Merging iCloud accounts (for free)

[B74A]

A few iOS's ago, I (for some reason) made a new iCloud account, to use for that iOS (and my iPhone). Since then, the iCloud account on both my iPhones (5 and 5S) as well as iPad 2, are using this new iCloud account.

My Macbook is still using the old one, and iTunes account (on all devices, including the iOS devices), is still the old one. The old one is also my primary email address - it's so old, it has the @mac.com ending.

Anyway, now that Notes suddenly can't use more than one iCloud account, I can't sync notes between my Mac and iOS devices any more. So the intention is to move all the new iCloud stuff to the old one. Fortunately, this is mainly notes.

Is there a way to move all notes in one go, from one iCloud account to another? Without clicking each note?

 

[pedrowerner]

Maybe a Workflow Receipt or IFTTT

 

[B74A]

Maybe a Workflow Receipt or IFTTT

Thank you for the quick answer, pedrowerner. I haven't used any of these, are they worth getting into or should I just do it manually?

There is a "Move All" function in Notes - but since I can only sync one account at a time now - I can't move it to where I want (the OTHER account!). Maybe I can move it to "On My Mac" and then ...

 

[jimthing]

Thank you for the quick answer, pedrowerner. I haven't used any of these, are they worth getting into or should I just do it manually?

There is a "Move All" function in Notes - but since I can only sync one account at a time now - I can't move it to where I want (the OTHER account!). Maybe I can move it to "On My Mac" and then ...

^This.
and then... drag them into the new iCloud account on your Mac.

 

[B74A]

Well, I took the time to copy-paste all notes, one by one, as new notes, on my Mac.

Safari had the account with notes (the one I want to discontinue using), while the Mac itself was logged into the old account (and the one I want to keep). Enter note, copy the text, paste to new note on the Mac. It took about 15 minutes or so (I have many notes), but that's done now.

So, I thought, I am only using the notes on the new iCloud account, not calendar, reminders, email and such. So I thought now I am good to change my two iPhones to the original iCloud account (the one I want to use on all devices - except my old iPad 2 which doesn't work with the new iOS!)

Then I realised ... there is more to iCloud than Apple itself. How about all the third party apps, like WhatsApp and many more? WhatsApp, will it blank out if I log out of iCloud on the phone and enter another account?

With all these significant changes from Apple as to how iCloud works, they should offer a merge/move/consolidate service.

Very simple:

"I have two iCloud accounts, please merge them into one"

Thoughts?
[doublepost=1490335333][/doublepost]I don't mind using a paid third party app for a one-off move or merge of iCloud data. I mean not for the money for that app, but I am a bit concerned to let an app like that have my iCloud login info ...
[doublepost=1490335815][/doublepost]Now that I think of it ... pictures. Will those go away as well?

What I need is:

- Notes (already done, using copy-paste)
- Pictures (I don't want to lose the pictures on my phone, will they delete if I log out of one, then into another iCloud?)
- Backups and sync of various third party apps, like CityMapsToGo, WhatsApp and so on

 

[B74A]

I did it, and it seems to work. Photos and WhatsApp still there, and I now got 50GB iCloud for the account as well.

 

[Daranx]

As long as everything (photos, WhatsApp chat logs) are stored on your phone (fully downloaded and not optimised for storage), it should upload everything stored on your phone up to the new iCloud account.

I had to switch Apple IDs and had a MASSIVE photo library to upload to the new account. Had to download full images/videos to my Mac, log out of the old account then into the new one and it automatically uploaded all photos to the new account (took around 3 weeks!).

Up to that point, I was considering using a 3rd party program called PowerPhotos to copy the photos to a new library, but then I would have lost a lot of data (edited photos, burst shots, Live Photos etc), but luckily tried this method and it all worked and preserved all my data.

 

[B74A]

It all seems to be working fine - fortunately. But I am a bit annoyed that Apple just changed it (can't use two notes accounts on the same device, like before). And not even that - they didn't really warn about it, no chance to move it over first before just killing off the old notes. I was so fortunate my old iPad 2 was on another iOS, and all my notes was still there.