One of the nice features of the App Store and the Family Sharing feature is that any app that you purchase can also be used, at no additional charge, by other family members. It won’t surprise you to learn that I purchase more apps than the other members of my family, but I don’t purchase every app. For example, my wife is very organized and has made good use of apps that help you to stay organized. Her current app is choice is the Things app, and after watching her use the app, I decided to start using it to keep track of my own tasks.
This past Monday morning, I arrived at the office and tapped the Things app, expecting it to launch so that I could select a task to work on first. Instead, I saw an error message: “This app is no longer shared with you. To use it you must buy it from the App Store.” After a split second of wondering if I had done something wrong to cause my wife to stop sharing an app with me, I decided that this must be some sort of error and researched how to fix it. I found a solution, and I also picked up some additional knowledge that might be useful in other situations.
[UPDATE 5/24/20: It looks like recent updates to a number of apps, such as WhatsApp and Facebook, have triggered this problem. Fortunately, this solution still works.]
Here is the fix that worked for me. Open the Settings app, tap General and then tap iPhone Storage. You will see all of your apps listed, sorted by how much space each app takes. Tap on the app at issue and then select Offload App. This allows you to remove the app from your iPhone but it retains all of your documents and data associated with the app.
[UPDATE 10/1/2019: I got the same error after installing iOS 13 on my iPhone, and this same fix still works. Note that you don’t have to go to the App Store to look for a fresh copy of the app. I found that the app icon was still on my iPhone home screen even after I unloaded it, but it had a symbol next to it indicating that I needed to download a copy from the App Store. All that I had to do was tap the app icon on the home screen and my iPhone automatically downloaded a fresh copy for me, and in the process realized that i was entitled to use the app. It was all very simple.]
I’ve had times in the past when an app has caused me problems, and as a fix I have deleted the app and downloaded a new copy. But I’ve never really focused before on this Offload App feature, which is a better way to remove an app because you retain your user data. Hopefully it will be a while before I next need to remove an app causing problems, but when I do, I’ll certainly take advantage of the Offload App feature.
And finally, if your iPhone or iPad is running short on space, you can always use the Offload App feature for its intended purpose — freeing some space while retaining the ability to restore a deleted app in the future.
Nice tip,Jeff. Thanks.
More importantly, glad to know that your wife did not freeze you out of the app. 😀
Thanks for the post I tried this for minecraft but it didn’t work :(.
Did doing this cause u to lose all ur minecraft data?I’m having the same issue with opening minecraft and I’m about to try this but don’t want to risk losing all my world’s and hard work..
Nice tip, Jeff-worked for me too👍 In the past, I have also uninstalled and reinstall the app, but using offloading keeps all the data, inclusive login ones.
Besides, I agree also withthe comment of Jay 😀
Thanks for the tip, this worked for me too.
Thank you so much! What an easy fix and I didn’t need to lose any of my BigOven saved recipes!
This didn’t work for me… /:
It worked just for 1 or 2 days. After this the app will stop launch with same error.
Hi guys,
After many many work-around that didn’t worked for me and my gf i was finally able to solve this for her iPad and iPhone.
What I did was,
1. Remove the apps in which you have problems.
2. Logout from her account on the iPad/iPhone on Settings > Her name, scroll down > Sign out (This will take some time if you have a lot of data or if you select ON all the options).
3. Login with my account (Wait for the signing process to end).
4. Go to the App Store, validate that is your Account, and download one of the Paid apps.
5. Open the App (It should open with no issues, DO NOT go through the set-up process of the App, as it probably will sync with you iCloud, which is not what we want, we are just doing this to be able to download, install and open the app with no errors).
6. Logout from your account on her device (same as step 2, but now it should be your name the one that appears).
7. Login with her Account (wait for the sync process to end).
8. Go to the App Store and download any other Paid app you want, the already download should work and the new installed with her Account should work too.
Notes:
1. You can Validate which Account is being use by the App Store going to Settings > iTunes & App Store (NO the option inside your/her name).
2. Just after step 7. We tried opening the already downloaded app on step 4. With her Account and it worked. After this we try installing some other paid apps (step 8).
3. We’re using iOS/iPadOS 13 Beta 7; I don’t think this issue is related with the iOS/iPadOS version.
Worked like a charm. Thanks 👍🏻
Great, thank you, such an easy fix, it worked perfectly.
Yea, easy fix to frustrating problem. Many thanks
So I have got the a meesage now on three apps that I use daily first messenger, then IG and now FB in the last three weeks – does anyone know why this is happening?? I was the one who downloaded and shared the apps and they are on my husbands phone and our iPad – would it have anything to do with the iPad I wonder?
