Merge apple id's, me.com and itunes account?

How does this work? When I am at the apple id change screen it tells me it has to be a valid email. I wish I could do just joebloggs, but it requires an email address as the apple id. Very frustrating.

I am facing the same issue.

Now I have 5 AppleIDs (1 Brazilian Store, 1 American Store, 1 Australian Store, 1 Europpean Store and 1 iCloud), I was able to "merge" all of them except my main account, when I try to merge it Apple's website say it is already linked to another AppleID, which I have no clue of.

Any ideas on that?

I have tried following Apple's support website but no luck at all...

Any help will be appreciated.

Cheers.

How did you manage to merge you accounts from different geographic stores?

Not really sure how I was able to do so.

But this is my story with apple ids:

I had an American ID for a long time to download music and videos.

Some time ago I bought my iPhone4 in Australia and had to create an Australian iTunes Store ID in order to download apps and do stuff in Australia.

Later I came back home (Brazil) and wanted to download Brazilian apps, so I had to create another Apple ID to do such.

Last July I went to France and I wanted to download local apps (subway and tram schedule and so), so I had to create yet another Apple ID to be able to download them.

When Apple launched iCloud, none of these ids would work with iCloud so I had to create one more Apple ID which also gave me a @me.com email address.

I was able to link all of my AppleIDs with the iCloud one via the AppleID website (https://appleid.apple.com) except my Brazilian one which today is my main account.

So in my iCloud account I can visualize all other IDs except my Brazilian one. When I try to link Apple says it is already linked to another AppleID. I have tried to find out which is this "extra" id I am not aware of and try to link with the iCloud one, but I can't. Not sure why nor how can I link the remaining one.

Sorry couldn't be of much help...

Cheers.

Message was edited by: felipe128

HELP please!

I tried to help my Mom manage her AppleIDs but now its screwed up! Scenario:

iCloud: uses her old .Mac address which she never used for email (Converted to iCloud from MobileMe)

App/iTunes Store: uses her main email address

I tried to combine by doing this:

Created a new email address which I added to her AppStore AppleID & verified.

Then I deleted main email address from this AppStore ID.

Then I added that main address to the iCloud ID & verified it. (Allowed me to do so immediately.)

Was hoping this would result in a single Apple ID for everything. WRONG!!! Now her apps & music wont update using her main email address -- even though passwords for both IDs are the same. So I tried to reverse by deleting this address from iCloud ID, and adding back to her APP store ID (which is now under the new email address).

BUT it will not allow me to add the main address back, saying that its already associated with another Apple ID. Even though I DELETED it from both apple ids!!! HELP! This has been going on for weeks! How long does it take to disassociate an email address from one ID so you can add it to another? Anyone else have this problem?

I also have two apple IDs. One is an old hotmail one, which has all my apps purchased on it, and a @me.com one, I've started purchasing on that email address and having everything associated with that. I'd love to be able to merge them, as now I can never let that old email address go!

There must be some way, even manually (I'd pay for the staff time in merging!). Why can't apple be more helpful in allowing people to move away from things like Hotmail?... Grr...

Can someone possibly explain the technical feasibility issues that may be causing Apple to avoid this growing request?

i'm guessing the piles of money sitting around apple hq are getting so large that they can't get to their computers. [jk]

they have probably the most talented pool of programmers & the deepest pool of resources in the world.

plus, they have now had plenty of time.

it's obviously not something they "can't" do.

it really is ludicrous & incredibly frustrating.

to use your MobleMe account you must first mirgrate it from MobleMe to icloud first and you can do that by going into the mobleme web sight (were you would get your web mail) and migrate your MobleMe to icloud. The you can use your .mac or .me account as your icloud account. You must first mirgrate it that is why it is tell you that it is in use is that you did not mirgrate your old account. This needs to be done alone by signing into MobleMe first. You must mirgrate the MobleMe before mid June or you loose if forever.

looks like apple wants you to buy all your music, tv shows, movies and apps all over again to put under one id. Depending on what you have this could be a few $ to several thousands of $. Some of my app i beta tested so i got them for free now I have to buy then to use them again? Apple please alow people to either murge or transfer items from one account to another. Music no big deal as i do not have much lose there but what I will loose is $hundreds in apps if i have to buy them all over again.

