I was helping a friend of mine with his new mac, and it seems that over the years he has made purchases off iTunes store with several email accounts- work, personal etc. The problem is that he had all these music purchased so long ago that he has already forgotten the passwords for some of the accounts (since they were all authorised to work in his old HP laptop). If he can recall the passwords, is there anyway for him to transfer the old music purchases into his new mobileMe account?
I have a problem like that. I recently decided to by a mobile me account to use with my iPhone but I have all my stuff bought with my previous email account. Now I have 2 apple IDs and I can't find the way to merge them into my new account. How can it be possible to do so?
Same with me. Bought Mobile me account. I don't use old mail anymore. So I wanted to change my account mail to Mobile me mail address, which cannot be done because it's existing Mobile me account.... I don't really get it, but if I can't do it simple, I tried to find a way to merge the old account with new one. Nope... I'm not going to buy all those iPhone applications anew. I'm not going to call to some US support english speaking help center whatever neither.
Bottom line: Make an option to merge two Apple store accounts! It's not that hard. One would think buying Mobile me account would be benefit not opposite....
I wrote to Apple store support and actually I got very helpful advice:
1) go to myinfo.apple.com and log with your old Apple Store account
2) change your account name if you wish (I changed it to my Mobile me name without the @part)
3) change the email address for correspondence to your Mobile me address
Yes you still have two accounts. But nothing forces you to use Mobile me account for shopping. Your account is no longer named after your old e-mail and all related mails go to your new e-mail address - which for me was the worst deal.
It's not merging but it made me content. I can finally stop using old e-mail at all!
There are other problems, too. I have a few older selection purchased on an old account. When I got my new @mac.com address, I started purchasing on newer account. It makes it hard to share (iTunes home sharing) across computers when you can't remember the old account passwords set to now defunct email addresses. I eventually figured out my password, but it would seem much easier if there were a "merge accounts" option.
I cannot believe Apple haven't solved this yet. I too have to use an old email address when I want to use my mobile me email. I also have content purchased using a few different accounts, so for iPhone Apps for example I have to log into each account to get updates. Very annoying. Moving to a new computer, remembering to de-authorise all accounts. Remembering old passwords etc. A fix is long overdue.