Same me too!
Just did this for my daughters minecraft and it worked a treat 👍🏻
It worked! Thanks for this tip. I received this message on my most important app, one that keeps all of my passwords. One I uninstalled and reinstalled the app, all of my data was there. Whew! Like Sheila said, I too am wondering why this is happening. The password app I mentioned was one that I purchased many years ago.
Great tip. Worked for me! Thank you.
Solved my issue. Thanks
Oh my gosh this worked! I’ve been blocked out of my fitness app for two weeks now. Thank you!!!!
FYI I did this for Minecraft on my son’s iPad and it worked perfectly. Thanks very much!
Thanks! It works!
Thank you! Solved my issue with Audible on my iPhone.
Thanks!
Worked like a charm thank you!!!
Hi Jeremy,
Thank you so much for this post. After tried many ways and failed. Following the steps in your post fixed the issue on my son’s iPhone, so I could download the apps bought under my AppleID. Many thanks.
It is incredible that the “no longer shared with you” problem seems to exist at least since 2015 and Apple did not fix it. Fortunately, the problem hit me for the first time a few weeks ago. And now again after the 12.4.6 update (still with iPhone 6) and the App SimpleumSafe. In the past I always deleted the App and restored the data afterwards. Unfortunately, this is not a good idea if you have no access to your backup at the moment, but you need a password or other protected information in SimpleumSafe, which is not shared any longer and you have to delete it to reinstall the shared version. Today I found that in my case booting the iPhone destroys Family Sharing in this case again and again. The App is still shown as shared in the App Store but you cannot open it or reinstall it.
Fortunately, today I found your Blog.
Your hint to offload the App and then reload it again really is the utmost solution! It is fast and works like a charm. And the encrypted and protected data still exist, not necessary to have access to the backup or sync with another computer. Thank you!!!!
I also just encountered this bug again yesterday, after I updated to iOS 13.4. Ugh. Fortunately, this same fix still works.
-Jeff
Thanks a lot for posting this fix! With iOS 13.5 offloading app (in my case WhatsApp) worked too.👍🏻
thank you so much! it really helped. god bless u
Hi. Just to confirm. This procedure did work for me. Thanks a lot Jeff!!!
iPhone 7 – iOS 13.3.1 – whatsapp updated to version 2.20.52 suddenly stop worked, after the update, got this error
—
I Was able to recover whatsapp, by offload method
Info was almost 10 GB, so the whole process took more than 12 hours, but final resolution was great. None history lost.
I had the same “this app is no longer shared with you” message for Whatsapp and Facebook, even though i don’t share them. Following the instructions here fix the problem, thank you so much, you saved my social network life!
thank you so much, this helped a lot… i almost deleted my whatsapp (and i didn’t have enough space to backup all my messages, lol)
I’ve this issue with Whatsapp and other apps. I have uninstalled and installed again other apps and that fixed it, but I don’t want to do that to WhatsApp since i will lose conversations, data and stuff (don’t have backup). Will this Offload method do anything to my whatsapp data? Or is it 100% safe?
Thanks Jeff ,
for very clear instructions.
Naren
Portland OR
Thanks! Just used the ‘Offload’ solution to fix the same error with Facebook on my wife’s iPad. The app had updated a few days ago and suspect some glitch in the update.
I haven’t experienced this problem with the WhatsApp app, but when I have used this fix with other apps, it does retain all of my data. And one of the other folks to post a comment above said that all of their conversations were preserved. I cannot promise anything 100%, but if it works the way that it is supposed to work, you won’t lose your conversations when you do this. Good luck!
-Jeff
I think a number of apps are having this glitch right now. Fortunately, there is this solution.
-Jeff
If you look in the comments you’ll see other people seem to have fixed WhatsApp with it. I just used it on Facebook and it worked fine. When you go into Settings and click on WhatsApp, you’ll see two lines under the app – one with the app itself, ‘App Size’, and one with ‘Documents and Data’. When you Offload it’s the App Size one which disappears – the Documents and Data stays there. Plus with WhatsApp, you probably have it set to backup it’s data anyway. Double check that in the app first if you’re concerned.
Thanks so much!!
I had tried everything else, including contacting Apple for help and nothing worked. This did. THANK YOU!!!!
many thanks. I am a cyber numpty and i followed your steps and back in business
Just wanted to say that I got my kid his first phone and we ran into this issue and the solution still works. Glad you posted these details so I didn’t have to figure it out.