A friend with an older MacBook (Pro?) from around 2017 has no clue about how to recover, or perhaps set up from scratch an Apple ID, and I'm not quite sure how to help him, since he may not remember whether he ever established one using his email address. Can he do this working from the serial number of his laptop? I know that he is the original owner and bought it new.
MacBook (2017)
Don't actually drag anything. You are selecting a sub-menu under the Apple icon which on older systems was called System Preferences. Under System Preferences you are then selecting the iCloud Preferences item. That will open a window to iCloud settings for that particular user account on the computer (a family might have several computer accounts) and you can see if there's one set up in there. If there is, we can proceed with steps for recovering lost account information. If there isn't, your friend can create an APple ID/Account and setup iCloud for the account on the computer. I strongly suspect there would be an ID set there since you need one to do almost anything such as updating the system or applications.
This document tells you the various ways you can try to discover your forgotten Apple ID --> If you forgot your Apple ID email address or phone number - Apple Support Note that typically this is an email address you use.
This document outlines what to do If you forgot your Apple ID password --> If you forgot your Apple ID password - Apple Support
or go directly to this link --> http://iforgot.apple.com/
If you still need help:
Contact Apple for help with Apple ID account security "This article provides country-specific Apple Support contact information for customers seeking help with their Apple ID password or other security-related issues." Click here --> Contact Apple for help with Apple ID account security - Apple Support
Don't actually drag anything. You are selecting a sub-menu under the Apple icon which on older systems was called System Preferences. Under System Preferences you are then selecting the iCloud Preferences item. That will open a window to iCloud settings for that particular user account on the computer (a family might have several computer accounts) and you can see if there's one set up in there. If there is, we can proceed with steps for recovering lost account information. If there isn't, your friend can create an APple ID/Account and setup iCloud for the account on the computer. I strongly suspect there would be an ID set there since you need one to do almost anything such as updating the system or applications.
This document tells you the various ways you can try to discover your forgotten Apple ID --> If you forgot your Apple ID email address or phone number - Apple Support Note that typically this is an email address you use.
This document outlines what to do If you forgot your Apple ID password --> If you forgot your Apple ID password - Apple Support
or go directly to this link --> http://iforgot.apple.com/
If you still need help:
Contact Apple for help with Apple ID account security "This article provides country-specific Apple Support contact information for customers seeking help with their Apple ID password or other security-related issues." Click here --> Contact Apple for help with Apple ID account security - Apple Support
Terminology has changed slightly, and we don't know what system version is being used, but go to the Apple icon in the top left and drag down to iCloud. If an Apple ID has been entered then it should show there. Once we know if there is one or not, we can decide how to proceed.
Thanks, I'll run this past him today, I hope, and get back to you. Since I don't use iCloud, I'm not quite sure what means for him to drag the apple icon 'to iCloud.' I did see his machine yesterday, but don't remember seeing a field or icon for iCloud on his home screen. He at least is able to log-in as admin on the machine.
Thanks so much for this. I'm sending him a screen shot of your most recent reply, and we'll see how he deals with it. He has a beautiful old large-screen MacBook of some sort but has been reluctant to get his head around it until now he couldn't proceed. I'll see if I can walk him through it, or possibly try to talk him into letting me do it on his machine following your advice. He's rather strongly scared of giving out information and starting accounts and all of that, so this whole thing is a work in progress!!
A rough search from his saying he bought the machine in around 6 years ago (2017) suggests that it is running OS 10.13 High Sierra.
Helping a friend set up an Apple ID on an older MacBook (Pro?) from scratch.