Apple alow merging to one account or alow Lion and MT Lion the ablity to manage multiple icloud or apple IDs under one User account. This is the main reason why i will not use services like itunes Match till this issues is fixed. I would call for all to boycott itunes match or icloud services till this issues i fixed. It is the only way apple will fix the issue. I would say half the itunes users are in the same situation as when I signed up for .Mac I could not use the same id as itunes and vic versa. Now i just getting confused on what is were on what account. I know you have more $ than that you know to do with so use a little of that $ to alow for Mulitple ID migration into one account so that we can use the icloud, itunes match and other services better. Once you do that I will think you will see more people using itunes match ect. Right now it is just a frustrating issue that could explode if you require the use of one account for everything. Will you conpisate me $200 to $500 onto my itunes account if i close one so that i can rebuy all the apps i legually purchased? I feel as apple grows it does not care for its customers like it used to. Please do not become another microsoft or google!

It just doesn't make a lot of sense. You should be able to verify two (or more) accounts and merge them into one. I currently have 4 Apple IDs and it is getting a little out of hand considering I only need two (my wife's and mine for email, and only one of those for purchases).

People have been asking for this since the old .Mac days, so I don't see it changing anytime soon.

I agree it's kinda silly. I just want to change my email address on my iTunes account to my .Me email acct... but apparently I can't even do that so now I must keep an additional email acct I don't want... it's confusing using .me and .gmail accts for different Apple services, If I could just change the gmail address to the .me it would solve the problem....

Every other online store/bank/account I have, it's easy to change the email address... not sure why this is an impossibility with Apple.

While this doesn't completely solve the problem, if you go to supportprofile.apple.com and click on "edit my information", you will be able to change the email address associated with your Apple ID. So while your ID will still be XYZ@gmail.com, you can get all of the emails from Apple (iTunes receipts, season pass notifications, Apple Community Support replies, etc) to be delivered to your me.com address.

As a side note, if you do make the above changes, the next time you go to appleid.apple.com the system will very wisely tell you that your email and ID are different to each other, and that "if your ID is the same as your email, it will be more convenient for you" and then give you a drop down box where you can choose to change the name of your ID, or choose to change the email you use for it. Except it's lying. While it looks like you have the option to select your new me.com address as the Apple ID you choose to go with, the page just simply refuses to record this decision. So don't get your hopes up like I did!

Getting back to the original post (can I merge iTunes accounts?), I have the same annoying problem. Both my wife and I have separate accounts and we'd rather just have one family iTunes library.

Can't I simply burn all of her music to CDs, then reimport them into my library? Then we can cancel her account (or stop using it for all purchases going forward).

Is there anythying wrong with this solution, outside of the (minor) inconvenience of burning multiple DVDs?

Will the imported songs exhibit any rights-managed issues?

Yes you can burn then to CDs (use CD RWs that way u can erase and reuse them) - from what i gather when u write them from the apple file to CD it converts it to another audio formate so in theory it removes the rights managed issue then you would re burn them into itunes thus removing the rights manged issue! Not sure if this is legal or not but I can not see why not since your wife orginally bought them. It is really no different if you bought the orginal CD. Test it on a few tracks and reimport to see if the removes the rights block on the file. You can put all the right manged in a seperate playlist to make the process a little less time consuming. And if it works delete the orginals form the itunes library and go on to the next group and so on. Depending on how many songs you are dealing with will determine how long it takes. Remember write them as a CD not as MP3 or ACC disk. Thus you will be converting the itunes files into an actual CD in that you couple play in a CD player. The reimport should remember your title info ect. Do a few at a time to make sure you do not have to manually enter all the data ie artist or song titles ect.

I hope apple comes up with a way soon to murge itunes accounts. my issue is i have my .MAC account which is now my iCloud account but I purtcased all my apps for my ipod touch with my itunes account which was different email. So thus i have iCloud andthe Mac app Store under my .mac and itunes under a yahoo account i do not use anymore. I have $100s of apps on itunes and would rather not have to rebuy them. I want to use itunes match but can not at this time due to the fact I two different accounts - Both are legit apple IDs.

I hope this matter is resolved before June when they shut down the MobileMe stuff.