Networked Computers - Email Icon Appears on Both Computers But Only Open on One.

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Networked Computers - Email Icon Appears on Both Computers But Only Open on One.

Strange issue and hard to title this issue - Some background info - 2015 MacBook Pro and 2018 MacMini on a local network both with OS X 10.15.6 recently upgraded from 10.15.5. One Apple ID for our household. Each Mac device has Apple Mail accounts from gmail - wife with her separate Gmail email address and mine with a Gmail address as well. Mail preferences show each to be "imap". We store some things on iCloud Drive but not sure if the iCloud has anything to do with the following problem.

When either of us on our separate computers (both awake and running) open Mail and selects the "Compose New Mail" button to draft an email, an icon appears as soon as "Compose New Mail" is selected at the top of the Dock on the OTHER person's computer. Moreover, if the other person clicks on that icon on his/her dock, the draft email then is moved to the person's computer who clicked on that icon at the top of the dock - as if one is hijacking the other person's draft email. This was not an issue until recently. I don't know if there is a bug in the latest OS X release or if something I have configured in iCloud is the culprit.

Mac mini, macOS 10.15

Posted on Jul 18, 2020 5:04 PM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

MrHoffman

Community+ 2024

Level 10

124,669 points

Jul 18, 2020 10:04 PM in response to Jim F

Sharing an Apple ID across users usually doesn’t end well.

Unique Apple IDs per person, and Family Sharing are preferred.

Family Sharing - Apple

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Answer 2

Old Toad

Level 10

210,301 points

Jul 19, 2020 10:29 AM in response to Jim F

Also be aware that the iCloud Drive is only a syncing service so that the same documents will by available on all devices signed into the same Apple ID with iClloud Drive enabled. If a document is deleted from one device it will be deleted from all devices and the iCloud Drive. It's not and off computer storage system.

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Answer 3

Jim F Author

Level 1

34 points

Jul 19, 2020 7:30 AM in response to MrHoffman

Thank you Barney and Mr. Hoffman for your quick responses. Was unaware that one Apple ID caused the problem I outlined since the problem I noted never was an issue until I upgraded our systems to 10.15.6. We have enjoyed the ability to both access the iCloud Account associated with my Apple ID and to have just one set of Safari bookmarks.

The important part of all of this is that we both have access to the iCloud Drive which has encrypted estate documents stored (we are both getting up in years) for the convenience and benefit of my son who is estate executor and who lives 2,000 miles from us). So, if two Apple IDs solves the issue I outlined in my first post, my concern is whether two individuals, each with separate Apple IDs, can access one. iCloud Drive and share Safari Bookmarks? Another way of asking this is what network functionality do we lose if we each have different Apple IDs?

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Answer 4

Jul 19, 2020 8:44 AM in response to Jim F

If you think sharing an Apple ID works, you probably don’t have two-factor authentication enabled. Enabling two-factor is a good idea as it makes wresting control of your Apple ID somewhat more difficult, but two-factor really doesn’t work well with shared Apple IDs as the verification codes can get routed... surprisingly.

Please follow the blue-text Family Sharing link from earlier for info on what Family Sharing provides, and yes, shared iCloud storage can be configured as part of that.

I’d download all the iCloud file data locally for backup, but that’s a general recommendation.

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Answer 5

Jim F Author

Level 1

34 points

Jul 19, 2020 10:10 AM in response to MrHoffman

Thanks. Working on setting up the Family Sharing and her separate Apple ID now. And yes, we both have two-factor identification. I'll report back on how this project progresses. Thanks again for your assistance so far.

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