Many years ago, I managed to successfully change my Apple ID email address, and it was an extremely convoluted process. I basically had to sign OUT of FaceTime, Messages, Home Sharing, the App Store, iCloud on every single device including my Mac, and then change the email at appleid.apple.com, then sign back in to everything again. Since that time, I now also have an Apple Watch, Apple TV, and HomePod!
I’m now at a point where the email address I have linked as my appleid is again old and I no longer wish to continue using it if I can help it. I was wondering if it is still as much of a pain to change the Apple ID email or if they have managed to streamline the process in any way?! Do app subscriptions carry over an AppleID change? My entire life is basically in iCloud and I really don’t want to mess it up…
Great question. My wife tried to do this one time and for some reason I remember her old email account being still tied to her iCloud account. It was a pain in the butt.
To clarify: is the AppleID name the same address as your email address?
For example, my AppleID is an Apple-domain mac.com address I dropped years ago [and was not later repurposed by Apple] but my email address for my account is different, and so are my current iCloud/.me addresses. So, you can use ANY address as your AppleID even if it’s currently defunct, but you can have it associated with a real address fairly trivially.
Save yourself the hassle for future Apple ID changes. Create an iCloud email address.
Even if you don’t want to use it for email. At least you will always recognize it as the one to use for all your Apple services.
Pro tip: start using the @iCloud.com email and the 3 Alias addresses that come with it. It’s free and works great. Apple respects and protects your privacy.
I recently I “woke up” an old Apple ID, one which was identified by a me.com address I had not used for years. Part of the wake up process required me to enable 2FA. I believe it was part of that process (but not before I signed in on every device I owned ) Apple required me to change the Apple ID to an email address I actually owned. I didn’t have to sign out of anything; eventually everything will ping you, asking you to sign back in, which you do and then things seem to be fine.
) Apple required me to change the Apple ID to an email address I actually owned. I didn’t have to sign out of anything; eventually everything will ping you, asking you to sign back in, which you do and then things seem to be fine.