I am looking at purchasing the new iMac 24 inch, my first Mac computer. I will be setting it up for my wife and myself. I will set up my account when setting up iMac for the first time. After watching your tutorials I know how to set my wife’s user account up, but, I do not understand where or how to to link that user account up with her Apple ID. Of course we have separate Apple id’s as we both have phones.
I understand it is best practice that we both have are own accounts and that both accounts are linked to there own Apple ID. Correct me if I am wrong.
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Bill
Yes, this is definitely how you should do it. You should each have your own Mac user account. Then your account should use your Apple ID, and her account should use her Apple ID.
How to do this is obvious once you try. When you set up the Mac you will be asked to create the initial user account. In addition to picking a name and so on, you will be asked to sign in with your Apple ID for iCloud. So that takes care of your first account.
Then you go into System Preferences, Users & Groups, and create the second account.
When you switch to that second account, you can go into System Preferences and you'll see that there is no Apple ID associated with it. Just select Apple ID and sign in with the second account.
That's all there is to it. The first account is signed into the first Apple ID and the second account is signed into the second Apple ID. Since each Mac account is separate, all settings are separate including which Apple ID is being used.
Thanks Gary. I am ready to purchase the iMac 24 inch. Just not sure if I should wait till IOS "Monterey" comes pre installed on iMac or buy now (right or wrong it seems better than installing new IOS over existing IOS. Any thoughts?
William: It makes no difference. The hardware is the same. Monterey won't be here until probably October. Get it when you are ready to get it. There is always a "next upgrade" right around the corner.
I have a separate but related question having to do with managing Photos libraries across the two separate Apple IDs my wife and I have. We would like to consolidate and share our photos, but I know sharing a single library is not possible. What is the easiest, least time-consuming work around? I already keep my photos on an external drive so I have that available. Thanks for all your helpful content! John
John: Depending on how many photos you want to share, you can just create shared iCloud Photo albums. You share what you want with her, and she with you. But it isn't a good solution and I wish Apple would allow Family Sharing of iCloud photos.
Once you have separate accounts, you can share folders using iCloud Shared Folders feature found in the File menu. Keeping a shared folder of things like household finances or important documents makes file management easier. This has been very useful for my wife and me when we needed to gather and share files for a home refinance.
Gary did a tutorial on iCloud sharing: https://macmost.com/how-to-share-files-using-icloud.html