Which Apple ID to use for iBooks?

[danqi]

I have two Apple IDs, one for iTunes and one for iCloud. The reason for this is historical, because there was a time when these were different things and my accounts are that old.

I have never really used iBooks so far (there are only a few random PDFs in there and two book I bought years ago), but I want to start now.

What I am confused about is which Apple ID to use for iBooks. If I use my iCloud ID I won't be able to access the few books that I already have or buy new ones with the account that I usually use to buy stuff. If I use my iTunes ID then I won't be able to use iCloud Drive, correct?

When I opened iBooks on my Mac just now it asked me if I wanted to transfer my books to my iCloud Apple ID and I clicked yes. But only my PDFs are there, not the ones purchased from the iBooks Store.

 

[Alrescha]

I have two Apple IDs, one for iTunes and one for iCloud. The reason for this is historical, because there was a time when these were different things and my accounts are that old.

I do the same, though I think they are *still* different things

What I am confused about is which Apple ID to use for iBooks. If I use my iCloud ID I won't be able to access the few books that I already have or buy new ones with the account that I usually use to buy stuff. If I use my iTunes ID then I won't be able to use iCloud Drive, correct?

iTunes appears to be perfectly happy using my iTunes Store for the store and the system iCloud ID for iCloud. I have never had anything missing.

When I opened iBooks on my Mac just now it asked me if I wanted to transfer my books to my iCloud Apple ID and I clicked yes. But only my PDFs are there, not the ones purchased from the iBooks Store.

I would check the View option in the menu and make sure that Hide iCloud Books is not checked.

A.

 

[danqi]

iBooks, as far as I can tell, has no setting for Apple-ID. It appears to be perfectly happy using the iTunes Store ID for the store and the system iCloud ID for iCloud. I have never had anything missing.

I have signed out of my iCloud Apple ID in iBooks and signed into my iTunes Apple ID. In the system settings for iCloud I am still signed into my iCloud Apple ID and have iBooks checked in the iCloud Drive settings. This seems to work and everything is still there.

Except, it looks like bookmarks and the like don't get synced. Is this correct?

 

[Alrescha]

Except, it looks like bookmarks and the like don't get synced. Is this correct?

As far as I know, everything syncs fine. I do not read a lot in macOS, but my most recently read books on my iPad show up at the top of the Most Recent sort on the Mac. I did have a dim moment when I said iBooks did not have a setting for Apple-ID - it obviously does. I have edited my previous comment appropriately.

A.

 

[HDFan]

As you already know having multiple Apple ID's is a nightmare due the inability to consolidate Apple accounts. In the last week I've spend about 10 hours on the phone with Apple support trying to sort out various issues with my 6+ AppleID's. Mac App store and iTunes Apps weren't updating saying I had the wrong Apple ID. Most of these ID's were created when Apple migrated things (me.com, mac.com) to iCloud so I had no control over their creation.

The solution which they suggested is to use Family Sharing. When updating apps, say in iTunes, you should be prompted for the password of another family member if they are in your family sharing group.

I mention this because on the Apple support documentation iBooks is mentioned as supporting Family Sharing. Haven't tried it. If it works I would suggest standardizing on one ID. Makes life so much simpler.

 

[Alrescha]

As you already know having multiple Apple ID's is a nightmare due the inability to consolidate Apple accounts.

I never found it to be a nightmare; I purposefully chose to use different Apple IDs for the iTunes Store and iCloud. I thought at the time that I might prefer to keep such things separate. In retrospect that may not have been necessary, but I have never once had occasion to regret my decision.

A.

addendum:

I was curious about HDFan's comment about mac/me/icloud, and while I have all those *email* addresses, those do not appear to be real Apple IDs. Although I can sign into any and all of those on the icloud.com page, looking at my account reveals that I am really logged into the original Apple ID that I started with.

 

[960design]

I never found it to be a nightmare; I purposefully chose to use different Apple IDs for the iTunes Store and iCloud. I thought at the time that I might prefer to keep such things separate. In retrospect that may not have been necessary, but I have never once had occasion to regret my decision.

A.

addendum:

I was curious about HDFan's comment about mac/me/icloud, and while I have all those *email* addresses, those do not appear to be real Apple IDs. Although I can sign into any and all of those on the icloud.com page, looking at my account reveals that I am really logged into the original Apple ID that I started with.

Like you I once had separate accounts, but now have consolidated all into one... mostly just for sanity's sack.

 

[Alrescha]

Like you I once had separate accounts, but now have consolidated all into one... mostly just for sanity's sack.

Sorry if I gave that impression. I still have my separate iCloud and iTunes Store accounts. It has never been a problem. Sure, if Apple gave me a magic wand and let me flip all my purchases to the iCloud account I might consider doing that.

A.

 

[rpmurray]

I created my AppleID back in the day when it wasn't required to be in the form of an email address. This has and continues to work for me everywhere except when I try to sign onto my AppleID account, at which point it tells me that it wants me to change it to the form of an email address. I've heard the stories about people who have done this and then lost access to all their previous purchases so I haven't been keen on doing this. Especially since Apple's response is always "Sorry, there's nothing we can do". So just how dangerous is it to change the AppleID? And if I do create it in the form of an email address, does it have to be a valid email address, or can I use something like "AppleC@nBite.Me"?

