacts to it. Should work quite well for what you're doing. As for the "me" card, I have a feeling you could each set your own separately in the Contacts app on your respective devices. I might be wrong about that.
 
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What you could do, which is what I have done is the following:

Create a separate gmail account.

On each phone setup the above email account.

Under preferences have it sync
  • Contacts
  • Calendar
  • Notes (optional)
The above account becomes the primary account for all of the above.
 
Thanks for all the feedback!

I'm going to try the idea of having her iCloud ID sync contacts, but only have one contact in her name associated with that, and continue with the syncing of contacts otherwise. If not, perhaps the Gmail approach...

Thanks again.
 
K
Jeffois said:
Thanks for all the feedback!

I'm going to try the idea of having her iCloud ID sync contacts, but only have one contact in her name associated with that, and continue with the syncing of contacts otherwise. If not, perhaps the Gmail approach...

Thanks again.
Click to expand...
Keep us updated. This is an interesting use case.
 
OK...it seems as if the fix may have been the easiest possible route. I deleted the card that had been selected as "my" card. I then created a new one for myself, so that the contact info was restored. But I didn't then label any card as the "me" card. On each device, the Contacts app is suggesting a "me" card, but now, at least in Airdrop, her phone is appearing with her name. Time will bear out whether this is a full fix, but so far, so good.

I did create a Google account for us, imported the contacts. Even if the All iCloud approach turns out to be a dud, I'm not thrilled with using Google contacts, because Apple's apps don't recognize the groups (neither does BusyContacts), and all Contacts that I have as a Company aren't recognized as such by Google.
 
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