Q: How to change iCloud email address?

Re: How to change iCloud email address?

I spoke with the apple support today and was advised to save all my data to my iphone, and then I would be able to change my iCloud email address...

However, my iphone has been "locked up" on the 1st thing i chose to save, my contacts, for 5 hours!!! I am attached to wifi and see no end in sight...

I have an iphone 4S, ios 6.1...was hoping to do the ios 7 update!

Anybody else have this problem when saving to phone?

/this is what Apple had me do... Go to Imessage and switch it.   Then go to the passward for the icloud and enter the current password and BAM!  It worked!!!

That worked!  Thanks!

Having the same prob as cathawks, pop up for icloud says "sign in" but the id is an old email address though everything is current and works with my password. I went into messages and put "send and receive" to my current email and prob continues. Anymore suggestions anyone?

Hallelujah and THANK YOU Roscoe23! Two days of frustration and trying every fix I could find are finally over, thanks to you :-)  

That just worked for me! Thank you so much!!!

This was an easy fix. I called support and we had it resolved in 5 min. Log into https://appleid.apple.com/ with your current account, Change your email back to the old one your phone remembers and log out (thats important) Useing your current password log int the cloud with the old email. Now delete that account. No impact to the content in the iCloud, it only delets it from your phone. Now go back to https://appleid.apple.com/ and change the email address back to what ever you want it to be. (log out) Now back to the phone and log into the cloud with the new email address.....

I have done everything that was recommended. When I attempt to delete the iCloud account it asks me to enter my apple id password to turn off 'find my iPad' but it's associated with the old id so when I input the password it doesn't work. It says that my id or password is incorrect, which is true because it's forcing me to use the old id.

Any thoughts?

I should have read more. It's fixed.

YES!! This worked for me.  Thank you MattInVegas.

THANK YOU! That first step in iTunes app was key to changing Apple ID. So so happy now.

The fact that their initial iCloud email address setup is so indeliable is absolutely bonkers. We're talking about bits in a database. One of the main reasons computers were invented is for more flexible manipulation of data. I highly encourage everyone to submit feedback to Apple to change this ridiculous constraint.

http://www.apple.com/feedback/icloud.html

Seriously, what if you've been up for 22 hours coding when you make these decisions. So you're stuck with a crazy iCloud email address that rest of your life? People need to understand how completely out-of-bounds and antiquated this is and demand a fix.

Peter_725 wrote:

 

PLEASE, READ CAREFULLY!

 

• If you want to change the name of your main iCloud email - name@icloud.com - you CAN'T do that!

     THE SOLUTION - create an aliase (http://support.apple.com/kb/ph2622). It is a secondary email, which you can set up to be used as a primary one (instead of the email you misspelled or do not want any more) - you can deactivate the usage of your main email and write from the aliase. This is the only way to create the email you want with the same Apple ID.

 

• If you want to change the main email - you can do this ONLY by signing with diffrent Apple ID. You actually will need to use two Apple IDs at the same time - the main Apple ID for iTunes, and another one only for your iCloud email.

 

Please, do not forget to LIKE this and to click that the problem is solved!!!

Right or wrong, they do warn you pretty clearly when you first create the icloud.com email address.

The next screen (not shown) confirms that the desired icloud.com address is available and again states that the icloud.com email address cannot be changed once it is created.

I guess it is like the name of your Mac OS X home directory, it is completely unchangeable once created.  You can change your long user name for the account, but the actual directory tree won't ever be renamed from the original "short name" associated with the user account.

If only people would read and pay attention to the warnings.

I predict this thread will continue for the foreseeable future regardless of your most excellent post.

Jason Kim wrote:

 

Right or wrong, they do warn you pretty clearly when you first create the icloud.com email address.

 

Warnings are nice, but no amount of warning excuses bad design. Humans make mistakes, and in the land of data stored as electric charges on doped silicon something so simple should not be indelible. Ever. Please stop apologizing for whatever architect made this decision and the project manager who let him get away with it.

Again, I encourage everyone to gripe about this until Apple fixes it (or "adds the feature", if you chose to phrase it that way).

http://www.apple.com/feedback/icloud.html

Two side notes:

1. The warning only says it cannot be changed, but inability to modify does not mean inability to delete, especially in the context of data object permissions in computer operation.
2. It absolutely is possible to change the name of your home directory; it takes a few steps, but is totally doable.