Family Sharing of Drafts Pro Subscriptions Enabled

News & Updates
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Apple has recently enabled in-app purchases, including subscriptions, to be shareable using Family Sharing. We have made Family Sharing available for the Drafts Pro subscription, for both annual and monthly subscribers.

With Family Sharing your Drafts Pro subscription can be shared with up to five other family members.

How to Setup Family Sharing

If you have not already set up Family Sharing, visit Apple’s Family Sharing page to learn how to get your family group setup, and get familiar with those shared purchases work.

OS Requirements: Note that Family Sharing of in-app purchases is a new feature, and requires users iOS devices be running iOS 14.3 or greater, and Macs be running macOS 11 (Big Sur) or greater.

Enabling Family Sharing

We have made Family Sharing available for Drafts Pro subscription, but you may need to enable it for your Drafts Pro subscription. Existing subscriptions purchased before the release of Family Sharing will have this feature turned off by default. To change:

  • Open the App Store and then your Account.
  • Open “Subscriptions” and your Drafts subscription details.
  • Turn on “Share with Family”.

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You only need to do this once, on one device (iOS or Mac).

Unlocking Drafts Pro on Family Devices

Once you have made sure Family Sharing is enabled for your Drafts Pro subscription, other family members should be able to unlock Drafts Pro. In some cases, such as new installs, Drafts will automatically detect the availability of Drafts Pro. For existing installs, your family members can use the “Restore Purchases” option when prompted to purchase Drafts Pro in the app.

Note: If you have just enabled “Share with Family”, and “Restore Purchase” does not work for your related family accounts, be sure they are unlocking on the same platform you made the purchase (see below), and may wait and try again in a few hours to be sure changes have been able to update on Apple’s servers.

Important Note about iOS & Mac Subscriptions

Drafts Pro subscriptions can be purchased on either iOS or Mac, but the actual purchases are separate. Drafts shares subscriptions through iCloud when syncing data. Because of this Family members can only “Restore Purchases” to unlock Drafts Pro on the platform you made the subscription purchase.

So, if your Drafts Pro subscription was purchased on iOS, Family members will only be able to unlock the shared subscription on their iOS devices. If they have a Mac, that Pro subscription will be shared to their Mac through their iCloud account after it is unlocked, but the initial restore must happen on the platform the purchase was made.

Only Subscription is Shared, not Data!

Family Sharing of your Drafts Pro subscription is only sharing the Pro features. No data is shared through Family Sharing - each member of your family using Drafts will still have their own set of drafts, actions, and any other customizations to the app, tied to their Apple ID and iCloud storage.

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Great news, but is this US only?
I’m in Australia & I’m not seeing an sharing options.

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I was under the impression is was worldwide. It’s not something you can turn on and off by country from the developer side.

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It worked in the UK.

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It appears subscription sharing just may not have made it to Aust. yet, although I don’t recall it being announced as a gradual roll-out. :slightly_frowning_face:

These pages definitely have different lists of what can and can’t be shared, Although the UK page is the same as AU.

US : https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT203046

AU : https://support.apple.com/en-au/HT203046

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Interesting, and good to know. Clearly, when the rollout makes it there, Drafts is ready.

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It works in France, thanks for this price feature :slight_smile:

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Turns out my problem was with older versions of iOS. My “newest” iPhone was a 6 running 12.4.6.
I got a new phone for Christmas and had no problems sharing subscriptions on iOS 14.3.

Thanks for the great app Greg, wishing you and your family a safe, peaceful and happy new year.

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I’m confused. This is from the Drafts entry in my Macs App Store, clearly states that the pro subscription in-app purchase can not be shared thru Family Sharing. So which is it?

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What version of macOS? Family Sharing is a new feature and requires iOS 14.3 or macOS 11 (Big Sur) or greater.

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Ahh, have not upgraded to Big Sur yet. still on 15.7. Thanks for the insta-response!

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I am not the “family organizer” but I am a parent in a “family”. How can I share my pro subscription with the rest of the family?

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Are you in a group with an organiser? That’s fundamentally the starting point.

The sharing options are set at the group level.

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Right. But if someone other than the organiser buys the sub is it then shareable?

(In my case this is moot, but I think this was the original poster’s problem.)

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According to Apple it does indicate that it is any family member where the designated settings permit.

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That is correct. It should not matter who in the family made a purchase. Family Sharing is extended to the whole family group regardless.

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Re purchase made on different platform and family sharing. I bought the subscription on a Mac and now want to share with my family who do not have Macs, only iOS devices. I have ensured that all the Family Sharing things are ticked. But “Restore purchase” from the Drafts Pro tab does not work on their iOS devices. What should we do?

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Attempted to address this in this section from above, Mac sub cannot be shared directly through iOS App Store:

You could create user accounts for them on your Mac, using their iCloud accounts, and restore the purchases in Drafts logged in as those users. The better option is likely to cancel the Mac subscription and re-subscribe on iOS to allow them to share it directly, however.

I know this is not ideal, but have to work within some of the limitations the App Store(s) have for the moment.

1 Like
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Thank you, that’s helpful.