New to Mac – query about accounts

[MrFlashy]

Hello, all. Long time UK-based reader of the forums, first-time poster. Have searched for what I want to know but couldn't find it, but apologies if I missed/overlooked anything.

Took delivery of my refurb Mac mini at the weekend and had a quick play. First impressions are good (it's the first time I've used a Mac since 2001, so I half knew what I was getting into) and I'm pleased it'll tie in with the iPhones, iPad and Apple TVs in the house. But I do have a query about how best to set it up.

My confusion is caused by my other half an I having separate iCloud accounts but sharing an iTunes one. On the Mac, am I going to be best setting up one account for me and one for her, or could one shared one work?

Ideally, I'd rather have one for both of us, shared, but I'm not sure if it'll work – we don't want our emails in Mail or our Notes, Reminders, Contacts and Safari bookmarks being muddled together and would rather keep them separate. Ditto with documents, photos, etc. But we will be using the same iTunes/app store account and library (mine).

Is it possible to achieve that with one shared account? If so, I'd appreciate any advice/guidance.

But if not, or if it'd be far, far simpler all round and in the long run to have two accounts and use fast user switching, would it be the case that my account is linked to my iCloud, hers to her iCloud, and both using my iTunes account and a shared library? And if so, is that easy to do?!

Sorry for my ignorance, any help will be very much appreciated.

 

[GGJstudios]

Ideally, I'd rather have one for both of us, shared, but I'm not sure if it'll work – we don't want our emails in Mail or our Notes, Reminders, Contacts and Safari bookmarks being muddled together and would rather keep them separate. Ditto with documents, photos, etc. But we will be using the same iTunes/app store account and library (mine).

Is it possible to achieve that with one shared account? If so, I'd appreciate any advice/guidance.

You can use multiple Apple IDs for different purposes. For iTunes purchases, you can use one account, so anything you buy will be available on all your devices. You can use separate IDs for syncing notes, contacts, bookmarks, etc. You can use separate IDs for Facetime and other applications.

 

[MrFlashy]

Thanks. But how do I do that on the Mac? Is it relatively straightforward? My concern is that I try and it goes wrong and we end up with contacts irretrievably muddled together, which wouldn't be great. Anything else wouldn't be so bad, but we've each got hundreds of contacts the other's not remotely interested in.

Again, sorry for my utter ignorance.

 

[tennisproha]

Thanks. But how do I do that on the Mac? Is it relatively straightforward? My concern is that I try and it goes wrong and we end up with contacts irretrievably muddled together, which wouldn't be great. Anything else wouldn't be so bad, but we've each got hundreds of contacts the other's not remotely interested in.

Again, sorry for my utter ignorance.

Unfortunately, this might involve you having to shuffle some of your data around on one of your accounts. what you need to do is pick one account you will designate as your family itunes account. this should be a current account where youve purchased the most apps/music, etc. next transfer all the data of this account into a newly created apple id. (create this new apple id online) after transferring all data to your new account, delete all its backup data of icloud and tell everyone to not use this account for icloud, it is itunes only.

so now the account with the most itunes/app store content will be a purposed itunes account and you have a new icloud account for all the data that was previously tied to this account.

As far a how to transfer the data: log in to the itunes/icloud account on an ipad or iphone. let everything sync. next log out of icloud. when asked keep or delete data?, select keep. next log into the new icloud account you just created. it will ask whether you want to merge all data. yes you do. and voila youve transferred all data from itunes/icloud account to the new only icloud account.

Or set up family sharing on ios 8. it'll work just as well i think (i havent tried it).