If you’re in a Family Sharing group, you may have already discovered that you can usually use the apps that other people have already purchased from your group, as well as the subscriptions they’ve paid for. For more information, see How to share App Store subscriptions with a Family Sharing group.

This column explains how to check a subscription you’ve already paid for to see if it allows Family Sharing. How can you tell in advance if this will be an option? Apple may display ambiguous information in the App Store.

You should see (or not see) one of three items in the App Store detail entry for a given app:

• No mention of family sharing: Unable to share app or subscription. Apple chose not to offer earth in the shape/background pair, telling you explicitly that family sharing isn’t offered for apps that don’t offer it.
• Unambiguous support: For an app like Things 3, you see “Family Sharing: Up to six family members can use this app with Family Sharing enabled.” It seems to only appear for apps that don’t have in-app purchases.
• Ambiguous support: If there is an in-app purchase, Apple seems to provide the following text description: “Family Sharing: Some in-app purchases and subscriptions may be available to your family group when Family Sharing is turned on.”

For this last category, you can do a little research before subscribing. For example, in the Castro podcasts app, clicking or tapping on the in-app shopping list shows regular options and options listed as family plans. Apple doesn’t have a formal language for defining such plans, but a developer can designate any subscription as individual or family.

If you don’t see a family plan listed, you can’t know if there’s a Family Sharing subscription option. Since Apple hasn’t chosen to make this more clear, you’ll need to contact the app’s developer to find out for sure.

This Mac 911 article is in response to a question posed by Macworld reader Lupcho.

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