Hello. I accepted my Apple free 1 yr sub for my new iPad purchase. And immediately went into setting to canceled current subscription to avoid being charged. Then I received my email about if I cancel it goes away... so now what. I moved to fast..

As mentioned above, you accepted and then cancelled the free subscription, so it was active, and now it’s gone.

One approach is to set a calendar alert for a week or three ahead of the end of the free year, and cancel it then.

But that won’t help here, as the free offer is gone.

As per the terms once cancelled the trial will also stop and cannot be reactivated. Users are also advised of this when they are presented with the prompt to confirm the cancellation.

you can try asking Apple - Contact Support to see if they can make an exception.