Last Updated: Nov. 24, 2014 

Family Sharing can be a terrific feature of owning an iPhone or iPod touch—it makes it easy for families to share their purchases at the iTunes Store and App Store and allows them to do so without having to make those purchase a second time. Making things easier and saving money? Hard to beat that.

But sometimes you'll want to remove a family member from your Family Sharing setup.

In that case, follow these simple steps to reduce the number of people you're sharing your purchases with:

1. Tap the Settings app to open it
2. Scroll down to the iCloud menu and tap it
3. Tap the Family menu
4. Find the family member you want to remove from Family Sharing and tap their name
5. On screen with their information, tap the Remove button
6. A pop-up window appears that asks you to either tap Remove to confirm the removal or Cancel if you've changed your mind. Tap the choice you want
7. After the person is removed, you'll be returned to the main Family Sharing screen and will see that they are gone.

NOTE: Following these steps will just remove that person from Family Sharing, not affect their Apple ID or iTunes/App Store purchases. 

What Happens to Shared Content?

You've succeeded in removing a user from Family Sharing, but what happens to the content they shared with you and you shared with them? The answer to that is complex: in some cases the content is no longer accessible, in others it still is.

Content from the iTunes & App Stores
DRM-protected content, like any music, movies, TV shows, and apps purchased from the iTunes and App Stores, stop working.

Whether that's content that the user you've removed got from you and other people in your family, or that you got from them, it's not usable.

This is because the ability to share someone else's purchases depends on being linked together by Family Sharing, when you break that link, you also lose the ability to share.

But that doesn't mean the content entirely disappears. Instead, the content still shows up; you'll just need to purchase it yourself in order to enjoy it. Any in-app purchases you make stay with your account, but you'll need to download or purchase the app they're from in order to restore them to your app.    

 

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