Family Sharing

Allows family members to share Apple subscriptions and purchases. In MDM environments, Family Sharing is typically disabled on corporate devices to prevent mixing corporate and personal data/licenses.

What to Know

Family Sharing creates data governance complications on corporate devices by allowing personal accounts to share access to iCloud storage, app purchases, subscriptions, and location data with corporate devices. If an employee enables Family Sharing on a corporate device, family members could gain access to corporate iCloud storage, receive notifications about corporate app activity, or see the device’s location through Find My. This creates privacy risks for the organization and potential confusion about which data belongs to the organization vs. the family group.

Common Scenarios

Enterprise IT: Corporate IT universally disables Family Sharing on company-owned devices to maintain clear boundaries between corporate and personal data. Allowing Family Sharing could expose corporate data to family members, create support issues when family members see corporate device notifications, or complicate license management when personal app purchases sync to corporate devices. On BYOD devices, IT may allow Family Sharing since the device is personally owned, but corporate app deployments use VPP to avoid mixing personal and corporate licenses.

MSP: MSPs disable Family Sharing by default on all client devices unless explicitly instructed otherwise. The feature creates support complexity with minimal business value, and most clients prefer clear corporate-personal separation. MSPs should explain Family Sharing restrictions during onboarding to prevent user confusion when employees attempt to share subscriptions with family members.

Education: Schools disable Family Sharing on student devices to prevent students from sharing school-purchased content with family members or accessing family-shared content that may bypass content filters. Student devices use Managed Apple IDs which don’t support Family Sharing. Teacher devices may allow Family Sharing if the school permits personal use of teacher-assigned devices.

In Addigy

Addigy’s Restrictions payload includes an “Allow Family Sharing” toggle that prevents users from joining or managing Family Sharing groups when disabled. This restriction requires a supervised device and applies immediately upon profile deployment. Disabling Family Sharing does not remove existing Family Sharing memberships—users must leave their family group manually before the restriction takes full effect.