If you had changed that to an iCloud email address, you would not have been able to change it back to your AOL email address until very recently. Your only options were changing to another iCloud email. That’s the change.
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Apple ID PSA: you can now change your Apple ID from an iCloud email address to any email address you want!
- Thread starter GigabitEthernet
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Let me try and clarify.
Up until very recently, if you had changed your Apple ID email address from your Gmail address to your iCloud email, you could not then change it back to your Gmail email address ever again. Your only choice was to change it to another iCloud address. That is what has changed.
I’ll give my example. Before I bought an iPhone and before I bought into Macs I signed up for an account in iTunes on Windows. That is the Gmail account.
When I bought my first iPhone during the initial setup process it prompted me to set up an iCloud account. Actually I think it as @me at the time. So I logged into iCloud with the @me account but I had to log into the App Store with my Gmail account and since then that’s what I’ve had to do on new iPhones and my Macs.
Someone once said that I could have just logged into iCloud with my existing App Store account. Maybe that’s true but I don’t remember being given that option since I was prompted to create the @me account. Now I’m stuck logging in with two different accounts. It’s not the end of the world but it would be nice to use just one account for both.
If you never changed it to an iCloud address, you’ve always been able to change it to another email. It’s that if you changed it to an iCloud address in the past, you could never change it to another email (non-iCloud) ever again.
No the email address was not listed in the section you mentioned.
I don’t see how it’s relevant to our discussion, as you’ve always been able to add addresses there. But if your primary address used for the Apple ID was an iCloud address, you could not change it to a non-iCloud address until very recently. That’s the PSA I have raised.
I guess I am saying, I don’t understand the basis of your question. Please clarify.
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Got it. Thanks for clarifying. I see why it would be an issue, although as long as you have an Apple ID, you also have iCloud e-mail, so why not have them both associated together? The iCloud e-mail address is not going away, as long as you continue to have the Apple account.
Whereas, folks do tend to change gmail or other e-mail addresses from time to time.
Just making a comment, not trying to be argumentative. I understand the reason for the original question now, thanks.
In my case, it was annoying as all account notifications would go to the iCloud email and not my Gmail email. I don’t use the iCloud email for anything. Also I had found with Apple Support that information would go there, as well as shipping notifications, etc.
It was my mistake that I “converted” it in the first place but I am glad I have now been able to change it back again.
You haven’t done anything wrong, I’m not trying to pick an argument with anyone I just became a little bit frustrated with one user who I felt was trying to undermine my post. Thanks for the question.
Thanks for clarifying. I also do not use my iCloud email for anything of significance, however I do have my iCloud email set up on my phone and computer so that it is kept up to date. I have different e-mail accounts that I use for different purposes, to keep newsletters and other things separate from more business related correspondence. I can see why you would want to have notifications coming to the email account that you use most frequently or want important messages sent to.
The most you could do is set up Family Sharing with your Gmail address and start using iCloud for all purchases moving forward. You will still retain access to the purchases through Gmail via Family Sharing.
Here is the modified text, for those having trouble understanding what changed.
August:
September:
Which primarily impacted any Apple ID created as a new dotMac, MobileMe, or iCloud account (creating a new Apple ID during setup of those services rather than using a previously created Apple ID).
It does not require the new email to be in your "reachable ats," but it might not let you enter an email that is another Apple ID's reachables. My second gmail is unavailable even though it's never been used as a reachable on my main Apple ID, but I think I used it as a recovery email for one of the handful of MobileMe test accounts I used to have. Or, I might have used that gmail last month in a blocked attempt to create a test iCloud account while I was troubleshooting my keychains. So anyway, expect some bugginess with what emails you can use.
Nothing you do to your second "iCloud" Apple ID will merge it with the first
There's nothing inherently wrong with carefully (backing up everything, bracing yourself for some problems with duplicates) migrating your "iCloud data" ("iCloud data" is not a thing; but meaning all the contacts, bookmarks, photos, etc that iCloud syncs) to a new iCloud account created with the first Apple ID (if one has not been created already; whether an Apple ID is already provisioned for iCloud can be safely tested by trying to add the Apple ID as an iCloud account in syspref > Internet Accounts), and then relegating the second Apple ID to email only. However, these days, creating new iCloud accounts (or provisioning iCloud on existing Apple IDs) requires phone number verification, so it can be difficult to double up even if you have a Mac or iOS device that would otherwise be eligible to create one.
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Have any of those 6 emails ever been used on the AppleID site as recovery email addresses etc?
And keep your purchases? No, you cannot. If you don’t care about purchases, I would just create a new iCloud address and use that for purchases or other account relation events.
This is great news and long overdue.
Can I ask, and apologies if this has already come up, but can I change my Googlemail AppleID to my iCloud email address? I’ve had an iTunes account that long predates iCloud and I hate having to sign in to both AppleID and iCloud as separate accounts!
Can I ask, and apologies if this has already come up, but can I change my Googlemail AppleID to my iCloud email address? I’ve had an iTunes account that long predates iCloud and I hate having to sign in to both AppleID and iCloud as separate accounts!
I've been using non-iCloud address as my Apple ID for as long as I can remember. It was a gmail address way way back, and then at one point I switched it to my 3rd party domain name address.
Its set up quite nicely and have been happy. But I've had aliases on my account/Apple ID (one @me.com and another @iCloud.com). They really serve no function (I guess email service from Apple/iCloud, but I've never used it).
Any idea if its possible to delete these email aliases?
Its set up quite nicely and have been happy. But I've had aliases on my account/Apple ID (one @me.com and another @iCloud.com). They really serve no function (I guess email service from Apple/iCloud, but I've never used it).
Any idea if its possible to delete these email aliases?
Add and manage email aliases for iCloud Mail on iCloud.com
In Mail on iCloud.com, create email aliases to help keep your real email address private.
support.apple.com
That’s half the replies. The answer is no. Cannot merge accounts and nothing you ever do to your second "iCloud" Apple ID will merge it with the first
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I was told by an Apple genius that Apple was working on the ability to merge an iTunes ID created with one email address with an iCloud ID created as an @me.com or @icloud.com. Before knowing any better, I’d made a few purchases from the Apple store/iTunes with both accounts. Now it’s an endless source of frustration when managing a given mobile device and accessing/updating apps at times.
I was told this around 2007. Guess they‘re still working on it.
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