How to manage authorized devices on Apple Music account?

This used to be easy. I too had many old devices hanging around. I and running Mac OS 14.4.1 on iMac M1 2021 and on MacBook Air M3, new iPhone 14 with iOS 17.4.1 an Apple TV and an Apple Watch OS 10.3.1 . I will say the phone upgrade went remarkable well even though have my devices connected so they can unlock each other. Thankfully the guy at the AT&T store knew his stuff and we got through it. However the issue became computer authorizations like this thread discusses. In the old days of iTunes it was pretty easy to authorize and deauthorize computers. I am not sure why it is so difficult now. It was my MacBook Air where the problem surfaced. I was trying to open a book in iBooks and of course it wasn't authorized and I was above my limit. Getting to the authorization management wasn't intuitive. Here is what I did (and even if you have no books, I believe the app will behave the same way. ) I did this from my iMac .

1. Open Books
2. From the Account meant on the title bar , select View my Account
3. Scroll down and select View Account Settings
4. On the next dialog box, Select View Account Settings
5. It will prompt you to Open the App Store. Click OK
6. This will take you to a slightly different page than you would get if you opened Account Settings from with in the App Store app if you opened that directly,
7. You get a single choice here to Deauthorize all. You don't get the old list of authorized computers. I don't own some of those anymore. So I chose Deauthorize All
8. At that point I could go into all my computers that still have and click on the "Authorize the Computer" It worked great and I am back in business.

Doesn't work. The prompt still says I have 5 computers authorized with my account, but only have 4 devices visible on the device list. Icloud needs to fix this. I also do not see the "deauthorize all" option:

I called into Apple Support just now and they were able to reset the authorized device issue for me. Sounds like it was because I had a bunch of super old devices that were once authorized. The system doesn't allow us to delete those on our own. It took her less than 5 minutes to correct for me. From there, I went to "authorize this device" again and it allowed me to do so. I now am using 1 out of the 5 allowed slots.

To get a support call: I use the support iphone app, clicked "Apple TV" and then was able to get support to call me within just a couple of minutes. Seamless process once calling but I do agree I wish there were a simpler solution I could have done on my own.

Hope this helps!

Hi,

please try this:

To deauthorize a computer from your Apple ID account on a Mac, you can follow these steps:

1. Sign in to iCloud.com:

• • Open a web browser and go to iCloud.com.
  • Sign in with your Apple ID and password.

1. Access the Apple ID management page:

• • Once you're signed in, click on your Apple ID at the top of the page.
  • Select "Manage your Apple ID" from the dropdown menu.

1. Navigate to the Devices section:

• • On the Apple ID management page, scroll down to the "Devices" section.
  • Here you will see a list of all devices associated with your Apple ID.

1. Deauthorize the computer:

• • Find the computer you want to deauthorize in the list.
  • Click on the "Deauthorize" button next to the computer's name.
  • You may be asked to confirm your decision. Click "Deauthorize" again to confirm.

good luck Reiner

iCloud better get on this ASAP. Since I cannot use App Store or AppleTV cause of this. I cannot manage my Hidden Purchases, which also the Authorized Computers aren't visible as well. Apple better get on this soon.

[Edited by Moderator]

I just spent nearly an hour on with Apple support after chatting for nearly an hour via text. No one could help me. I've had one previous Mac in my life which I no longer have access to, and I'm getting the "5 devices authorized" error, but in account settings I see "One Machine is authorized" with no "deauthorize all" button. They beat around the bush when I asked them to just remove everything on their side. So, my issue continues. Absolutely infuriating!

This is so aggravating. Apple Music is complaining that I have five devices already authorized for downloads, except one of those devices is the laptop I'm currently trying to download to. There seems to be no distinction between an authorized device and just a device that's added to your Apple ID. And it can't even keep track of those correctly. I'd rather not remove this laptop from my account altogether and have to re-do my wallet and everything else. This 'deauthorize' business is a farce because even then, it says the laptop is not authorized. It seems to be in limbo. It's like Schrödinger's Laptop. It's both authorized and not authorized.

It's 2024 and the solution is to call Apple support on the phone? What?

Doesn't work. The prompt still says I have 5 computers authorized with my account, but only have 4 devices visible on the device list. Icloud needs to fix this.

Same here, can't deauthorize old computers. Just got new PC, and reinstall my Windows Laptop and now I'm stuck. Apple need to fix this.

I may be a bit late to this thread, but if you have an iPhone, you can remove the devices from your settings.

Settings>Apple ID> scroll down until you see all your registered devices. Then you can tap the ones you want to remove and it should be at the bottom of the device info.

Hope this helps.

K

Hi,

Then I recommend calling the official Apple support.

All the best

Reiner

I have the same issue, did you manage to solve this?

Agent called me back and figured it out, thankfully!

Your call was better than mine, I am going on 40 minutes now!