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I've set up Family sharing, and have 2TB of storage (the current maximum). I also pay for my wife's 50GB of storage. I want to migrate that over to use the new 200GB i've allocated to her out of my 2TB total.

Family sharing of iCloud is enabled

I am sharing my storage plan with her and the screen says "Family members with a paid storage plan will be able to choose if they want to share your plan."

I can't see how to do that on her Mac however.

I've looked under Manage Family, Account Details, Manage... (storage), iCloud Drive options, etc and there is nowhere I can see where I could migrate her existing 50GB subscription to the Family storage.

If I go to Manage and then Change Storage Plan... there is no option to migrate to the family sharing.

How do I do this? Specifically how do I do this in such as way as the 10GB already in her iCloud storage is not nuked.

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4 Answers 4

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@RDG : That link does not explain how to merge an already existing plan into a family plan that the user has been added to. It merely states that you can:

If a family member is already paying for their own iCloud storage plan, they can choose to switch to your plan or keep their own and still remain part of the family. When they switch to the shared family plan, they get a refund for the remainder of their personal plan. They can't keep their current plan and use the shared family plan at the same time.

@Dave Sag: I had the same problem with my family—my son already had a 50G storage plan and after I got a 200G family storage plan and added all my family members to it, for some reason it still showed him as "not using", and nowhere in the iCloud preferences on him MacBook would it allow him to switch to the family plan and get rid of his individual plan.

After a lot of digging I found one article that mentioned that in order to use the family shared iCloud storage you have to be running Mac OS High Sierra (10.13) or higher. Turned out, he was still on Sierra (10.12). After upgrading his MacBook to High Sierra the iCloud preferences now showed a button to "Use Family Storage". Clicking that instantly moved all his iCloud data from his individual storage plan to the family shared storage.

After doing that, it no longer even shows his 50G plan in the iCloud preferences. I'm assuming that it has cancelled that plan. If I find out that it did not automatically cancel that plan and that I have to go cancel it myself, I'll follow up on here to let you know.

Cheers —Dan

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  • Hi @Dan Delaney, can you verify if it ended up canceling your sons former plan? I am assuming it did but just wanted to be sure. Thank you in advance!
    – Omar N
    Feb 28, 2019 at 4:21
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    While link only answers are discouraged adding a link to a complete answer can a positive. In this case an article was mentioned and a link to that article would be helpful.
    – zaph
    Jun 27, 2019 at 13:57
  • I just tried this on my wife's iPhone (she doesn't have a Mac). I tried cancelling my wife's personal plan. It warned me I should delete some data before the subscription period ended. I then went back to the iCloud storage page and it popped up a dialog asking me if I wanted to switch to "Use Family Storage" and that seems to have switched it. I wish I'd taken a screenshot of that page :)
    – PeteW
    Aug 30, 2021 at 9:50
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  1. Either call Apple or through App Store login cancel your 50 GB subscription to downgrade to 5 GB basic free pack even if your data is more than 5 GB. The data remains secure for 30 days after cancellation and downgrade. Do not get added to the Family Sharing before this is done. If you are added first and then downgrade it shall fail and fail repeatedly.
  2. Now get added to Family Sharing using the family head by going to Settings on the family head’s iPhone and adding the family member. When you are added you will automatically become part of the plan and start sharing common iCloud space.

Only members on 5 GB plan get automatically migrated when added to family head. Anyone with 50 GB or more paid plan shall not. That is why he has to be downgraded to 5 GB first (don't worry, your data is safe for 30 days any way) to be eligible to be added.

The sequence is important: first downgrade then add to family otherwise you'll go around in circles for ever. (Also update both iPhone and Mac to latest versions as a precaution.)

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I experienced the same issued. I solved in by accepting the shared storage from the other user ("Caroline" in OP's case).

Steps:

  1. Log in as the other user.
  2. Go to Family Sharing in settings.
  3. Go to iCloud Storage.
  4. Click a blue button that says something like "Start using Shared Storage".
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  • This looks like a new option in recent iOS software. But it should now be considered the best answer.
    – Darrell Root
    Sep 16, 2020 at 5:35
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I have the same question and the answer is down in this doc:

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208147

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  • 2
    Welcome to Ask Different and thank you for your answer. :) Unfortunately, short answers such as this don't really provide enough detail or context to help many users. And, just providing a link isn't very helpful as it may no longer work in future. Instead, could you please edit your answer (there's an edit link below it) to include a summary of the content you're linking to? This will make your answer more self-contained and help preserve it for other users in future.
    – Monomeeth ♦
    Dec 8, 2018 at 23:54

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