Q: Can i change my iCloud email address?

Not for the same Apple ID.

(121539)

When you set up your Apple ID, you also set up an iCloud account that was linked to that Apple ID, correct?

If the Apple ID is not an @me or @mac email address, you can change your Apple ID email address, which will change the email portion of your @icloud.com address.

So, if your Apple ID is Mary@gmail.com, and your iCloud address is Mary@iCloud.com, and you want to change your Apple ID to Mary123@gmail.com, then that will also change the iCloud account associated with that Apple ID to Mary122@iCloud.com.

To do this go to Manage Your Apple ID, sign on and EDIT your Apple ID to the new email address you want to have.

BEFORE DOING THIS: sign out of iCloud, iTunes & App Store, FaceTime, Messages, etc. on your devices and computer.

Cheers,

GB

gail from maine wrote:

If the Apple ID is not an @me or @mac email address, you can change your Apple ID email address, which will change the email portion of your @icloud.com address.

 

So, if your Apple ID is Mary@gmail.com, and your iCloud address is Mary@iCloud.com, and you want to change your Apple ID to Mary123@gmail.com, then that will also change the iCloud account associated with that Apple ID to Mary122@iCloud.com.

Are you sure about this? It's been my understanding that the ID address and the @icloud.com address are not linked (except when they are actually the same).  Changing the ID leaves everything on the account the same. It's not something I can experiment with.

Pretty sure. When someone changes their Apple ID, and they have not signed out of iCloud, we have to have them set the ID back to the old one to get iCloud/Find My iPhone signed out of. Then they sign back onto iCloud with the updated ID....

GB

Indeed, but that isn't what you said. You said that if someone has an ID of fred 'at' gmail.com and an primary address of fred 'at' icloud.com, and they change the ID to jim 'at' gmail.com and go through the necessary processes to log out and sign their devices back in, their primary address will change to jim 'at' icloud.com; and as far as I understand the case this does not happen. After all someone else might have jim 'at' icloud.com and that wouldn't prevent the change of the ID. Changing the name of the ID (the gmail address) does not change the ID itself (or purchases would cease to be updatable etc.) and all data remains the same. (Umberto Eco would approve: the name of a thing is not the thing itself.)

(Curiouser and curiouser - I originally included the email addresses in normal format, as you did yourself, but was told I had included 'content which is not permitted'; I had to change each @ to 'at' to get it through - has Jive suddenly started banning email addresses, I wonder - or was it just the number of them?)

Maybe I'm not understanding what you are saying. The iCloud email address is linked to the Apple ID that it was created with. Or, if you set up iCloud and choose a new email address for it, that email address becomes your new Apple ID. They are one in the same except that one ends with @gmail, or @yahoo, or @whatever.com, and the icloud version ends with @icloud.com

If you change what is in front of the @ for your Apple ID, it changes it for the iCloud account as well. Am I missing your point?

Cheers,

GB

gail from maine wrote:

 

If you change what is in front of the @ for your Apple ID, it changes it for the iCloud account as well.

This is not my understanding. Possibly we are at cross purposes: let me elucidate.

I should start that saying that as I began with DotMac my @icloud.com address is also my ID, so I couldn't change it even if I wanted to. So what I say below is my understanding of the situation - I can't experiment with it.

As I understand it, you start by creating an Apple ID using a non-Apple address as the id. Now you go to the iCloud prefs pane and sign in using that address. When you enable Mail you are asked to create an @icloud.com address. This is independent of the ID address. The text before the @ doesn't have to be the same as the text before the @ in the ID address, though it could be - it can be anything which hasn't already been snaffled by someone else. Once this address has been created it cannot be changed. Changing the address which is the ID and login address has no effect on the address.

Confusion can arise (and possibly has here) over the use of the term 'iCloud address'. It is sometimes used to mean the address - Apple or non-Apple - which forms the ID - but I interpret it to mean the @icloud.com address at which people can write to you (the ID address is not visible to them).