Google introduces Family Sharing, an easy way to share Calenders, Notes, Photos and more with your Family Group

Google has been slowly enhancing their family sharing features with services like Google Play Music and now YouTube Red having a family plan option, as well as sharing of most app, book, music and movie/TV purchases in Google Play being shared across your family group. Today Google announced family group on Google as their all in one place to manage these services, as well as extending the functionality of the family group into more Google Services.

From today Google is rolling out new family sharing features to Google Calendar, Google Keep, Google Photos and YouTube TV (which isn’t available in Australia or even most of the USA). First things first, to use any of these features you need to set up a family account, if you haven’t head on over here and do so. How does the new features work? Let’s take a quick look at each service.

Google Calendar

When making an appointment in Google Calendar on either the Web or the mobile apps (Android or iOS) once you’ve created a family group Google is rolling out a new Calendar entry to they whole family labelled “Family”. When creating the calendar entry just select the correct calendar like any other entry and it will be shared with everyone in the group.

Of course, each individual member will be able to customise notifications and if the calendar displays on their devices. This isn’t live for use yet, but with other features already live it should be rolling out soon.

Google Keep

Google Keep has long had the ability to share notes, lists and whatever you store in there. Today Google has added the family group as another sharing intent. To share with the family group click the collaborate button and then select Family group and you’re done.

Keep notes shared with the family group will be denoted by the little house with a heart inside it. The feature isn’t live for us on Android yet but is accessible from the web.

Google Photos

Just like with Keep, Google photos now also has a Family Group sharing intent. When sharing a photo just select the Family Group and you’re done. We expect that when the new sharing features announced at Google I/O launch that the family group will also be selectable for automatic library sharing.

The feature is live for us now on Android and should be on the web soon.

YouTube TV

I’m having a hard time summoning any level of care for this one. YouTube TV feels suspiciously like one of those things we’ll never see outside the USA, I’d love to be wrong. For the lucky few in the USA who can get it, now the monthly $35USD fee includes not just one Cloud DVR, it includes a Cloud DVR for every member of your family. The service doesn’t offer sharing of saved videos between family members, but I suspect that many requests for this will be incoming.

This is on one hand a logical move for Google extending a simply sharing intent to the Family Group. However, I wonder if this heralds something larger in the wings. With the recent announcement of Family Link (USA only of course) and the Google Assistant becoming more ubiquitous there just may be some functionality overlap there.

In the mean time head on over and set up your family account, why not it’s free!