How to Set Up and Share Apple Fitness+ With Users in Your Apple Family

Jun 09, 2023

If you want your family to use Apple Fitness+, you can set each of them up with the program.

Apple’s subscription service Fitness+ is a brilliant way for everyone to get moving and stay active, no matter what age or fitness level. If you’re a subscriber, you can share the benefits of Apple Fitness+ with up to five users in your Apple Family plan.

Here’s how to set up and share Apple Fitness+ with your Apple family.

There’s so much included in Apple Fitness+ that you’ll never be able to exhaust its catalog, even if your entire family works out every day. With 11 workout types to support your physical and mental health, and fresh content being added constantly, you can always find a new way to get moving and close those Apple Activity Rings each day.

However, the service isn’t cheap to subscribe to, whether you pay for the standalone Apple Fitness+ service or include it in the Apple One plan. So if you decide to invest, why not ensure you’re getting your money’s worth by sharing it with your family?

To allow others to share the benefits of exercising with Apple Fitness+ and to share workouts and set challenges for each other, you’ll first need to set up Apple Family Sharing and then Apple Fitness+.

Before you share your Apple Fitness+ subscription, the first step is to set up Apple Family Sharing. This will allow you to connect up to six different family accounts.

Doing so will allow you to share a range of Apple services, including Apple Music, Apple Arcade, and iCloud storage. Your group can also share App Store purchases and a family photo album.

Here’s what you need to know about how to use Apple Family Sharing.

If you’ve subscribed to the Apple One Premier Plan, Fitness+ is one of the six Apple services your family members can access at no further cost. Apple Fitness+ is not included in the regular Apple One Family plan.

However, if anyone in an Apple Family Sharing group upgrades or subscribes separately to Apple Fitness+, everyone within that group can benefit from the service.

Once you’ve subscribed to Apple One Premier Plan or Apple Fitness+, check that you’ve enabled Share with Family.

On your Apple device, go to Settings > Apple ID > Family Sharing to check that everyone is registered as part of the Family Sharing group. Select Subscriptions and check that Apple Fitness+ shows up on the list of shared subscriptions.

You can also access this information by going to Settings > Family from the main menu.

Once you’ve set up access, each member of your family group can access Apple Fitness+ on their iPhone, iPad, or Apple TV as long as they own an Apple Watch Series 3 or later.

If they don’t own an Apple Watch, they can still use Apple Fitness+ using a device that runs iOS 16.1 or later. Here’s how they can enjoy Apple Fitness+ using just an iPhone.

If they’ve signed in using the Apple ID you’ve added to the Apple Family Sharing plan, then Apple Fitness+ will be available to use. All they need to do is go to the Fitness app and look for the Fitness+ tab at the bottom center. Then it’s time for everyone to get moving! Learn how to make the most of your Apple Fitness+ Subscription.

Every member of the family group can work out at the same time using their separate devices. What’s frustrating for members of the same household is that, at the time of writing, you can’t do an Apple Fitness+ workout with other family members using just one device. So, if you’re standing in the same room and working out using an Apple TV, it will only record the fitness data of the person who used their Apple ID to sign in and start that workout.

There is a workaround: the other person can simply manually record their exercise on their Apple Watch or manually add their workout to Apple Fitness to record their activity. Hopefully, in future updates, Apple will enable multiple Apple ID sign-ins to fix this issue.

You can still have a lot of fun working out together, though. Try Apple’s SharePlay feature that allows you to invite up to 32 people to exercise together in Group Workouts.

Select a program, then tap the three white dots icon at the top right corner. This will reveal the SharePlay button. Use this to invite family members via invitation, message, or FaceTime call. Then hit Let’s Begin and take on an Apple Fitness+ Group Workout together.

If you are the family organizer, the options if you want to stop sharing Apple Fitness+ with your family sharing group are as follows:

If you’re in the Apple One Premier Plan, your iCloud storage is the only element of your subscription you can stop sharing. Everything else, including Apple Fitness+, is automatically shared with all members.

If you’re not the family organizer, simply leave your family group to remove access to Apple Fitness+.

Now that you know how to easily set up and share your Apple Fitness+ subscription with your Apple Family, everyone can benefit from this brilliant exercise service. Don’t forget to share your favorite workouts with your loved ones and challenge each other to close those Activity Rings daily. Hopefully, you’ll all encourage each other to enjoy the benefits of a more active lifestyle.

It’s great to see that Apple is making so many of its excellent services into a family affair.

Angela writes about wellness at MakeUseOf. After many years as a high school teacher, she gained Diplomas in Copywriting, Proofreading and Editing, and has been working as a professional freelance writer for over three years. She loves all forms of technology, particularly all things Apple and Kindle. When not writing, she’s reading, watching football, or walking in nature with her dog Teddy.