Family sharing: buy a paid app once, not twice

You buy a paid app — a scanner, a photo editor, a kids' game — and a month later your partner buys it again, because they had no idea the family already owned it. Yet both platforms have built-in family sharing: an app bought once is automatically available to every member of the family group, and the same goes for a range of subscriptions. Most households have this feature within reach and have never turned it on.

How to do it

Apple (Family Sharing):

1. In Settings, tap your name → Family Sharing and invite family members (up to five others).
2. Confirm Purchase Sharing is turned on — from that point, every family member can download apps anyone in the family bought, from the Purchased tab in the App Store.
3. Subscriptions marked as family plans (including iCloud+ and other Apple services) share automatically once this is on.

Google (Family Library):

1. In the Play Store, tap your profile picture → Settings → Family → Join Family Library and invite family members.
2. Purchased apps, games, movies, and books appear for family members under Family Library. For older purchases, sharing can be turned on manually item by item.

Two things to watch for: you can only belong to one family group at a time, and for third-party subscriptions it depends on the publisher whether a family option even exists — always check whether a service offers a family plan before paying for a second account. Streaming services, password managers, and navigation apps typically do.

A typical scenario

A family uses a paid document-scanning app. Dad bought it last year; Mom nearly bought the same one this year because the App Store offered her the full price — neither of them knew about the family purchase, because Purchase Sharing wasn't turned on. Once it was, she downloaded the app for free from shared purchases. Along the way, they also discovered they were paying twice for cloud storage — and swapped two small plans for one family plan.

What you get out of it

A one-time quarter-hour setup, after which the family stops paying twice for the same thing. A bonus on top: the family group is also the foundation for kids' accounts and parental controls, so you've laid the groundwork for the day a child gets their first phone — how to handle that is covered in the tip Kids' Accounts: Limits and App Approval.

Pro tip

Before paying for a second account on any service, make it a reflex: open the service's website and look for the words “family plan.” Music, video libraries, cloud storage, password managers, and navigation apps commonly have family options — nobody actively points them out at signup, because two separate accounts are more profitable for the service.