I have an iCloud/Apple ID account with an @icloud email address I created when I first started using Apple products. I know I can make aliases for it but I’m curious if it’s possible to just get a new @icloud email address and use that instead of the one I created when I set up iCloud.
This isn’t urgent nor do it I need this - just curious!
Yes… you can create a new stand alone iCloud.com address that isn’t tied to your existing iCloud address.
I just went searching for how to do this and I can’t find a way. If you have a me.com or a mac.com address then you get an icloud.com address (but it seems like a type of alias too). Could you either share how this is done or link to the Knowledge Base article?
If you created an iCloud account before September 19, 2012, or moved to iCloud with an active MobileMe account before August 1, 2012, you have both @me.com and @icloud.com email addresses. After that date it’s just iCloud.com
My @me.com address is the same as my @icloud.com address - I was basically given both from the beginning.
If you had a working @mac.com email address as of July 9, 2008, kept your MobileMe account active, and moved to iCloud before August 1, 2012, you can use @icloud.com, @me.com, and @mac.com email addresses with your iCloud account.
Back when Apple was giving out iTools (later renamed MobileMe) email addresses at mac.com in the 90s I made that address my AppleID, and when I declined to pay for the privilege of having that email address when Apple started charging under MobileMe, I lost the ability to use the address … but since it was my AppleID Apple was unable to reallocate it to someone else. So today I have a 3-letter mac.com AppleID, but the email addresses are set to me.com and icloud.com
And this is totally separate from email aliases under icloud.com
I have an Apple ID that’s just my 5 letter nickname, without any @me.com and @icloud.com. I can still login to App Store and purchase apps and movies with it. How’s that for being old? Lol
Yes, certainly. However, I think the OP is wondering about new accounts.
Knowledge base bell
I believe the OP is looking for a method that doesn’t involve creating a new Apple ID.
As far as I know the only way to do this is via the new apple id version.
If add an email address to your mac or iphone it will create a new apple id, you can immediately change this into an icloud address, in the same interface, so your apple-id would be your icloud address.
sorry, screenshot in Dutch, it says “this will be your new Apple ID”
I followed the same path and also have a xxxx@mac.com ID but lost the functioning mac.com email address when MobileMe was rubbish but required payment. When I read your post my hopes rose that you had figured out a way to get it back but having reread it I realise that this is not the case 
.
Really, apple IDs are a mess
