How to Safely Share Passwords with Family on iOS 17: iOS 17 enables users to share passwords for applications and services with other members of their family or social circle.
You can create a group for your family to securely share passwords from your iCloud Keychain, and other group members can add their own passwords to it.
All credentials shared within a group are stored on the iCloud Keychain and are end-to-end encrypted.
Users are able to establish multiple groups for sharing passwords with distinct sets of members.
How to Safely Share Passwords with Family on iOS 17: What are iOS 17’s Family Passwords?
iOS 17 brings a plethora of new features to iPhones, including the ability to share passwords between mobile devices. This feature enables you to create a shared password group for your family or a group of trusted acquaintances with whom you can share passwords for specific online accounts.
Family Passwords is designed to assist you and your family in storing passwords for shared applications and services. This can include access to streaming services, food delivery applications, or e-commerce websites typically accessed by multiple family members from a single account. The shared passwords and passkeys are encrypted end-to-end and stored on iCloud Keychain.
You can add multiple members to your shared group, and those members can share credentials from their respective devices. You can also construct multiple shared groups to share distinct password sets with distinct groups of individuals. For example, you may wish to share some passwords with family members, others with children, others with your partner, and still others with close acquaintances.
Although members of your group will be able to add and amend their passwords, only you, as the group’s owner, will be able to delete another member’s password, remove a member, or delete the entire group and all of its content.
How to configure iPhone password sharing with family
Before you can set up the ability to share credentials with family members, you must ensure that your iPhone and the devices of other family members are updated to iOS 17 or later. To do so, navigate to Settings > General > Software Update and install iOS 17, if available.
Note: At the time of writing, iOS 17 is only available as a developer preview; therefore, we recommend that you wait for a beta or public release to prevent software issues.
Open the Settings application on your iPhone to configure password sharing with your family.
Scroll down within Settings and select Passwords.
You will now be prompted to verify your identity with Face ID or Touch ID.
You will then be taken to the Passwords screen, where the Family Passwords banner may appear near the top. To configure this function, tap Get Started.
Apple explains the new feature on the “Shared Passwords and Passkeys” screen, which appears now. To continue with the installation, tap Continue at the bottom.
When you do so, you’ll be prompted to input a name for your password-sharing group under “Group Name” on the New Shared Group screen.
After entering the group’s name, you can invite members by selecting Add People under “Group Members”.
In the Add People screen that appears, enter the name of the contact you wish to add to this group for password sharing, and then select the contact from the list of results.
You can select multiple contacts to add them to this group, and when you’re finished entering their names in the “To:” portion, tap Add in the upper-right corner.
Once you’ve added all of the required group members, their names will appear in the “Group Members” section. Tap Create in the upper-right corner to validate your action.
On the subsequent screen, you will be prompted to select the credentials and passkeys from your account that you wish to add to this group.
To select accounts for which credentials are to be moved, tap the accounts to highlight them with a blue checkmark. After selecting the accounts and credentials you’re willing to share with your group, tap Move in the upper right corner.
Your group of family passwords will now be created, as displayed on this screen.
How to access and modify your family or shared password group
Once you’ve set up and created a shared group to share credentials with your family, you can always access it and modify its settings. Open the Settings app on your iOS device to access your shared password group.
Scroll down within Settings and select Passwords.
You will now be prompted to verify your identity with Face ID or Touch ID.
After completing these steps, you will access the Passwords screen. Tap on the group you created earlier to access it.
On the subsequent screen, it will be simple to view and edit the group’s content.
A Guide to iPhone iOS 17 Feature and Usage: Unveiling Predictions Inline
How to Safely Share Passwords with Family on iOS 17: Add new credentials to a group that is shared
If you had only added a few passwords to your family passwords group during setup, but you wish to share additional passwords from your account with other members of the group, you can do so by opening your family group in Settings.
Once your family group interface has loaded, tap the plus sign in the upper right corner.
Select Move credentials to Group from the menu that appears if you wish to share existing credentials from your account with the shared group.
You’ll see a list of all the accounts whose passwords you’ve stored on your iPhone and iCloud Keychain on the subsequent screen. Tap the accounts whose credentials you wish to share with your family, then tap Move in the upper right corner.
When you do so, certain accounts will become visible to you and other members within the password-sharing group.
Add more family members to your password group
There is still a method to add additional members to your family group if you forgot to include them during the initial setup process. To do so, access the family passwords section of Settings.
Tap Manage when the family group interface appears.
Under “Group Members” on the resulting Family interface, select Add People.
You must now enter the names of the contacts you wish to add to this group in the “To:” section of the “Add People” interface. Tap the contact you wish to add to your group after typing it.
Once you’ve chosen the individuals you wish to add to your family passwords group, tap Add in the upper-right corner.
Tap Add in the prompt that appears on the screen to validate your action.
On the Notify person> screen, Apple will describe the level of access the newly added person will have within the group. To continue sending an invitation, select Notify via Messages.
iOS will then prepare a message to be sent to the selected recipient to inform them of your invitation. Tap the up arrow within the New iMessage interface to confirm this invitation.
The newly introduced member will join your family passwords group once they accept your invitation.
How to Safely Share Passwords with Family on iOS 17: Delete shared credentials in a group
If you have shared a number of passwords with your group but no longer wish to do so, you can remove these passwords from the shared group. When you delete credentials from your family group, others in the group will no longer be able to access them in the same manner as before; however, they can still use them if they had manually saved them on their devices.
To delete credentials shared within a family group, you must first access your family passwords group within the Settings menu.
When the family group screen appears, tap Edit in the upper right-hand corner.
Tap on the credentials you wish to remove from this group to select them. When you select the credentials you wish to delete, a blue tick mark will appear to the left of them. After selecting the unwanted credentials, tap the Delete button in the upper-left corner.
The specified passwords will be removed from the family group.
Delete a group of shared credentials
You can delete your family password group at any time if you determine you no longer wish to share your passwords with members of your family or close circle of friends. When you delete your family group, the passwords and passkeys you added to it will be moved to the My Passwords section of your iCloud account. Additionally, you will loose access to all passwords shared by other group members.
To delete a group of family passwords, navigate to Settings > Passwords.
Tap Manage on the family group interface that appears.
Tap on Delete Group within the Family interface.
You will now see a confirmation prompt for your action. To continue, tap Delete.
The family group will no longer exist for you and the other former members.
I cannot locate the iOS Family Passwords configuration guide. How do I correct it?
You can only set up password sharing for your family if all of your iPhones are running iOS 17. If you’ve already installed iOS 17 on your iPhone, the Family Passwords banner should appear when you access the Passwords screen within Settings.
On the Passwords screen, you can still create a family group for password sharing if it is not visible. To do so, touch the plus sign in the upper-right corner.
Select New Shared Group from the drop-down menu that appears.
You can now continue configuring your family passwords group from the Shared Passwords and Passkeys interface.
That’s all you need to know to securely share credentials with family members on iOS 17.
