Family Sharing Contacts Merging

Hello,

I was wondering if you could help me.

We have 3 iPads for our 3 children.

we recently set up ipad 3 for child 3.


when we did this I received all their contacts and by deleting them on my phone, deleted them from their ipads.


We all have our own apple IDs so not sharing accounts. We do share a family iCloud account but I read that doesn’t merge contacts.


I have gone into iCloud settings and switched off contacts which has fixed the merging issue but that means their contacts are not backing up to the iCloud which is not ideal for the future.


my sons iPad has contacts switched on, has his own Apple ID and shares the iCloud family but I don’t get a copy of any of his contacts so I don’t understand why this iPad/setup is different


any help would be massively appreciated

iPad (6th gen) WiFi

Posted on Aug 2, 2022 04:51 PM

Reply
1 reply

Aug 4, 2022 01:09 PM in response to Ycul_0606

Hey Ycul_0606,


We'd be happy to help out with your child's contacts syncing with yours.


To get started, let's check the accounts. On their iPad that you just set up, go to Settings > [your name] and check to see what Apple ID email address is showing. If it's yours, then that's the issue and you'll want to scroll down, sign out, and sign back in with their own Apple ID.


To ensure new contacts created by your child are indeed going to the right account, also go to Settings > Contacts and if you see a Default Account option this means you have multiple accounts enabled for Contacts and you'll need to make sure the correct account is selected. If you don't need contacts from multiple accounts, you can also just turn it off for any accounts you don't want their contacts syncing with.


You are also correct that inviting them to your Family Sharing won't merge their contacts with yours, so that shouldn't be the cause of this behavior.


For more help with managing and deleting contacts on iPad, check out: Manage and delete contacts on your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch - Apple Support


We hope this helps out.


Take care!

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Family Sharing Contacts Merging

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