 

[HDFan]

I never found it to be a nightmare;

Yes, for most people it won't.

I was curious about HDFan's comment about mac/me/icloud, and while I have all those *email* addresses, those do not appear to be real Apple IDs.

The older accounts get aliased to the current AppleID when migrated. One of the things that I had to do to clean up my mess was to log into each non-aliased account and change it's password so it was the same for all of my accounts. Technically you don't have to do this, but it makes things so much simpler if you are prompted for the password for another account.

If you have used multiple accounts over the years to make your purchases with accounts which are not, and cannot, be aliased then you're in for problems. Family sharing seems to be the workaround.

The new version of IOS that they released today things seem a bit clearer. Family sharing is set up with one AppleID as master. So which account are you going to use as your master, your iTunes or iCloud iCloud? Are your books available whichever account you are using for your master account in family sharing? Or maybe you enter in your account password if you try to download a book purchased with a different account?

So maybe it works on your IOS devices. If you have an Apple TV and you want to use your photos as a screen saver via iTunes photo sharing, you have to be logged into the same account you use with iTunes.

And then you have your MAC App Store and iCloud IDs.

I was once reinstalling the OS on my MAC and I was told that the OS wasn't available; try again later. Kept on going for days until I called support. Turns out the message was wrong. I wasn't logging into the App store with the AppleID which was associated with the MAC App store OS download. Once I did that the update went fine. Maddening.

So, sure, you can get by with using two IDs if your setup is simple. But as it gets more complex and you are sharing things between all of these devices it's a lot simpler just to have one ID so you don't run into these obscure issues.

 

[mpainesyd]

Yes, for most people it won't.



The older accounts get aliased to the current AppleID when migrated. One of the things that I had to do to clean up my mess was to log into each non-aliased account and change it's password so it was the same for all of my accounts. Technically you don't have to do this, but it makes things so much simpler if you are prompted for the password for another account.

If you have used multiple accounts over the years to make your purchases with accounts which are not, and cannot, be aliased then you're in for problems. Family sharing seems to be the workaround.

The new version of IOS that they released today things seem a bit clearer. Family sharing is set up with one AppleID as master. So which account are you going to use as your master, your iTunes or iCloud iCloud? Are your books available whichever account you are using for your master account in family sharing? Or maybe you enter in your account password if you try to download a book purchased with a different account?

So maybe it works on your IOS devices. If you have an Apple TV and you want to use your photos as a screen saver via iTunes photo sharing, you have to be logged into the same account you use with iTunes.

And then you have your MAC App Store and iCloud IDs.

I was once reinstalling the OS on my MAC and I was told that the OS wasn't available; try again later. Kept on going for days until I called support. Turns out the message was wrong. I wasn't logging into the App store with the AppleID which was associated with the MAC App store OS download. Once I did that the update went fine. Maddening.

So, sure, you can get by with using two IDs if your setup is simple. But as it gets more complex and you are sharing things between all of these devices it's a lot simpler just to have one ID so you don't run into these obscure issues.

That’s a good,explanation - thank you. My problem is related: I have older apps from the Mac and iTunes that were purchased when my Appleid was a mac.com account. When I sign in with my iCloud.com username those apps won’t update.

Apple support has suggested that I delete the apps from my devices and re-download them. I tried this with an iOS app that I no longer need and it wont download. I will experiment some more but it is not looking promising.

 

[mpainesyd]

See my related post here:
https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...nload-app-store-apps-i.2076327/#post-25201467

 

[Bart Kela]

I created my AppleID back in the day when it wasn't required to be in the form of an email address. This has and continues to work for me everywhere except when I try to sign onto my AppleID account, at which point it tells me that it wants me to change it to the form of an email address. I've heard the stories about people who have done this and then lost access to all their previous purchases so I haven't been keen on doing this. Especially since Apple's response is always "Sorry, there's nothing we can do". So just how dangerous is it to change the AppleID? And if I do create it in the form of an email address, does it have to be a valid email address, or can I use something like "AppleC@nBite.Me"?

I also had a legacy AppleID that was a plain handle, not an e-mail address as a username. At some point I ended up converting the username to an e-mail address.

If I recall correctly, I was having trouble doing something because whatever Apple cloud service I was trying to use didn't recognize the legacy username handle. The exact details of the circumstances have now been forgotten.

I never lost any data/apps/purchases, but some are associated with the legacy AppleID account, and most are associated with a newer AppleID account that started out with an e-mail address.

Periodically, I am prompted to type in the password for the legacy AppleID account (it's a different password) to update an app, but as the years go by, this is less frequent.

If you do create a new account, I believe it needs to be a real address because Apple will require you to validate the account with an e-mail sent to that address before you can use it. That's a pretty typical practice to prevent bots, spammers, etc.