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Family Sharing

All Panels Premium purchases, both Panels+ subscriptions and one-time Panels 3 purchases, support Family Sharing. When one person in your family group buys Panels Premium, up to five other family members can use it on their own devices at no extra cost.

How it works​

Family Sharing is a feature built and run by Apple, not by Panels. When a family member opens Panels, the app asks Apple whether that person's Apple Account can use Premium. If Apple says yes, Panels unlocks it.

That means:

  • Your family group, who is in it, and what each person shares are all handled in your Apple Account settings.
  • We can't see or change your family group, and we can't manually share a purchase with another account.
  • If Apple doesn't pass a shared purchase on to a family member, Panels has no way to tell that the purchase exists.
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Family Sharing works fine for most families. When it doesn't, the cause is almost always a setting in the family group or a glitch on Apple's side. The steps below fix most cases.

Before you start​

For a shared purchase to show up, all of the following must be true:

  1. Everyone is in the same Family Sharing group.
  2. Purchase Sharing is turned on for the group, and Share My Purchases is on for both the person who bought Panels and the person who wants to use it. Go to Settings → Family → Purchase Sharing (Apple's guide).
  3. If you have a Panels+ subscription, sharing is turned on for that subscription. The person who subscribed goes to Settings → [their name] → Subscriptions, taps Panels, and turns on Share with Family.
  4. Everyone uses the same Apple Account for purchases as for Family Sharing (see below).
  5. The person who bought Panels hasn't hidden it from their purchases (see below).

Common issues and how to fix them​

Try these in order. After each step, open Panels on the family member's device and restore purchases.

Panels is hidden in the buyer's purchases​

This one is easy to miss. If the person who bought Panels ever hid it in the App Store, their family can't see it and Premium isn't shared with anyone. Hiding an app doesn't remove it from the buyer's device, so they may not notice anything is wrong.

Fix: The person who bought Panels should unhide it:

  1. Open the App Store and tap their profile picture.
  2. Tap their name, then Hidden Purchases.
  3. Find Panels and tap Unhide.

More details: Hide and unhide apps in your App Store purchase list.

A different Apple Account is used for purchases​

Your device can be signed in to one Apple Account for iCloud and a different one for App Store purchases. Family Sharing only works when the account used for purchases matches the account in the family group.

Fix: On the family member's device (and on the buyer's device):

  1. Go to Settings → Family and tap your name. Note which Apple Account is shown.
  2. Tap Purchases → Apple Account for Purchases and make sure it's the same account. If you buy things with a second account, choose Share using secondary Apple Account.

Purchase Sharing or subscription sharing is turned off​

If Share My Purchases is off for either the buyer or the family member, one-time purchases like Panels 3 won't be shared. If Share with Family is off for a Panels+ subscription, the subscription won't be shared.

Fix: Check steps 2 and 3 in Before you start on both devices.

Everything looks right, but it still doesn't work​

Sometimes the family group gets stuck even when every setting is right. These steps usually get it working again:

  1. Sign out of Media & Purchases and sign back in. On the family member's device, go to Settings → [your name] → Media & Purchases → Sign Out, then sign in again with the Apple Account used for Family Sharing.
  2. Remove the family member from the group and invite them again. The family organizer goes to Settings → Family, taps the member, and taps Remove [name] from Family. Then they send a new invitation. This fixes many cases where nothing else works.
  3. Open Panels on the family member's device and restore purchases.
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Apple can limit how often someone can join a new family group. Removing a member and inviting them back into the same group is usually fine, but read the prompts carefully before you confirm.

See also: If you can't find your family's shared apps and content.

Still not working?​

If you've tried everything above and Premium still isn't shared, please contact Apple Support. Family Sharing runs entirely on Apple's servers, and only Apple has the tools to check what's going on with your family group.

If you have questions about your Panels purchase itself, you can always reach us at support@panels.app.